The Bandwagon - On it or Off It?

[PatsFanInVa]

I have either listened to every Patriot game on the radio, watched on TV or have seen live in person at Schaefer Stadium or Gillette over the past 54 Years. I can not remember ever missing a game one way or another over this time span.

I remember being at Schaefer Stadium in 1971 for a game shortly after it opened and there was a problem with the new men's rooms toilets not working. It was raining that day and all the beer drinking guys had to take advantage of the big cement wall at the corners of the stadium. I'll never forget the giant yellow streams flowing down the walkways. LOL

And I also remember the dark years of the late 80's/early 90's and Victor Kiam doing his Shaver commercials on TV. His ownership coincided with a 1 and 15 season, the Lisa Olsen fiasco along with all kinds of financial problems. Those were dark days indeed.

Yet through all this, I always looked forward to our next game. And then Bledsoe, BB and TB came along and over 20 years of respectability and greatness ensued. For over 4 years we were in kind of a football malaise for the Patriots. Then Drake Maye and Mike Vrabel came along with the promise of another round of respectability and greatness.

Am I on board for this round? Hell Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Welcome Aboard, ticket punched for '25, and may I present you with your commemorative "Classic" razor commemorating the Kiam years.... ironically, at least if memory serves, the losses during those years were not especially close shaves.

I have probably been on the pessimistic side, reasonably so, I hope. I was lookig for progress this year toward genuine competitiveness. I guessed at 8 wins, but I wasn't really that focused on wins: I wanted progress. So all my surprises have been happy ones, and I already regard this season as a complete success. I may not consistently be on the "bandwagon," but sort of walking along side it ain't a bad way to live.

I saw someone on FB say they already consider this season the ultimate success... I told him "ultimate" doesn't mean what he thinks it does

It's not about whether or not it felt realistic to be all "17-0!" at the start of the season... very few of us were "right..." It's about loving the feeling of being back in contention, and embracing the feeling, illusory as it may be, of Patriots style manifest destiny.

This speaks to what gets lost so easily, especially on line... the part of being a fan that is just the pure joy of celebrating, even though your brain knows about issues, fears, problems, etc. We have brains that make better futures happen through anxiety, doubt, and their more productive cousin, planning. Maybe emotions related to the past are needed to guide those decisions or to motivate them. Meanwhile, the present's happening, not as easily distilled into words., but that's where all the joy lives.

So just put up your hand when you're ready and we'll pull over and get you... seat saved for '25!

 

[Thelonious]

Welcome Aboard, ticket punched for '25, and may I present you with your commemorative "Classic" razor commemorating the Kiam years.... ironically, at least if memory serves, the losses during those years were not especially close shaves.

I saw someone on FB say they already consider this season the ultimate success... I told him "ultimate" doesn't mean what he thinks it does

It's not about whether or not it felt realistic to be all "17-0!" at the start of the season... very few of us were "right..." It's about loving the feeling of being back in contention, and embracing the feeling, illusory as it may be, of Patriots style manifest destiny.

This speaks to what gets lost so easily, especially on line... the part of being a fan that is just the pure joy of celebrating, even though your brain knows about issues, fears, problems, etc. We have brains that make better futures happen through anxiety, doubt, and their more productive cousin, planning. Maybe emotions related to the past are needed to guide those decisions or to motivate them. Meanwhile, the present's happening, not as easily distilled into words., but that's where all the joy lives.

So just put up your hand when you're ready and we'll pull over and get you... seat saved for '25!

I said this season was in my mind a "complete" success, by which which I mean that my hopes for the season have been fully - completely - met. Given I did not posit perfection as my criterion for such success, "complete success" does not require "ultimate" or "perfect" success, there being, of course, no logical possibility of degrees of either success or ultimacy. To put it another way, the fact the team has accomplished everything I would require for a successful season - significant, verifiable progress in the rebuild - does not prevent me from rooting for further success. To put it yet another way, suppose I am on a backpacking hike and I have decided that if I manage to walk eight miles a day, that will have been a successful day's progress, a complete success, in fact.. This does not mean that if I manage to walk ten miles on some particular day, that on that day I will have failed to meet my goal. I suppose you could even say that if one perfectly accomplishes his stated objective over some specific span of time, that does not preclude the possibility of further progress long the same axis of advance or something. Asserting the existence of three does require denial of the the existence of four. I find myself thinking about Zeno's wonderful paradoxes and Parmenides' nonsense.(I taught philosophy for 25 years, which is why I write such insufferable paragraphs. It is an occupational disease.)

