5 ways the Pats got it good but we refuse to see because we don't remember "bad"
 

5. Playcalling. Oh yeah I know I know. Whoever is calling the Pats' plays is the most unoriginal unimaginative hack in the history of the game. Or: what were we THINKING on that less unimaginative play/situation (that didn't work)? Charlie Weiss can't call an offensive game to save his life. Wait I mean Josh McDaniel. No hold on what I really mean is... crap I've lost track.

I live in Washington, where Daniel Snyder has decided it's not enough to hire the coordinator first and then the coach. It's not enough to play musical coaches every year. It's not enough to play fantasy football with the roster and the payroll.

Nooooo, now he has to have multiple overlapping areas of responsibility ON EVERY PLAY, where nobody is apparently the last word in anything, there are enough cooks in the kitchen to host an Iron Chef NFL special, and they have Sherm Lewis incurring delay of game penalties because when he hears on the head set "third and eleven" he feels compelled to answer "take me to heaven." Once when Jason Campbell was calling signals and got to BLUE, SEVENTEEN...and Sherm answered "BINGO!"

Trust me. It can be worse.

4. We could be Buffalo. You remember when there were rumblings of moving the Pats to Hartford? Now once again, I live hundreds of miles away, but it just sounded gross even to me. HARTFORD? I mean sure call 'em the NEW ENGLAND Patriots if you want. But that means the BOSTON Patriots, and just like I rooted from a distance for the Red Sox most of my life because I was born within a few miles of Boston, I want to root for a Boston-area Patriots team. AND I DON'T EVEN LIVE THERE!

Think about that, then multiply it. How about if they moved you to a FARAWAY state? How about if they moved you to ANOTHER COUNTRY???

The only bright side for Bills fans is the spectacle of T.O. possibly attempting to factor in an exchange rate when making contract demands, or getting confused when told he has to come up with 70 catches to make an escalator, and blurts out "70 American?"

3. We could be Detroit. Okay, they're not the 08 Lions. But in all fairness being the 08 Lions even once defies belief. The 08 Lions were what's called a "black swan": They're an unlikely event you can't plan for. There is just no reason a team as bad as the 08 Lions should ever have played in the NFL. For that to happen two years running would require a distortion of probability to downright Buccaneerian proportions.

But they are still the Lions. There is no real near-term hope for this team. If they are very, very lucky, and play very, very, well, they may land a wild card... NEXT YEAR. Or, more likely, some year thereafter... followed by more years in the desert. Oh and by the way, the average value of a Detroiter's home is now so miniscule they sometimes express it in Canadian dollars to feel better. The only reason the Redskins lost to them was not the bingo playcaller, it was another Washington/Detroit bailout situation. Now I'm a big backer of our president but sometimes you have to allow for creative destruction. Not for the auto industry, for the bloody Lions.

Can you imagine the mass orgasm Detroiters would simultaneously experience if they so much as won a divisional round playoff game? Us, we're sick and tired of being in/winning AFC Championships. Eh well. Can't say I'm any different. FU(K 2007. Okay just had to get that out.

2. No more irrational curses. Okay, this is pretty much cribbed from the Red Sox aspect of being a Boston fan, but it carries over for me. I can't ice skate and I'm short so I just couldn't shout "I'm Bill Russel!!!" or "I'm Bobby Orr!" But like every other kid I knew when I was little I could shout "I'm Sam Cunningham!" or "I'm Carl Yastremski!!!" And the teams those guys were on, they were cursed.

Growing up I thought it would always be that way. In fact, I was waiting all through that first Super Bowl run for reality to set in. It had been a good run, but the Raiders were more than likely going to beat us in Oakland. It had been a good run, but there was no DOUBT the Steelers would stifle us in Pittsburgh. It had been a good run, but there we'd already played our best game against the Rams. It had been a good run, but it's the third quarter and just look at Warner carving us up. Yeah it was a good run but... what? Huh? We wo... we wo... we...??? Did not compute.

Then 2 more of them after that one forgettable 02 season, then the Sox? Are you KIDDING me?

Paisans: there are guys that live their whole lives watching sucky teams and bleeding their colors. I would have been one of those guys if it weren't for the current Pats' regime dragging their buttocks into contention, then past that level, to the level of excellence.

Yeah, we got it good now. Still.

And number one...

#1. We lost the Brett Favre sweepstakes... over and over and over.

Man, I love watching the posts fly whenever this guy re un re un re unretires. He has jacked around every fanbase that has looked to him as the messiah, and fugged over every fan who ever loved him. Brett Favre is to football what the Balloon Boy Family is to the news: the pure distillation of egotistical selfishness. At least the Balloon Family knows it was being selfish. Welp, more phenomenal numbers, more friction with his team, his owner, his coach, and at the end of the day, more disappointment for Brett this year, followed by (no doubt) more retiring and un-retiring.

