A month later, checking the pulse of Pats nation

[ivanvamp]

It's a bummer but I was over it very soon afterward, which is partly why I started the thread on whether your Pats fandom is an identity or entertainment for you. From an entertainment standpoint, there is, absolutely no doubt, no better entertainment out there in the football world than the Patriots. They're always really good, they have one of the best players of all-time in Brady, they put up records, and when they play in Super Bowls, it's always (at least in the BB/TB era) a tremendous game that comes down to the wire.

As a fan, of course I wish they'd have won in 2007 and 2011. But oh well. They keep putting a great product on the field and I know that, barring a 2008-type catastrophe, they'll be one of the very best teams in all of football again next year, with as good a shot as anyone else to win it all.

I'm pumped for the draft, free agency, and to see the process by which they will build the team for 2012. It's all good.

 

[blackglass3]

Not to rehash it (again), but it wasn't them losing but it was the way they lost. Being so close to pulling it off was rough to take for a few weeks, but I posted back in Nov or Dec that if this team won a playoff game I would consider it a successful season and if they made the Super Bowl I would be ecstatic. Yeah it sucked to lose that way, but I have worn my AFC Champs shirt proudly for the last week or so. This team even getting there was an accomplishment and I think will benefit them. Most teams that get to the Super Bowl and lose suffer the "Curse" because they are crestfallen after having built themselves to Win Now and coming so close but blowing it. I don't think we're anywhere near that point in Foxboro.

 

[supafly]

The pulse in my house sucks.

I'm still completely devastated. Every freaking day I think of new sh!t to anger myself about that game.

Outscoring the opponent 17-0 at one point. Scoring a TD to go into the half and scoring another TD coming out of the half. Allowing a measly 2 TD's, many, many game minutes apart...the list goes on. If you'd have told me any of those things I'd have said that it be a win 9/10 times.

Again.

 

[E Belichick Unum]

We made the superbowl in a year where the defense was rebuilding and came damn close to winning it. Can't complain about it much. It isn't like 07 where we blew immortality.

Let me expand on the above statement for a moment. The 2011 Patriots went to the Super Bowl with the worst playoff defense I have ever seen, and only lost by 4 points. They started a DB who had been released by Oakland early in the season and he was released by the Patriots twice during the season. Their most effective reciever played the game on a sprained ankle and they lost because of a dropped pass by the leagues leading reciever.

This was easily Coach Bill's best job. He will never do more with less again, and if he does then GM Bill should be fired.

How can anybody be upset at last season? That team, in the hands of a Pete Carroll is 3 and 11, in the hands of somebody who can actually coach they were maybe 6 and 10, or possibly 8 and 8. Belichick coached them to a 15 and 4 season. I will take this season every year, but please give us a better defense.

 

[DarrylS]

I am fortunate to have witnessed what has transpired since 2001, there have been some very difficult losses, but as time and distance happens things get better.

Right now looking forward to how they will resolve #83, and some of our other vital resources as we move toward free agency and the draft.. come July when I am sitting on the grassy knoll near the practice fields all will be forgiven and my fanaticism will be renewed.

Concerned about the Saints(my second favorite team in my other hometown), as they will head into a period that this scandal has caused and will forever be defined by these actions. pretty soon the mediots will ask if an asterisk should be next to their name after winning the superbowl, and every time there is a lapse in newsworthy events this will be brought up again ad infinitum.. it will never dilute what that team accomplished and what it meant to that city and their fans, but will leave a bad taste in their mouths.

 

[Joker]

I gotta tell ya....I just had a physical and when the doctor checked my EKG it came back flatline....no pulse whatsoever....and then he checked my alcohol and found it contained 2% blood!!!!