Perusing these boards this week, I have not come across any blatant overconfidence. I think there are overconfident Patriots fans out there, but I am also fairly certain that there are overconfident Ravens, Broncos, Falcons, Seahawks, and Texans fans out there as well.
The question of "should they be...?" is absurd IMO because it is silly to assign an emotive label to an entire fan-base under such a spurious premise.
In other words, Felger and Mazz, like the majority of their collective mediot brethren, once again hop aboard the hyperbole train for web hits/clicks.
Yes, I actually took the bait and listened to the segment. Mazz's problem is he holds up Dan Shaughnessy's most recent article (and let's face it, Shaughnessy is milking his "no way the Pats can lose" shtick to the max because it's the first time anyone has listened to what he has to say in years [even if it is to criticize him]) and applies it to all Pats fans, none of whom contributed to the article. The only person Mazz has proved is overconfident is Shaughnessy. How pathetic is that?
You have to take Felger & Mazz for what they are. A couple of guys who know a little bit about sports (probably in many instances no more than the rest of us) who are paid to go on the airwaves every day and get people to listen. How do you get people to listen? By being controversial and contrarian, no matter what the subject. I just like listening to football talk, no matter what, so I tolerate them.
But just for fun, let's look at this whole "Patriots have not been very good in subsequent match-ups" talk, as that has been one of their talking points all week. If you look at this year's team, we have already had 3 subsequent match-ups, with our 3 division rivals. Each time they played us close in the first game, and we blew them out in the 2nd. Does it mean anything? I don't know, but maybe it means that this year's team is good at ferreting out weaknesses (coaches) and implementing adjustments (players). Or maybe it means that all three just gave up by the time we faced them again (certainly looked that way with Miami) and it has no bearing on anything.
Last year we blew out Denver in both the in-season and post-season games. And we narrowly lost to the Giants in both the in-season and post-season games. What does that mean? Maybe that we had Denver's number and the Giants had ours? Doesn't it mean, at least maybe, that we have the Texan's number?
Who knows? It is hard to beat a team twice in one year, but the Pats have done it a lot in the last 10 or 11 years. They've also lost some. What really amazes me when I step back is just how large a sample size we have to choose from. The Pats have been in an unbelievable amount of post-season games, even since 1996. We are really lucky to have such a good team. For that I am very thankful (and confident, but not overly so).
