This "perfection cancer" theory and whining about "spoiled" fans is BS.
I frankly worry more about the people that would ignore all problems and just whistle in the dark. The cancer of complacence. Which do you think BB has? Is he a perfectionist, or does he ignore problems? Which are you in life? I know what I am, and I use the same standards on my football team even though I know no human can ever meet them.
BB doesn't put the film in the can for wins. He pores over it to find places to improve. Why shouldn't we? Sure sometimes it goes overboard, just as the people wearing rose-colored glasses can go overboard with their praise of the Patriots, praise that would make you think we have no weaknesses despite having loss a third of our games so far.
The truth is probably in the mean somewhere, and most of us realize it. We are a very good team, blessed with an amazing QB/Head Coach combination. We have a bad defense (just look at the numbers, for goodness' sake), but luckily our offense is good enough to keep us in the game.
People who have strong opinions different from the previous paragraph are probably extremists or trolls or noobs or in denial.
These types of threads have come up too much. If you don't want to read people poring over problems, then stop coming here and stick with Facebook. The Patriots do press releases there that are invariably positive. Even after losing Super Bowls.
This post sums it up for me.
Most of the complainers justify it in this way, acting as if what they think, feel or say will make any kind of a difference.
This post introduces complacency to the discussion, as if it would be a crime for a fan to take an approach that could be considered complacent, since somehow that would cause the team to be complacent, or even encourage it.
There is even a parallel drawn to this being a terrible approach because surely BB isn't being complacent.
I guess this is the epitome of what I find so frustrating on this board. People actually act as if their demanding 'championship caliber' postings will make the team better and someone who takes a positive approach has just doomed the team to ignore its problems.
Everyone has the right to post however they want, within the guidelines, just as everyone has the right to sound like an idiot.
In my opinion, 'discussing' negatives is healthy, but whining about them incessantly comes off as foolish. When the big picture is as good as there is to make sweepingly negative judgmental statements makes you look ignorant.
Couching the whining by pretending that doing so has any effect whatsoever on the team and the issues makes such posts unreadable.
That is my 2 cents.
A couple of thoughts:
1. It's a fan board, so people are free to post their thoughts, within limits of civility and board rules.
2. Diversity of opinion to a large extent fuels the board, as has been noted. It would be boring if we all agreed.
3. Constructive criticism is always welcome, and sugar-coating things or turning a blind eye to problems is just delusional. I doubt anyone is happy with the secondary play, or likes the soft zone schemes and often apparent lack of aggressiveness on defense, just to pick a couple of examples. It's certainly not unreasonable to speculate that Patricia, a first year DC, has looked in over his head at times. But those things can be done constructively rather than destructively, and there are times that posters have taken an extremely hostile tone to a team that has an unparalleled track record of success in the modern NFL era.
4. We shouldn't delude ourselves that anything we say makes one whit of difference. We're just fans. BB will be merciless in analyzing the deficiences of the team. But he's also pragmatic, and we don't know all of the constraints that he has to deal with.
With that in mind, there are times that entire threads seem to be taken over by negativity, and times when the board seems to reach near melt down status with negativity, even when we win. All teams struggle, even the good ones. Look at Pittsburgh last night, the Giants the last 2 weeks, San Francisco at home against St. Louis, etc.
I don't want to discourage freedom of speech or criticism of the team's flaws, but people might want to consider it in the context of how successful we've been. Personally, I don't really care much how we're playing right now. We're going to the playoffs, and this is just the "pre-season" as far as I'm concerned. I'm happy to have the Pats stumble and bumble through the pre-season and fly under the radar, only to hit their stride in January. Let the Texans and Falcons have their glory now.
There are big problems to be fixed. It remains to be seen whether BB can fix them. But I'm not sure I see any cause to bash the team for it's past or present success.
