Are we having fun yet?

[Tunescribe]

Personally I get a lot of fun out of embracing the hate. Some hater trying to give you crap about the Patriots cheating? Tell them they only know about the stuff we've been caught for. Embellish it. Tell them we're gonna deceive and cheat our way to a 4th ring. This will really get their blood boiling.

In the world today all the successful people / organizations have haters. The more haters you have, the better you're doing. Embrace the hate!

"Embrace the hate" is a silly cliche. The hate is unwarranted and it's not in my character to embrace it. I'm working on disregarding it.

 

[karguy85]

Anyone watching First Take? Suggs showing extreme jealousy that Brady is married to Gisele. He said that any loss can't be that bad when you get to go home to her. He also said he has too much, and it's not fair. This is great.

 

[dales804]

I'm having fun now. Thanks to @Ian for moving all the air pressure talk elsewhere. This is really a great matchup. I'm so excited to see this team on the biggest stage. I have great confidence that they're going to perform well and I look forward to seeing the game plans that they cooked up.

And, of course, watching TB12, again, in the Super Bowl! That never gets old. Hope he doesn't give Gronk a concussion when he connects on a TD with him!

 

[PatsDeb]

I started having fun once BB did his 2nd press conference. That convinced me that there is nothing to the deflate gate story (not that I thought there was anything to it before that), and that the Pats had the goods, so to speak, to get out of this mess and/or fight the NFL with actual evidence if it tries to impose any kind of sanction on the Pats, BB or Brady.

To paraphrase and overused phrase, you just have to "let it go." The cold never bothered us anyway, right?

 

[Patters]

Well, my sister-in-law just called and said she bought her Pommeranian a Patriots Jersey. She lives in Manhattan, so I take that as a good sign. (Why not?)

As far as all the negative press, I think it comes with being a football dynasty. The NFL's and media's treatment of the Pats is so unfair that all we should try to take it in our stride and remember that at the end of the day, the Pats incredible record of achievement will be what people remember. I still remember years ago when Tom Landry's great Dallas Cowboys were accused of breaking the rules by using computers to evaluate players! I don't think anyone is talking about that now.

The NFL worries about deflated footballs, but they don't worry about the competitive advantage of having an injury causing field and generally punish personal fouls that leave a player injured with nothing more than a 15 yard penalty.

They investigate the Patriots at a moment's notice. Where was the investigation after Spygate when many coaches and others admitted to doing the same as BB? Where is the investigation into why most teams since at least 2006 have more unnecessary roughness penalties than the Pats? (Source: http://www.footballdb.com/stats/penalties.html?yr=2007&sort=ur)

Check out this chart, which shows in 2011 (not sure if there's a more recent one) which teams caused the most injuries. Isn't that an unfair competitive advantage of a vastly more serious nature than Deflategate? Why isn't the NFL investigating this type of thing where at least 5 teams caused more major injuries than that Pats and most teams caused more minor or moderate injuries?

http://footballpros.com/content.php/1775-Who-has-the-Roughest-Team-in-the-NFL

http://footballpros.com/attachment.php?s=bca270f0e03b9b2d89a25f3af62f8177&attachmentid=801&d=1345934772&stc=1

 

[sevengables_2207]

Anyone watching First Take? Suggs showing extreme jealousy that Brady is married to Gisele. He said that any loss can't be that bad when you get to go home to her. He also said he has too much, and it's not fair. This is great.

Ah, T-Fizzle pandering (yet again) to the "everybody gets a trophy!" faction of the media...

 

[ctpatsfan77]

Can I just say this much?

Everyone is expecting that the Patriots will fade into irrelevance when Brady and/or Belichick inevitably leave, whether that's two years from now, five years from now, or whatever.

Just imagine the haters' heads if this is the lede 10 years from now . . .

"It's all about Tom Brady and Bill Belichick," said many analysts back in 2015. But now [quarterback] and [head coach] are leading the New England Patriots to their third Super Bowl in five years. . . ."

 

[neuronet]

Yeah, this is basically the only place I come to read about or discuss the SB or the Pats.

It's even worse for me, living in NYC and surrounded by Giants and Jets fans and have to face the tabloids every morning. I've been invited to a Super Bowl party in Manhattan on Sunday with some people I really like (and great food!), but I've declined for some made-up reason because I know I won't be able to watch the game with a bunch of otherwise nice people who will be hooting for the Pats to lose and shouting "cheaters" or "betcha wished the ball were deflated" every time Brady throws an incomplete pass.

I know I should be stronger than that...

Since 2007 I cannot watch Patriots games with trolls. Now that means pretty much everyone.

Typically it's people who don't care much about football and like to dig at my team. My nonPat fan friends have learned to accept that I won't be joinign them for Patriots games. Everyone else can suck it. I liken it to having a heckler at your child's Bar Mitzvah. No need for that crap.