As for the bandwagon stuff (almost said "horseshit") I have assiduously avoided bandwagons all my life, and I have no interest in changing that now. I suppose too that given I have been thrilled with the team thus far this year, I have, perhaps in violation in some way of my own principles, been on that bandwagon all along. This is worrisome. I'll have to devise some sort of penance. Maybe I'll require myself to listen to NPR for an entire day, though that seems a little harsh for such a marginal peccadillo.

So, not to be all gushy and puppies-in-a-box about it, but "Go Pats."

 

[Huckleberry1]

I’m not buying this, there are alway Pats fans at away games, players have always mention this, Zo always mentions how many Pats fans are at the away games, when I watch away games I always see the colors lots of them, at Tampa this season Zo mentioned he hadn’t seen so many Pats fans at a regular season away game before. I watched a Pats and Titans game at a bar in Nashville where the Pats fan club watches the games, my brother used to watch the games with the Arizona Pats fan club which is the biggest Pats fan club in the country outside Mass, when I’ve gone to Buffalo there are several thousand Pats fans.

The Tampa game sounded like a home game.

 

[Triumph]

I’m not buying this, there are alway Pats fans at away games, players have always mention this, Zo always mentions how many Pats fans are at the away games, when I watch away games I always see the colors lots of them, at Tampa this season Zo mentioned he hadn’t seen so many Pats fans at a regular season away game before. I watched a Pats and Titans game at a bar in Nashville where the Pats fan club watches the games, my brother used to watch the games with the Arizona Pats fan club which is the biggest Pats fan club in the country outside Mass, when I’ve gone to Buffalo there are several thousand Pats fans.

Indy has a NE fan club bar. Houston, Phoenix and Atlanta do as well.

The OP is retired.

 

[Vindicate]

I’m not buying this, there are alway Pats fans at away games, players have always mention this, Zo always mentions how many Pats fans are at the away games, when I watch away games I always see the colors lots of them, at Tampa this season Zo mentioned he hadn’t seen so many Pats fans at a regular season away game before. I watched a Pats and Titans game at a bar in Nashville where the Pats fan club watches the games, my brother used to watch the games with the Arizona Pats fan club which is the biggest Pats fan club in the country outside Mass, when I’ve gone to Buffalo there are several thousand Pats fans.

I remember San Diego games being home games for the Pats essentially.

 

[PatsFanInVa]

I hear a rumbling in the garage... I smell hydrocarbons in the air... I swear to Tom I can feel the ice caps melting from the exhaust, as the 2025 Bandwagon lumbers into the Buffalo game...

For the Bills, it's the ability to say "yeah now we're healthy you'll see we're the real AFCE big bad in our limited regular-season way," as they play for their "turn," now that KC has collapsed, at least for a season, wailing the familiar "it's not faiiiiir" lamentation all the way to a division banner before losing in the playoffs...

For the Pats, it's confirmation once more that we're back on the rise, and the tantalizing possibility that these have been years between dynasties. Or since this is the view from the bandwagon, the certainty that these have been the years between dynasties, until someone demonstrates otherwise.

For some of you guys it's the seats at Gilette, for us plebeians and out of towners, it's time to scream at a screen...

Less than 7 hours till kickoff. Knock out the home improvement projects, get the steps in, drug the kids, whatevah... Bandwagon's hitting Dunkin, McDonalds, and/or your favorite brunch place, en route to Victory, Gloating, and Divisional Dominance...

ALL ABOARD

 

[Huckleberry1]

Buffalo is really going to wish that they had won a Super Bowl while the Patriots were in a time out. From here on out they are going to have to scratch and claw just to win the division. They thought it was funny the last time they came to Foxborough, they arent laughing anymore.

