PatFanKen Where Art Thou?

[Ian]

Ian, no offense but sometimes I feel like I’m living in an alternative reality. The 2021 team was 6th in points scored and 2nd in points allowed. This was only two years ago. That was 100% a solid team and contender.

The playoff performance against the Bills was truly historical in ineptness. 47-17 and not even as close ad the final score. The Bills never punted.

They could have made the playoffs last year. Certainly a solid roster. Last game of the season, essentially a playoff game, two special teams touchdowns allowed. Kickoffs! There had only been a few all season all around the league.

I was talking about him on a good team in January. And I agree, in 2021 it was a good team, but the performance against the Bills, that's because they didn't have the horses. He didn't have the speed to do anything about it, and that's why they immediately regrouped that offseason and basically replaced the entire group of linebackers with safety hybrids. That's why the Bills never punted. That defense couldn't keep up with them.

Special teams was frustrating. They had issues, it felt like, after Cody Davis went down last season. Felt like they were one guy short from that point on, with teams obviously focusing on Slater, which made it challenging.

And obviously, the key issue is just the fact Jones is what he is. He may be broken, but he doesn't get a pass from me when it comes to some of the ridiculous decisions he made, with the throw back across his body in Dallas being one I'll have a hard time letting go of.

But if you put Belichick on a team with a franchise QB with a couple of playmakers and decent talent on both sides of the ball, he can get it done. Obviously, he's just past the point where he's able to put a group like that together, at least on the offensive side of things. Although, who knows who he would have as an offensive coordinator if he left here. I'm assuming it might be Josh, so if that was the case, he'd be in decent shape.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

You can legally fornicate with the gap between Rob’s 01-04 Belichick Glory Days and today.

 

[AQPE]

This thread, which I felt was originally intended to convey appreciation for @patfanken, has turned into one of the most revealing ones I can remember on this forum (like many I too go back to the Rivals.com days), and not in a good way.

I am one of the many on this forum who greatly appreciated Ken’s posts (and I know there are many because I remember the positive reactions his Idle Thoughts seemed to get every time). While I’m not surprised that there are others here that didn’t enjoy them, it saddens me to see the vitriol that a few here have chosen to express. I feel it does nothing good for this forum to go beyond a certain level of criticism, and will likely discourage people from posting their opinions in their own way. This does not apply to either “camp” in the Belichick argument, there is plenty of blame for both sides.

A number of people have stated here that people who are offended by their posts should use the Ignore or Mute functions that Ian has provided. I agree that people should use those tools but telling people to do that without making an effort to self regulate is not a solution to a problem that threatens the sense of community that is vital for this forum.

Each of us needs to compose our posts with a sense of humility and awareness of how our words may be felt by others. I’m no saint and from time to time have posted caustic criticism of people like Tom Curren and Peter King so I’m a work in progress also. I generally never Ignore or Mute anyone (other than one case where someone for reasons I don’t know started following me to troll everything I posted, I had to go silent for a while to mitigate the situation). My own personal rule here is to never say anything to another poster that would upset me if someone said it to me. It’s the Golden Rule.

Take time to stop and reread your posts as you compose them and then again after submitting them. Resist the temptation to call names (such as “dumb,” “lazy,” “Chicken Little,” “homer,” etc.) and don’t call into question someone else’s appreciation for the team (“you’re not a fan if…”) just because you disagree with their opinion. Let them make their case and if you aren’t convinced by them at least let them have their say in their own way. We can have spirited discussions here with disagreements without vitriol. It just requires some self awareness.

And never forget we are all guests here in someone else’s “house.” Behave yourself in the same way you do in that situation

 

[Ian]

A number of people have stated here that people who are offended by their posts should use the Ignore or Mute functions that Ian has provided. I agree that people should use those tools but telling people to do that without making an effort to self regulate is not a solution to a problem that threatens the sense of community that is vital for this forum.