Brett's obviously a very very good football player. He's also poison to NFL teams. And he's not going to hang 'em up for real until the only blitzer that can't catch his sorry azz is Wolf.
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/rant

Re: 5 Ways the Pats Got it Good But We Refuse To See Because We Don't Remember "Bad"
 

Those are all valid points, but when you have such great players like Tom Brady and Randy Moss, you expect greatness.

Re: 5 Ways the Pats Got it Good But We Refuse To See Because We Don't Remember "Bad"
 

This

Just because we aren't as bad as the Browns doesn't make me want to jump out of my seat in excitement.

Re: 5 Ways the Pats Got it Good But We Refuse To See Because We Don't Remember "Bad"
 

What a tremendous way to trivialize everything those players have done. As though just having two players out of 53 is enough. As though those two can just roll out of bed in the morning and be great. They don't need to work, they don't need to play their best. We have Brady and Moss, and since no other team has great players losing is UNACCEPTABLE.

Give me a break.

Re: 5 Ways the Pats Got it Good But We Refuse To See Because We Don't Remember "Bad"
 

He was using examples and saying this team still has it's share of championship caliber players.

Watching this team, it is ludicrous to suggest that they are at best a 10-5 team. It's not a bad season but we could have performed better.

Re: 5 ways the Pats got it good but we refuse to see because we don't remember "bad"
 

I don't care for the "Well, atleast we aren't (Enter Failure Team)"

Who cares? You're right, we aren't. We're better. We expect to see our team win.

So... if hypothetically I were a Steelers fan, and we lost to the Browns, Chiefs and Raiders, I simply say "Screw it! Atleast I'm not a Browns fan! Atleast I'm not a Chiefs fan! Atleast I'm not a Raiders fan!" Well guess what.... THEY LOST TO THOSE TEAMS!

Fans aren't always happy, that's just the way it is. I'm sure you have countlessly been unhappy with a playcall, a player, and what not. We have no say on who is on our team, how they run the team, or who will coach.

So, we voice our opinion. What else do you want us to do.

Re: 5 ways the Pats got it good but we refuse to see because we don't remember "bad"
 

Hey anybody here who has voiced negative opinions and take it personally... relax. It's just another set of opinions that does point to the atmosphere of priviledge and luxury within which we are free to ***** and moan. And of course, all of us do, at one time or another, about one aspect of the game or another.

PFnV

Re: 5 ways the Pats got it good but we refuse to see because we don't remember "bad"
 

You need to consider your fan base. Many of the fans don't remember the bad times, because quite a few were not big fans when the going was rough. There are 4 types of fans...

1. The Newbies (AKA: Bandwagon Jumpers, AKA: The Front-runners): These fans are the ones that became Pats fans after Super Bowl 36. They ditched their former favorite teams (Cowboys, Steelers, 49ers, Giants...basically any other bandwagon team they followed before the Pats rose to prominence).

2. The Late Bloomers (AKA: The Bledsonians): These fans started paying attention in 1994 when the Pats went to the playoffs after a terrible drought, lead by second year "Gunslinger" Drew Bledsoe. These fans ditched their former favorite teams in the same fashion as "The Newbies"

3. The One Hit Wonders: These are the fans that were around for the 1985 playoffs. They wore "Squish the Fish" T-Shirts, couldn't name 3 players on the team...but could dance the "Super Bowl Shuffle".

4. The Lifer (AKA: The Old Crustys): This group of Patriot following foot soldiers know only 3 colors...RED, WHITE & BLUE (And we aint talkin' about the Giants or Bills). These are the true Patriots...the ones that have weathered through countless losing seasons, the ownership buffoonery, and the false hope each season seemed to bring. They look back at the past 10 years and have a true respect for what they have witnessed, and know exactly how good they have had it.

Re: 5 ways the Pats got it good but we refuse to see because we don't remember "bad"
 

What if we fall under the *I'm 20 years old category*

I'll admit I hopped on the bandwagon. I liked football but never followed it with much passion until I was in high school. I did watch all of the Pats superbowls and I've always liked the team. Just never been very enthusiastic about it until the last few years.

Re: 5 ways the Pats got it good but we refuse to see because we don't remember "bad"
 

Great fan bases like great teams are generational and sometimes seasonal and the best are forged out of adversity. Many in this teams fan base haven't truly experienced persistent adversity, in their lives or their football yet. Just like this current team hasn't won a championship yet, although a handful of it's players have won multiple times in their careers.

The last time this team wasn't in contention for the division much of this team was still in HS if not grade school. Ditto the fanbase. Adversity for them is when a day or a play or every season doesn't go as they envisioned.