As I have posted often here (and elsewhere) no one who has followed this team since the 90's or earlier has anything but happiness with this team.
I've followed since the Patriots drafted Plunkett. I've worn the laundry in season and off season. I love this team, and I'll go into the fire at the end wearing a Pats jersey. Having said that.......
Are there things to be concerned about? Absolutely. There always will be for us fans as well as for the team. There's plenty to b!tch and whine about. The two that I still am not over are calls by the refs against us. The first was the 4th and 2 play where Kevin Faulk clearly made the yardage but the refs claimed he didn't. Video shows his forward progress, where he's SUPPOSED to be marked as beyond the 1st down marker. Yet he was pushed back and THAT'S where he was marked down. The refs gave the Colts that game. Period.
The second was in that game against the Giants which shall never again be mentioned. Eli Manning was clearly in the grasp, well behind the line of scrimmage, and the play should have been blown dead. However, once again the refs didn't blow the whistle, and Eli "magically" escaped and the result of the game was that New England didn't gain a perfect season.
Regardless, we are indeed living in a golden era. We live in a time where we expect this team to win, and win big each and every weekend, and for us older fans, that simply was never the case. We knew differently.
Back in the day, New England was famous for it's standard game plan. Every game, it seemed, seem to play out in the same format: Jump ahead early, fall behind, rally late, fall short.
Somehow, someway, the Pats would find a way to lose. A dropped pass, a shanked kick, a fumble for a safety, whatever. Each game was a time of sitting on the edge of the couch, not relaxed into it. Every play we sat in anticipation, mentally betting with ourselves how they'd manage to scr3w it up.
Oh, for certain, the Pats would win. They'd win just to drive the knife in a little deeper, to gain our trust, to let us believe that yes, we'd turned the corner and things would get better. And like a battered spouse, we'd come home and everything would be wine & roses until the next game.
For every great Stanley Morgan catch, there was an Irving Fryer wrecking his car during the game. Out joy riding instead of being on the field.
For every Bledsoe-to-Coates magical drive, there was a Zeke Mowatt moment, a touching reminder that this was, in today's parlance, more Kardashian than Kraft.
But then came the hoodie, and after an initial "typical" season of 5-11, the magic began. The barnacles came off the hull and suddenly our bass boat was a cabin cruiser. We went from water skiing to a party boat almost overnight.
It's been a wonderful time, especially for those of us who remember the earlier times. We know what it's like to NOT have the magic, to look in the ice box and find only 1 beer and a couple cheese sticks left.
So yeah, enjoy it while we have it. It's a great ride so far. There's enough mistakes for us to complain and talk and whine and debate about and keep this board jumping, but in the long run, compared to what went before, I'm pretty content.
Does that make me a homer? Fine.......
