It’s tough, especially for young kids. I was really bad with losses until I was around 21. It’s a tough lesson, but it’s a good lesson to learn at a young age. It’s just sports, it’s not life. I know it sounds simple, and it’s tough for young folks. I remember the 1976 playoff loss to the Raiders, I was 14 and so upset. Had first become a Pat’s fan a year earlier in 1975. But really was invested in that 1976 team.
I was a month away from turning 14 so you're just a bit older than me.
I was always a fan, but I really went ga-ga when Fairbanks put together a tremendously talented team in '74, which started 5-0 and was two excruciating losses to Lou Saban's Bills two weeks apart (sandwiching the Bob Windsor win at Minnesota) away from being 8-0. Mack Herron, Jim Plunkett along with several all time Patriots.
Fairbanks utilized the Plunkett trade to SF - one of the all time heists in sports history - along with his continued shrewd signing and drafting to add several more super Pats and, without any devastating injuries, put it together in '76. Behind Hannah and the rest, we just dominated the line of scrimmage. Rookie Haynes was the straw that stirred the drink on defense (plus punt returns). Three years after implementing the 3-4 we had it down and teams just couldn't deal with it.
The Raiders' first TD, off a silly Russ Francis interception, was a desperate heave from Stabler that Biletnikoff hauled in miraculously in the first half.
You know the rest. But, even then, without internet, cell phones, cable TV etc., the media dismissal, denigration and abuse of the Patriots was sickening. Every other franchise has been trumpeted to the stars just for making the playoffs before and since, but for us it was:
"...and oh by the way the surprising New England Patriots are in the playoffs this year...Moving on to every other team in the league...blah blah blah..."
The robbery of the championship that day merits astronomically more than all the generations of moaning and crying about the immaculate reception, in or out of bounds, the F*ck Rule and one unintentionally blown call for the Saints last year in the midst of other calls in their favor and countless opportunities for them to win that game anyway.
Bob Costas tried to point this fact out, at least to the point that Patriots fans have (and will) never accept or forget what happened, in the pregame of the '85 AFCCG, but as always, nobody cared or listened.
Naturally the six titles help, but unwarranted denigration of the team has only increased.
All the ensuing clownery by Sullivan plus the Tatum hit just poured salt into that one, gaping wound from 1976. Officially declaring that our six titles are more legitimate than any other franchise's in history, along with winning another Super Bowl donning our real logo and uniforms, would only begin to set the historical record straight.
