No bitterness I assure you. I am not a Colts fan nor a Pats fan and my dog was left on the porch before the playoff fight got started. I have grown up competing in little leagues and scholastic sports and played more competitive football (as well as baseball, basketball and swimming) than you would imagine and I call it the way I see it. Patriot fans have a tendency to boast their superiority when they win and manage to find plenty of excuses when they lose (injuries, refereeing, etc...) Comments that I have seen on these threads from other Patriot fans such as "Well Peyton hasn't won anything but Tom Brady has three rings" (None of which, btw, helped him yesterday) point to nothing but sour grapes. I just didn't want to see a fair-minded individual such as yourself fall in to the same trap ;-)
The Colts were not hitting on all cylinders as demonstrated by their first half performance and even after they found their groove, the Pats missed quite a few opportunities (dropped passes, long kick-off returns, 3rd and shorts, inopportune penalties, etc...) to slap the Colts back down. Even the best teams have bad games against weaker opponents. They had a huge lead (by championship game standards) and they lost.
Tom Brady's interception at the end was not the reason they lost. They blew the game on defense because they weren't prepared for the no-huddle offense. The fact that Brady and his offense missed a few key plays compounded the problem by giving the ball back to Manning and leaving the Pats defense on the field.
Nobody is saying that the Patriots are bad, they just blew a huge lead in the most important game to this point in the season. In short, they choked.
This is not a rivalry that to me, has a lot of heat comparatively speaking.
I grew up a Redskins fan in DC, and watched them religiously for the better part of 20 years when I had to stop watching because I WAS too emotionally invested in it. It was a waste of resources for me, and the only way I could beat it was just by not watching. I can watch the game now and enjoy it for what it is, a game.
The Cowboys and Redskins rivalry had a degree of animosity in it between both players and fans that I do not see in between New England or Indianapolis. I would rather see respect.
Your generalization of Patriots fans has the ring to it of anyone who is not following the team. It is the same thing said of Yankees, Lakers, Celtics, Steelers, Dolphins, Cowboys, you name it. It is a perspective thing, and you probably get your perspective from a relatively small sampling. The fans are not much different here than they are anywhere else. They just happen to have been on a long winning streak.