Did the Patriots accuse the Colts of cheating to Ted Wells?

One reason the New England Patriots-NFL battle is getting interesting is that nobody breaks ranks. But the Patriots seem to be capable of going scorched earth.

NFL teams rarely air each other's dirty laundry. And when the NFL hands down a punishment, you bite your lip.

The WellsReportContext.com rebuttal by the Patriots is long, and there's one interesting passage, in an attached letter from Patriots lawyers to Ted Wells explaining their cooperation level in his investigation, saying the team provided suggested questions and lines of inquiries. One was the Caorlina Panthers-Minnesota Vikings game last season in which the teams were caught heating balls on the sideline, with no punishment at all. That has been well documented. Another alleged incident involved the Indianapolis Colts.

"Evidence was also provided that Indianapolis ball boys, in a prior season, had been seen by Jacksonville personnel with ball needles hidden under their long sleeves," the Patriots' letter said.

Whoa, what? That's an interesting claim.

When Patriots lawyers wrote this letter on April 24, they likely didn't figure it would become public. Nothing in their rebuttal of more than 18,000 words mentions this incident. The Panthers-Vikings game is mentioned in the Patriots' report.

It's curious. There has been no previous public mention of this that I'm aware of. Is there anything to it?

The fact is, by their actions, the NFL never cared about ball manipulation before. That's shown by the fact that the Colts tipped the league off to the Patriots possibly deflating balls before the AFC championship game, and they did nothing until the Colts complained again during the game. Or that the Panthers and Vikings were doing something illegal to the footballs and were given a warning. The whole idea of manipulating game balls just wasn't a big deal to the league, until it helped make a public spectacle out of deflate-gate.

But what's with the Colts-Jaguars complaint? Did the NFL look into it? Did the league find anything (a league spokesman didn't immediately reply to an email seeking clarification)? Was it a cheap shot by the Patriots, upset the Colts squealed on them? A baseless accusation so flimsy it didn't even merit a mention in Wells' report?

It's all unclear, but these are the kinds of things that will continue to get uncovered the longer the battle goes on.