How many fans take this team for granted week after week?

I take them for granted so much that I pull a Ryan Mallett and just show up halfway through the 2nd quarter.

I watched Joe Kapp throw end over end passes.

I cherish every moment of this team.

People forget how good it was when Poke High had Red Grange as their RB.

* I watched a team that nearly electrocuted a new coach at a press conference when he touched an ungrounded microphone.
* I watched a team that once called an onside kick but only told the kicker and not the rest of the special teams players....
* I sat on the old metal benches at Sullivan/Schaeffer/Foxboro Stadium...and watched the plumbing fail on opening night....
* I watched Ben Dreith make a call that would change a franchise forever.......
* I watched as a meaningless final preseason game ruined a season as three players got hurt and devastated a team ....(mid 70's)
* I watched Chuck Fairbanks abandon a playoff team just before the playoffs* (yes he was fired but that's because he took the Colorado job)
*I watched the team draft Kenneth Sims and Eugene Chung when they could have had......never mind
I remember suffering 2-14 seasons and knowing if the stars aligned just right, the team might, just might win a game .
No, I will never take this team for granted.......

I cherish ever moment of this run, and often find the *****ing about minor stuff that becomes big stuff a lot nauseating..

Remember the black outs in the 90's and we listened to the tones of Gil and Gino, I used to go to work on Sundays and the Jets and Dolphins fans in their various shades of "puke green puff coats" and I would have my small radio listing to the radio. There was never any Pats gear available.. but was always a proud Pats fan people used to think I was a degenerate gambler as who in their right mind would ever listen to a Pats game???

I never take it for granted and enjoy every moment of this run.. get really angry at many of our local mediots who try to create controversy where there is none.. never take it for granted.

Was a fan in 1971 when I was 10... they drafted Plunkett, and he and Randy Vataha had some great moments. The 1974 team was my first glimpse at any kind of winning... before injuries hit mid season, they were rocking. Then Plunkett was traded for a gazillion picks, they drafted Grogan, hired Fairbanks, and the 1970's became REALLY interesting.

But the last 15 years... and remarkably especially the last five... to go into each season confident that you've got at least a 50/50 shot at being in the AFC title game?!?! Thats friggin' AWESOME.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I am spoiled rotten by the quality and success of this franchise.

In this era of greatness, NE wins 75% of the time...at least. So yes.......I take this team for granted because winning is part of their DNA and losing isn't..........and my mental preparation is a byproduct of their success.
Reading some of the posts in this thread is like taking a stroll down memory lane.......and what comes to mind....my mind....is that we fans no longer experience extreme highs and lows emotionally....at least I don't. Not since NE upset the Greatest Show on Turf.
Prior to 2001, the emotional state of NE fandom resembled that of a degenerate gambler. Euphoric wins and crushing losses.....extreme highs and debilitating lows.......and fans never knew which emotional state we would enter 3 hours from kickoff. I'll admit.......the "rush" is gone. Fear is no longer part of my mental repertoire prior to 1:00PM. Plunkett and Grogan scrambling behind the LOS.....will they jack rabbit to safety and hit a WR down field for a big play....or will they take a 25 yard sack? You never knew.....and that was part of the addictive rush. Today we know...........Pats win, Brady is great, Gronk thunder spike, in BB we Trust.
Here's to ten more years of taking this team for granted...HELL YEAH!

borg said:

I'll admit.......the "rush" is gone. Fear is no longer part of my mental repertoire prior to 1:00PM.

Click to expand...

I can't say that. I'm always worried this is the week the wheels fall off. I almost enjoy the hours AFTER the game more than the game. Not really... but it's just so hard to take the...








...pressure...

I try real hard but even the team has off days.

These guys are something else though ain't they, they are on an ok run...

Oh I don't ... I definitely do not take this era for granted.

The piece I will miss most about the current team in particular is the comradery. The bonds between these players appear to run quite deep, so much so that their friendships and even those "in" jokes bleed out into the media to the public eye. I know it is just a small glimpse of the reality, but it is all we, as fans, are afforded.

I cherish the glimpse I have of a team that fights together in the trenches with a positive spirit like no other team I've ever witnessed. And I know that at the end of each day, win or lose, they were all in it together. Trying their hardest to perform to the best of their abilities with the sole purpose of reaching team goals, not personal ones. They seem to care more about the team than their own selfish endeavors. And this ethereal concept of team that they have collectively built is a brotherhood and it is important to them. It gives them purpose and the uncanny resiliency we have already witnessed.

How many teams can you watch in a lifetime where you cannot see some infighting, selfishness, or negativity from at least one member? How many teams can you watch where you believe each member is not just a good football player, but also a person of quality with a good heart who genuinely cares about the people around them?

I find the positively of this year's team, in the face of all this adversity, completely inspiring.

I remember thinking after SB39 that it felt like we would win every year and that it would never end. Then I experienced the heartbreak of 2006, SB42, Brady's injury, early playoff exits, Sb46, etc.

So when they won last year I made sure to savor every single moment because I knew it might never come again. I don't take this wonderful ride for granted and am grateful that as a fan I had been able to experience something that few ever will.

On a side note, one of my friends is a Jets fan and every Sunday night we go to play trivia with some other friends. So his wife asked me this Sunday, if the Patriots had lost to the Jets would you have shown up? And I said honestly and not being a smartass, I don't know, it's never happened and everyone started laughing.

A younger me made this mistake with the Bird/McHale era Celtics. Then -poof-, it was gone.

I've smartened up since.

Probably some that have been fans since 2001, maybe 96. Before that there isn't a Pats fan alive that takes this team for granted.

pdangle said:

A younger me made this mistake with the Bird/McHale era Celtics. Then -poof-, it was gone.

I've smartened up since.

Click to expand...

I’m still pissed at Bias for ruining the transition for me by dying…I’ll get over it though.

WinstonSmith said:

I’m still pissed at Bias for ruining the transition for me by dying…I’ll get over it though.

Click to expand...

Remember the old joke... "Q: What do flowers and Len Bias have in common? A: They both die 3 days after you pick them!" Well I've probably forgotten near a thousand jokes since, but not that one, so yeah, I guess I'm still a bit miffed as well.

Back in '03-'04 i took them for granted, the pats would methodically win week after week, it accually became boring. I haven't taken the team for granted since they lost the SB in '08.

IcyPatriot said:

Oh I don't ... I definitely do not take this era for granted.

Click to expand...

Ha! Gotta love that 8-bit Atari Patriots logo!