Will football ever be fun for you again?

Say thing's work out and that Brady gets his suspension overturned and the team gets its picks back. Hell let's imagine for a moment that the dream scenario happens and this all leads to Goodell losing his job. Does any of that change how you now feel about the sport itself now? To me this entire debacle has just sapped every ounce of enjoyment out of Patriots football that I had. It's even retroactively making me care less about past accomplishments. All this corruption, this backhanded dealing, this blatant disregard for decency has made me more than a bit disillusioned in investing my time and effort into following any type of sport again. So going forward, will you even really care what happens in terms of the games themselves? Will you even have fun following the team knowing that at any moment something like this can happen again and ruin everything? No matter what kind of exoneration nothing will change in terms of how badly the rest of the country thinks about the team and how much ******** we will have to go through as fans.

It's very simple for me:

Full exoneration ---> I will actually enjoy it more than I ever did, for however long the TB/BB run lasts. I'm big on schadenfreude

Anything less ---> I will watch only games that TB/BB participate in, with sound perma-muted, then ride off into the sunset with the memories of a remarkable 3 decades of my life, and find a better use for Sundays.

Agree with OP. Added to that the realization that those in the sports media are so lazy, obtuse and frankly stupid (let alone the cave troll fans) makes me want to take the world's longest shower just to get the stink of association gone.

Still morbidly obsessed right now though, desperately hoping for (while not expecting any) vindication.

Brady/Belichick hoisting another trophy, right in Goodell's face. Yes, I'll enjoy football.

After BB/TB are gone, and the NFL has devolved further into madness? No, probably won't enjoy the game and by then may not even watch it. But I think, regardless of the appeals process, this season could be incredibly sweet if the Pats shove it back in the NFL's faces. **** em all, I'd love for Brady to be fully exonerated but even if a court of law said he did absolutely nothing the damage has been done, so screw them, the Pats have been the 'bad guy' in most fans eyes for years, I'd love to shove another Lombardi in their faces.

Yes, when Goodell and company are gone.

VectorPrime said:

Say thing's work out and that Brady gets his suspension overturned and the team gets its picks back. Hell let's imagine for a moment that the dream scenario happens and this all leads to Goodell losing his job. Does any of that change how you now feel about the sport itself now?

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Yes. It will show me that the league has finally found the sense to correct its mistakes.

The day Goodell dies, I will have a drink to his memory. Hopefully I don't have to wait very long for my next drink.

Its much more of a business now and much less of a game, which really just sucks the life out of my interest in it.... There is no way to enjoy it the same way I did before all the BS (back to spygate).

It's not fun having people criticize my team and players I root for. It wasn't fun in 2007 and it's even worse now. They have taken that away from me. I'll miss the time I spent with my Dad at the games and my friends at the bar or basement. I am disgusted in this league. I can't see the punishment changing much. Probably knock it down to 2-games. The NFL is now the WWE/WWF.

The NFL wants nothing more than to drive the Patriots hardest core fans away and rather than give them that pleasure we should really around Brady and the team and embrace the hate and turn this into a f.ck you fest for the rest of the league and league office. Patriot fans need to end the polite ****tail party at Gillette and turn it into the strongest home field advantage in the league.

The NFL'S new standards for proof and punishment are obviously making fans around the league and all of the talking heads sh.tbags happy as can be right now because Brady and the Patriots are the one being hammered by it, however they aren't going to like it going forward when their teams have to deal with the precedents set forth in this case and as much as they hate Brady, Belichick, the Patriots, and all of us, the one thing they will ultimately share with us will be a hatred of Goodell and the league office when the precedents applied here are applied to their players and teams. IMO the best course of action over the long term is to wait a while for the Patriots focus to subside and start a league wide movement every fan base will embrace to rid the league of Roger Goodell. Give the fans what they really want. GOODELL MUST GO!

Football is still the greatest game to watch. I love it. I suspect I will always love the sport.

