Gregg Doyel isn’t going to stop flapping his gums just because the New England Patriots defeated the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday night at Lucas Oil Stadium.
In fact, the controversial columnist for The Indianapolis Star returned to critiquing the Patriots, their fans and head coach Bill Belichick almost immediately after the teams’ Week 6 matchup, albeit with a little less ferocity this time around.
“I think that what it is, is that my city objects to them. Because you’re right, it is good versus evil,” Doyel said this week on Yahoo! Sports’ “Grandstanding” podcast when asked about the Patriots being in the Colts’ heads. “We’re the good ones. And we object to evil. We object to cheating.
“It doesn’t help that, if you’re a Colts fan, that not only are the Patriots beating your team every year, but beating your team by 30 (points) every year. That doesn’t help. But (the Patriots are) winning by 30 every year and (they’re) cheating every chance (they) get. … So, it’s good versus evil. My city doesn’t like evil. And again, I stand for my city on that one.”
Doyel was very critical of the Colts, too, specifically when it came to Indianapolis’ fake punt disaster in the third quarter of Sunday’s game. He ripped the Colts’ attempt to outsmart the Patriots, saying it was the “dumbest thing they could’ve done.” The Pats, after all, have been through a lot in recent years.
“To panic, you have to actually have a heart. To get, like, a racing heartbeat, you have to have a heart,” Doyel said. “The Patriots are cold-blooded. They don’t panic. They’ve been through too much to panic in mid-October in Lucas Oil Stadium. They just don’t panic. And so that was not going to happen.”
Doyel stuck with the whole “cold-blooded” theme later in the podcast when discussing the Patriots’ brash perception, which varies greatly from the softer, gentler perception surrounding the Colts.
“It maybe helps sometimes to be cutthroat (to win). Belichick has proven that. He’s brilliant,” Doyel said. “But he’s undermined his own brilliance at times by being so awful, being so reptilian in some ways.
“It doesn’t change the fact he’s brilliant. He’s a brilliant reptile. The Patriots fans focus on the brilliant part, which I would too if I was a Patriots fan. Most of the rest of us focus on the reptile. … Sometimes you’ve got to see people for what they are, and he’s both — he’s good and bad.”
It’s unlikely anyone will mistake Colts head coach Chuck Pagano for a “brilliant reptile” anytime soon, especially in the immediate aftermath of Sunday’s meltdown. But Doyel said Pagano has the support of the Colts’ fan base, which, if anything, might be too nice when it comes to such matters.
“If this were another city — to name one, cough, cough, Boston, cough, cough — yeah, they’d turn on (Pagano), they’d turn on him right now, because those people and the Patriots deserve each other. They’re all heartless,” Doyel said. “This fan base, you could say we’re too nice. That’s a valid point. … My city is too nice. And that’s why Pagano is no worse off than he was. And I’ll take my city the way it is.”
Ah, the love affair between Doyel and New England continues. I’d say take it easy on him on Twitter — he faced a whole lot of backlash last week — but forget that. It’s not in our “heartless” DNA.
Thumbnail photo via Thomas J. Russo/USA TODAY Sports Images
