Appreciate How Lucky We Are as Pats fans- the View from Outside NE

[jmt57]

Also, to add on to @Patsfanin Philly 's eloquent OP, consider this for fans of other teams: forget about how many championships those franchises have won in their existence. How many fans have ever seen their favorite NFL win it all, and if so how many?

For example, Pittsburgh fans quite often throw out the total number of Lombardi Trophies the Steelers have won. But how many has a typical Steeler fan seen? In most cases the answer is two; they weren't around for the others. (Which makes the boasting of the six Lombardis odd since they could only celebrate most of them in history books.)

Dolphin fans under the age of 50 have zero championships that they remember seeing live. A 30-year old was only seven the last time the Niners won. A 40-year old Chicago native was just eight years old last time the Bears won. It's a similar situation for many fan bases.

No wonder so many other fans keep hoping and waiting for the demise of the Patriots. We have it good, in spite of all the crap spewn our way.

 

[Gwedd]

Not to derail this thread, but....

I met and talked with Desmond Howard for some time several years ago (2006?) at, of all things, a baseball all-time greats dinner/charity fund raiser. He's a genuinely nice guy, very humble. He had nothing but positive things to say about the then-current (2001-06) Patriots. The guy was very effusive in his praise for Brady and especially for Belichick, in creating such good teams over a relatively long period of time despite the salary cap and free agency.

Little did he know then that the success would continue for another decade.


As for hate in that game, I still blame the HC that was too busy making new career plans to notice that it might be a bad idea to kick the ball to Howard.

Yeah, I don't disagree with you at all. I just remember having all this hope, after New England ties it all up, then seeing those hopes dashed when he runs back that kick off. Talk about a kick in the guts. I knew then and there that the Patriots weren't going to win. Just knew it, based upon the way they had played.

I am a football fan. I will give props to Howard for his skills and that runback. What a play, and despite a pretty good special teams effort to stop him.

And yeah, a special bucket of hate chips for that no-good, dirty, rotten, self-absorbed craptacular coach who couldn't be bothered to try and coach the team to win that day, but had checked out and only was thinking about that next gig, and how he could use it to scr3w over Kraft and the Patriots. And he started it off with that poison-pill offer that robbed us of Martin.

But we're on to the Falcons, so I'll try not to dwell on games past.

 

[Billsfanonapatsforum]

there is a generation of pats fans right now that share the polar opposite experience as bills and browns fans for example. if that is ever reversed, you'll appreciate this era. people are really just starting to see how great buffalo was in their time and having played against some of the best football teams of all time.... they should've beat the giants but in hindsight, the giants had the better coach. they had no chance against washington. they were in both dallas games and collapsed on the 4th one that they could've won.

somehow, I look back at 4 superbowl losses, consecutively as an accomplishment that is unlikely to be repeated as this era of patriots football. just because you don't win the superbowl, doesn't mean you were crap. for whatever reason buffalo was never the best team in that one game and most of us don't think they go back 4 times if they win 1.

it's really hard for a generation who's never seen hardship to appreciate greatness because buffalo and cleveland have no personal connection. I wouldn't wish this 17 years of futility on any fanbase but sox fans and cubs fans know it well.