Doyel: Patriots-Colts rematch not what we had in mind

Remember when the Patriots were going to be compromised this week? Yeah, those were the days. New England quarterback Tom Brady, fingered by the Wells Report as the mastermind behind Deflategate, was suspended four games to open this season. New England's fifth game? This one. Sunday at Lucas Oil Stadium.

Brady's season-opener. He'd be rusty, and the Patriots offense would have to get re-acclimated to him after four games with Jimmy Garoppolo. Wouldn't be a major issue, but perhaps enough to swing the balance of power toward the Colts. That was the theory.

Cute, right?

Brady had his suspension overturned in September for the legal gobbledygookiest of reasons. A U.S. District Court didn't find Brady innocent. It found NFL commissioner Roger Goodell guilty of overplaying his hand.

And the Patriots are rolling. Four games, four wins, the last two by blowout margins. Brady has been immaculate: 11 touchdowns, no interceptions. His 346.8 yards per game, 72.5-percent accuracy and 121.5 passer rating are on pace to be single-season bests in this, the 16th season of a Hall of Fame career. Brady and the Patriots? They're better than ever.

The Colts are the ones compromised.

Quarterback Andrew Luck might play this week. Might not. The Colts don't have much going for them in this matchup — they don't play, coach or cheat as well as the Patriots — but they do have surprise. So they're probably going to play this lame card close to the vest, with news of their starting quarterback not coming until Sunday morning, when a Colts employee hoping to get in good with the power brokers at ESPN betrays his team and leaks the news to Chris Mortensen or Adam Schefter.

Just saying.

If Luck plays, he won't be at his best. Couldn't possibly be. He wasn't at his best before being injured in the third game of the season — assuming that's when he was injured. Anyone else wondering if his subpar play in the first three games (five touchdowns, seven interceptions) was the result of the same injury that kept him out of Games 4 and 5? Whatever the case, if he plays on Sunday he won't be midseason Andrew Luck or 2014 season Andrew Luck. He's more likely to be the Luck who was not very good in the opener against Buffalo or the second game again the Jets.

The alternative? Matt Hasselbeck, who has looked pretty darned good in relief these last two weeks — but who doesn't throw it well enough downfield to scare the Patriots like Luck would.

Bottom line, the Colts are about to play their most important game of the season — if you told them in August they would go 1-15 in 2015, this is the one they'd want to win — and they will play it at something decidedly less than 100 percent.

The Patriots, meanwhile, look to be as good as ever — and this is a franchise with four Super Bowl titles since 2001.

Sickening, isn't it?

If this is me playing the lame homer card, fine. The Patriots cheated the team in my city. Residents of Indianapolis and the surrounding areas, you give the Colts the best you've got: money, emotion, more. The Patriots rigged the AFC title game. Cheated the Colts. Cheated you.

Sickening.

To all this, let's add something really nauseating. This might be a straw-man argument, one where I'm (possibly) inventing something just to rail against it. Most of the times, a straw-man argument is something to be avoided. It's an ethical affront.

It's dishonest.

So it's perfect for the Patriots.

And it might not even be a straw-man (which is to say, fictitious) argument. The argument? The Patriots are rampaging this season, scoring a combined 68 points against the Steelers and Bills in the first two games and then hitting another gear — blowing out the Jaguars and Cowboys by a combined 81-23 — because they're angry. They're angry about Deflategate making them look bad, the NFL siding with the Wells Report, the Colts for ratting them out after that 45-7 blowout in January.

That's what Patriots fans believe. Check the cesspool they call #PatriotsTwitter, or — because that cesspool spills onto the Indianapolis media, and onto me more than most — take my word for it: Those people truly believe the Patriots are blowing out teams because they're mad at the world, and maddest most of all at the Colts.

As if the Patriots have any right to their anger.

Do we have a right to our anger here in Central Indiana? Sure we do, but there is a more pressing issue to consider: Andrew Luck, his health, his future, and how all of that intersects this week.

Luck has returned to practice at something approaching full speed — well, according to Luck and coach Chuck Pagano — but clearly the quarterback's shoulder is an issue to consider, and his worth to the franchise is far more important than any one game, even this one. And so it must be asked: With the Patriots rampaging and the Colts already a touchdown underdog at home, should Indianapolis play it safe with Luck and sit him for a third week in a row?

Should the Colts concede a likely defeat, in other words, and lean on Luck's unavailability as a crutch?

In a word: No. In two words: (Expletive) no. The Colts should give this game the best they've got, not because it's the Patriots but because it's the next game on the schedule, and the next game is always the most important game. Besides, only a scared team would sit a healthy quarterback.

Only a scared team would cheat, too.

Let's not be scared around here, OK? Let's not be anything like the franchise coming to town on Sunday.

Find Star columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/gregg.doyel.