Mods, feel free to merge with the Ellerbe thread — I almost put this there but figured these types of stories will come fast and furious, so maybe try to rein them into one thread at the beginning?
Personally I like the idea of one single "
Pats are Doomed" thread rather than one for each and every single article that proclaims that opinion to be a fact. That gets rather tiresome to me, especially when it is mostly just a rehashing of the same theme, another writer with a slightly different twist eliciting the expected '
OMG, I can't believe he dissed the Pats' reaction from someone feeling the need to start a new thread here on the subject.
By the way, if you read what Ellerbe said it comes across far less incendiary than the alarmist headlines that attract people would have you believe.
"I think they are but you have to prove it, you can't just talk about it,"
"I was brought here to help knock them off. That doesn't mean we will, but we feel like we can. Like I said, we just have to prove it. You have to actually go do it."
Then there is this, which even huge homers like me would not dispute:
"I don't think you can say the Patriots are the same as before after what happened to Hernandez"
Ellerbe couched his comments rather diplomatically, in my opinion.
There is a certain other segment of the media that we all know about that gleefully jump at the opportunity to pick that low hanging fruit, dumping on the Pats and declaring them dead. Should the Patriots lose back-to-back games early this season - something that is a not only a possibility, but may even be a probability - these very same writers will prematurely throw dirt on the grave of the New England Patriots.
And just like Jason, Freddy Kreuger, and every other horror movie villain, the Pats will return and be right in the mix come playoffs in January.
