Vinatieri booed: ‘That's what they're supposed to do'

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FOXBORO -- After the Colts scored their first touchdown in the first quarter of a 59-24 loss to the Patriots, Adam Vinatieri jogged on to the field and lined up the subsequent extra-point try.

A camera showed Vinatieri's face on the Gillette Stadium's big screen and boos rained down on the kicker.

That's right. The former Patriots kicker who won three Super Bowls in New England and made the game-winning kick in two, was booed by the fans who used to cheer him.

"They love to boo me," Vinatieri said with a smile. "It's good though. I get it, though. It's a fun gamesmanship type of thing. And then they say a lot of nice stuff as we're leaving, and the score's in their favor. I don't know if they'd be saying the same thing if the score was the other way around, but I respect that."

Vinatieri said that for the many fans who boo him, there are still plenty who praise him whenever he's within earshot.

"Same ones that were booing at the very end were saying 'Hey, still love you man!' " he said. "So it's all good."

Vinatieri handled the boos, and the questions about them, with class.

"I understand the deal," he said. "That's home-field advantage, that's what you're supposed to do. Get loud and get rowdy and try to make it hard on the other team. Put your blinders on and just keep going forward."

When Vinatieri returns to New England, there's another, more pleasant, interaction he looks forward to. He was seen exchanging pleasantries with Patriots quarterback Tom Brady before the game, the lone remaining player on the Patriots when Vinatieri left for Indianapolis as a free agent in 2006.

"I got a lot of love for guys like Brady and all my buddies that we played together for a bunch of years and accomplished a lot of neat things with the Patriots," Vinatieri said. "Whenever I get the opportunity to shake their hand and say 'How's the wife?' -- I hear they're pregnant again so that's awesome. I don't talk to him often enough so it's nice to catch up with him when I can."

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