Luckily down here in Raleigh there is a sports bar that is gung-ho Patriots. I'm going there for the game. (Assuming I don't win the raffle for tickets to Sunday's game )

 

[DarrylS]

Last week was a humongous buzz kill..

Then on Saturday BB fought back, followed by Mr. Kraft defending his team.. then all the crap corroborating how it could have happened validated what they said.

Then came media day.. I got my Superbowl buzz back.. about 76 hours out, cannot wait.

 

[50-yard-line]

I cannot forgive our own local sports media for failing to bring sanity and level-headed logic to the discussion (Matt Chatham and a couple others excepted).

Right there with you. Once upon a time, sports radio was to help fans enjoy their team. Now it's the classic contrary/insulting/insipid idiocy that cable news has become.

There are several shows that will never be on in my car again. The only way to beat these d-bags is to ignore them.

 

[InRodWeRust]

Since 2007 I cannot watch Patriots games with trolls. Now that means pretty much everyone.

Typically it's people who don't care much about football and like to dig at my team. My nonPat fan friends have learned to accept that I won't be joinign them for Patriots games. Everyone else can suck it. I liken it to having a heckler at your child's Bar Mitzvah. No need for that crap.

Thank you. My fun is from watching the game and their fun is to try to ruin my fun of watching the game. It's not even like it's friendly trash talk from an opposing fan. They're not fan's and they have no vested interest in the game; only to try and ruin it. It's sociopathic and I'll never understand it.

 

[Brady_to_Moss]

Agreed. I was getting ready to leave the forum altogether until the game because I was ignoring more threads than I was participating in.

Same ...thank god the mods moved them...

If pats lose i will take a break from forum for a week or two because it will all be negative...but that's how i was after last 2 SB losses.

 

[Boston Boxer]

this has been no fun at all. i am sick and tired of having to defend this team. it gets old and everywhere you turn, there is someone with accusations of wrong doing. Its tough when you are so successful that everyone hates you.

so no, there has been no joy on this quest. hopefully it will be different on Sunday

 

[Dr Pain]

This forum saved me last week. It really did. I am so cranked for this game now I can't believe it.

 

[Brady_to_Moss]

this has been no fun at all. i am sick and tired of having to defend this team. it gets old and everywhere you turn, there is someone with accusations of wrong doing. Its tough when you are so successful that everyone hates you.

so no, there has been no joy on this quest. hopefully it will be different on Sunday

The league had an agenda and had their way up until now. Now it's time to show everyone we are getting #4

 

[PATS16N0]

I feel like I've never had to work so hard to enjoy something I love. Friends and relatives from outside New England call/e-mail to needle me thinking they're funny and it's just irritating. I can't watch television, listen to the radio or go online without anti-Patriots spew pissing me off. It's like being under siege. Where normally I'd be basking in wall-to-wall coverage, I find myself limited to snippets here and there from very limited sources.

I've never experienced anything like this. People who never follow football and non-sports mainstream media EVERYWHERE are piling on the hate. But most of all, I cannot forgive our own local sports media for failing to bring sanity and level-headed logic to the discussion (Matt Chatham and a couple others excepted).

All I can say is thank God for this place. A win Sunday will go a long way to righting two weeks of wrongs.

I know how you feel. On one hand, I don't care what these hyenas say anymore, and I don't care what their mindless mob thinks either. This latest assault was so over-the-top stupid, caring what the talking heads say is like getting irritated with North Korean media telling its people that its leader rides unicorns.

On the other hand, this isn't a victimless crime.

I'm not even angry anymore. I'm just disgusted. I think this was my favorite Patriots season this year, maybe even more than 2007, and the creeps in the media (the American media...) just managed to ruin it with their relentless hate and venom. I really don't feel satisfied calling it "the media" anymore. I feel like doing it gives them a pass on accountability. I think this instead needs to be labeled for what it is, which is a stain on our national society. It's the American media, sleezebags of the lowest order, completely devoid of any virtue.

I just feel better about it holding them accountable, instead of being vague.

The same can be said for the mob of mindless degenerates who are using this to fuel their real, envy-driven hatreds (not your joking relatives).

I just don't have any respect for a people so easily manipulated by bad arguments on television. The word contempt comes to mind.

How this season ends for me now depends on the team. In many ways, I felt like this after week #4 in Kansas City, too. I was on this very forum, battling a who's who of people on how Brady isn't in some steep decline, about how he wouldn't be traded, about how the Patriots would find a way to right the ship (hopefully), if we could fix the offensive line. That was pretty depressing, too, coming off a long off season that gave me lots of room for optimism. I was really disgusted with a lot of things after week #4, as well.

And week #5 was one of my favorite football moments in all my years of watching the NFL.

Hopefully this Sunday is week #5 all over again, only with a Lombardi at the end of it.

Listening to a media abandon journalistic integrity entirely, while building a narrative from thin air about the Patriots compromising the "integrity of the game," has been a vile irony to witness