But I love basketball too, yet the NBA is borderline unwatchable for me. Imagine that - the world's greatest athletes playing one of the world's greatest sports on the biggest stage, and it's hard for me to watch. Why? Because the way the game is played now, and the unbelievable inconsistencies with officiating - make it hard to trust it. The NFL is getting there IMO. Especially when the league office acts so randomly and capriciously, with no consistency or rhyme or reason. One team actually is caught applying stickum to footballs and gets a $20k fine. Another team is *suspected* of deflating footballs and receives the largest penalty in league history.

Or take concussions. They think it's so serious an issue that they make all kinds of rule changes about where you can hit people, but then they want to add two more games to the season to ensure *more* hitting and *more* injuries. Why? One word: MONEY.

The NFL is truly a world gone mad.

VectorPrime said:

Say thing's work out and that Brady gets his suspension overturned and the team gets its picks back. Hell let's imagine for a moment that the dream scenario happens and this all leads to Goodell losing his job. Does any of that change how you now feel about the sport itself now? To me this entire debacle has just sapped every ounce of enjoyment out of Patriots football that I had. It's even retroactively making me care less about past accomplishments. All this corruption, this backhanded dealing, this blatant disregard for decency has made me more than a bit disillusioned in investing my time and effort into following any type of sport again. So going forward, will you even really care what happens in terms of the games themselves? Will you even have fun following the team knowing that at any moment something like this can happen again and ruin everything? No matter what kind of exoneration nothing will change in terms of how badly the rest of the country thinks about the team and how much ******** we will have to go through as fans.

Click to expand...

"To me this entire debacle has just sapped every ounce of enjoyment out of Patriots football that I had. It's even retroactively making me care less about past accomplishments. All this corruption, this backhanded dealing, this blatant disregard for decency has made me more than a bit disillusioned in investing my time and effort into following any type of sport again."

That's a well articulated description of the position many of us Patriots fans find ourselves in. I think watching the Patriots can be fun again but it will take some soul searching/thinking to get to that point.

I've found over the years that the more successful a team you route for is, the more difficult it becomes to enjoy watching them. Why? Because you want and expect nothing short of complete victory. I had that problem when watching the Bird era Celtics. So I have to start there.

Re: public perception, the Patriots were hated long before the camera nonsense happened. This changes nothing. The people giddy about all this already made up their minds about this team and about Brady long ago. Those people can kindly **** off.

Re: my enjoyment, I don't appreciate the league itself conspiring against my team and it hasn't been more evident than with this so-called investigation. I've never seen such a blatant attempt by a league to undermine the champions that represent it. I honestly don't know the proper response to this as a fan.

Actually now that the Pats and Brady seemed to be ready to fight this tooth and nail my loyalty to them has increased by orders of magnitude. I wouldn't miss this for the world. I hope the Pats go scorched earth on the league during the summer. Expose every tiny irregularity. Every inappropriate business tie. Every self-serving leaker. Then overload scoreboards from coast to coast once the season starts. There's no reason to try to be good soldiers or good sports anymore. Unleash the hounds!

We may end up being the savior of the league from all the corrupt bozos.

It's a fair question, as I think we're all so disgusted now it's hard to imagine it'll pass. But pass it will. Time heals. As does winning.

It is now, when my son and I are playing in the back yard.

I love the game and have been a fan of the Patriots for as long as I can remember, but I've been having issues with the NFL for a while now. The way they've dealt with concussions, the physical damage retired players suffer, domestic violence etc.

I really think this might be it for me, but I can't figure out how to do that and still support the team and Brady through this.

We all have to accept that we are the blackhats of the league. When you build an empire every other loser wants to tear it down because they want to be on top. Losers hate winners and winners hate whiners.

I'm warming up to the idea that we are a parallel to the Oakland Raiders of yesterday. Just win Baby! The Pats' greatness will be appreciated in due time. We live in the moment as a species after all.

This will blow over, just as the reaction to Spygate blew over.