Boston was a terrible football town really until the Brady/Belichick dynasties. Football was far behind the three other major sports in popularity, and fans were relatively ignorant about the game.To this very day they specifically state as fact that we sucked from 1960-2000. A "laughingstock".
Hatred and resentment of Boston, New England, the other successful local pro teams, and disdain of the Patriots, including that we inherited ALL of the anti-AFL bias when the merger was consummated.
Kraft didn't help when he kind of understandably made it all about himself when he bought the team, but not at all understandably destroyed the team logo and uniforms.
Uh, I digress...
That said, the 76 team is still my favorite Patriot team of all time -- it was the first great team we had -- and I'm still bitter about the playoff loss.
And I absolutely love, love Julius Adams. He was a dependable anchor player for so long, and it's an atrocity that he's not in the team's HoF.