If the Patriots come out swinging, the way they did against the Giants, they win this game. Buffalo won't win that fistfight. And if you lose the fistfight you lose the game. You can execute when the other team dominates you physically.

 

[TommyD4207]

Buffalo is really going to wish that they had won a Super Bowl while the Patriots were in a time out. From here on out they are going to have to scratch and claw just to win the division. They thought it was funny the last time they came to Foxborough, they arent laughing anymore.

I mean, if you believe in karma, this is the karma game for what they tried to do last year. The Dolphins already got a piece of that against them earlier.

 

[Huckleberry1]

I mean, if you believe in karma, this is the karma game for what they tried to do last year. The Dolphins already got a piece of that against them earlier.

I don't think it's " karma" so much as I think it's a mind set. It's very difficult to not take a team seriously and then suddenly start taking them seriously. Buffalo may or may not have a better roster than the Patriots, that's hard to say, but the Patriots are a better team.

 

[ViperGTS]

Been on the bandwagon since I was able to understand sports. Never lost it, never will. I watched every single game (outside of one here and there due to deployments). It's just something I do, even in the past 5 years I watched because it's Pats football. I always want what's best for the team and in football and if losing a couple of seasons mean you could kick off winning long term again...I would do it in a heartbeat.

 

[PatsFanInVa]

That was a tough 2nd half & a tough outcome, not to mention a barometer of where we are as of today. I'll get out & push, somebody pop the clutch...

 

[mgteich]

Buffalo is really going to wish that they had won a Super Bowl while the Patriots were in a time out. From here on out they are going to have to scratch and claw just to win the division. They thought it was funny the last time they came to Foxborough, they arent laughing anymore.

If the Patriots come out swinging, the way they did against the Giants, they win this game. Buffalo won't win that fistfight. And if you lose the fistfight you lose the game. You can execute when the other team dominates you physically.

this post aged well

 

[Nikolai]

This bandwagon has a lot of highway in front of it. We're still on Mile 1 and we're playing with house money on Year 1 of the Vrabel rebuild.

 

[Huckleberry1]

This bandwagon has a lot of highway in front of it. We're still on Mile 1 and we're playing with house money on Year 1 of the Vrabel rebuild.

What he said.

Watching some people turn on Drake Maye and the team was no surprise, in fact it's exactly what I expected. Every fan base has its share of loser frontrunning assholes, they are ours.

 

[Huckleberry1]

You don't need to ask the question, Sam is officially off the bandwagon.

 

[sambam94]

they are a good team, not great. Need a true #1 WR and a pass rusher

 

[UrbanCowboy]

This bandwagon has a lot of highway in front of it. We're still on Mile 1 and we're playing with house money on Year 1 of the Vrabel rebuild.

Perfect, totally house money. No loss is a "good loss" but a little reality check ain't a horrible thing. From a selfish perspective, I kinda don't want them to get the bye anyway, cuz I'd rather have extra game to watch ... this recent bye week took forever!

 

[slash83]

I’m on it more than ever before.

 

[NFL Mystique]

they are a good team, not great. Need a true #1 WR and a pass rusher

Not impossible for them to win the SB this year. But they are going to need average players to play good and then good players to play great. Feels like they are a year or two early. But getting postseason experience is still critical.

TE, #2 CB, pass rush, and #1 WR come to mind.

 

[PatsFanInVa]

Not impossible for them to win the SB this year. But they are going to need average players to play good and then good players to play great. Feels like they are a year or two early. But getting postseason experience is still critical.

TE, #2 CB, pass rush, and #1 WR come to mind.

Truthfully, on this forum, I understand how the air got let out of us yesterday, especially with a big lead at the half. But we lost by 4 yesterday, not 24. And that score wasn't a "lie," as I saw one poster comnent... We lost on ST, we lost the Penalty battle, and if we won or drew on both of those counts, that's a win. We saw a momentum shift we didn't answer., not the sack of effing Rome.

That's still a team that can get hot and compete to win it all, not one exposed as a "pretender." We absolutely have a shot. Now someone pop the clutch