One note I'll make on this is one key point of the mute function when I came up with it was the fact it was created as a "thread-specific" feature. IE: the point was that if someone - or a pair of individuals bickering - was annoying you in that thread, you could simply mute them in that single thread without it necessarily being a forum-wide decision.

I added the last two functions after the fact (forum mute and the ability to block another user) after a few people said they liked how it worked and wondered if it could compliment the normal ignore function.

But the entire point of that feature was to make it as just an easy way to trim the noise in one thread, and I think people treat it like the ignore where they're afraid to use it in fear of missing out on posts elsewhere.

That's not the case, unless you pick either of the last two. So hopefully people keep that in mind, as it's supposed to be a lighter way to allow you to control your experience here a little more.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

This thread, which I felt was originally intended to convey appreciation for @patfanken, has turned into one of the most revealing ones I can remember on this forum (like many I too go back to the Rivals.com days), and not in a good way.

I am one of the many on this forum who greatly appreciated Ken’s posts (and I know there are many because I remember the positive reactions his Idle Thoughts seemed to get every time). While I’m not surprised that there are others here that didn’t enjoy them, it saddens me to see the vitriol that a few here have chosen to express. I feel it does nothing good for this forum to go beyond a certain level of criticism, and will likely discourage people from posting their opinions in their own way. This does not apply to either “camp” in the Belichick argument, there is plenty of blame for both sides.

A number of people have stated here that people who are offended by their posts should use the Ignore or Mute functions that Ian has provided. I agree that people should use those tools but telling people to do that without making an effort to self regulate is not a solution to a problem that threatens the sense of community that is vital for this forum.

Each of us needs to compose our posts with a sense of humility and awareness of how our words may be felt by others. I’m no saint and from time to time have posted caustic criticism of people like Tom Curren and Peter King so I’m a work in progress also. I generally never Ignore or Mute anyone (other than one case where someone for reasons I don’t know started following me to troll everything I posted, I had to go silent for a while to mitigate the situation). My own personal rule here is to never say anything to another poster that would upset me if someone said it to me. It’s the Golden Rule.

Take time to stop and reread your posts as you compose them and then again after submitting them. Resist the temptation to call names (such as “dumb,” “lazy,” “Chicken Little,” “homer,” etc.) and don’t call into question someone else’s appreciation for the team (“you’re not a fan if…”) just because you disagree with their opinion. Let them make their case and if you aren’t convinced by them at least let them have their say in their own way. We can have spirited discussions here with disagreements without vitriol. It just requires some self awareness.

And never forget we are all guests here in someone else’s “house.” Behave yourself in the same way you do in that situation

Right, but Ken, DaBruinz, Ashley, etc can write all those insults to others - and not give a crap about the effects - because they’re real fans. This is one of the better threads in awhile. Sorry to hear that people providing real thoughts and opinions is intruding on your safe space. As you yourself pointed out, there’s always the Ignore and Mute option. Is that just the solution for others though and doesn’t apply to you?



He writes as he discourages people from posting their opinions in their own way…

 

[Ian]

Right, but Ken, DaBruinz, Ashley, etc can write all those insults to others - and not give a crap about the effects - because they’re real fans. This is one of the better threads in awhile. Sorry to hear that people providing real thoughts and opinions is intruding on your safe space. As you yourself pointed out, there’s always the Ignore and Mute option. Is that just the solution for others though and doesn’t apply to you?

View attachment 55052

He writes as he discourages people from posting their opinions in their own way…

Again, as I said, that's not an isolated thing, either. And we can go round-and-round on this all day but now you're mentioning individuals who are banned from the forum who no longer factor into this.

As I said before, what's done is done and "it is what it is." All we can do now is focus on where we're currently at because if we spend a thread talking about every single thing that's been slung by everybody in various instances years, literally nothing good will come out of it.

 

[Ian]

I'm going to close this down - we don't need to keep rehashing this. Really glad the game is coming up tomorrow, but then we have a lot of time off before the next one. Hopefully they do something (anything) to give us something relatively more interesting to talk about on here.