Happy 26th Anniversary to Pats Fans

[Triumph]

Just out of curiosity, how many others here were members of boston.com forums prior to this place’s creation (1990’s) and what handle did you use?

I was on AOL first and then moved to KFFL.

 

[TheRainMaker]

Anyone else remember ESPN had an ombudsman for each team’s message board?

 

[jmt57]

Anyone else remember ESPN had an ombudsman for each team’s message board?

If I recall correctly that person had their hands full in 2007-08, then ESPN got rid of the position.

 

[Bill Lee]

Jurassic veteran of USENET football forae in the early 90s.

Yep, me too. Didn't post because I was a contract employee at the late, great Digital Equipment Corporation and was reading stuff on company time. What else were you supposed to do when building the software took so long? Was making very good money and didn't want to put that at risk just to post stuff to USENET. I'm sure my boss would do his best to sweep it under the rug if someone made a stink about it since he was so short staffed, but you just don't want to risk it by leaving an electronic paper trail.

Was shocked to be walking around late at night (contractors were paid overtime, sweet!) and looking over a cubicle wall (I'm tall enough to do it) and seeing a guy looking at p0rn he downloaded from the infamous alt.binaries groups. I thought that person was insane to put a job at risk just to look at a tiny picture of someone naked. Just take the sweet cash you're earning and buy some mags, dude!

I just want to add a special thanks for the freedom of speech on here, letting us criticize, vent and swear but still under control so it doesn't get too raw or out of hand. I've been banned from like 3 sports fan forums without warning so we should feel very lucky and grateful that type of extreme speech control doesn't happen here.

I was pleasantly surprised when the swear filter went away. I thought people would abuse it, but nope, it's fine.

 

[scott99]

Anyone remember Soothsayer? He owned a Jets board and would visit Pats boards when the Jets were atop the AFCE stirring up a lot of crap.

Remember when a Jets fan created a hoax that spread like fire across the internet. Drew Bledsoe had been traded. Pats Nation was in shock because he was the future. It was sometime back in 2000 when it was harder to discern fact from fiction. It was like the Wild West back in those days.

NEM (rip) kept PF.Com lively back in the early years. Writing letters to Bob Kraft. Begging for him to fire Charlie Weis because he never called Slants across the middle.

I remember NEM. He was intense. I remember he actually wrote a few articles for PatsFans I believe. He was very nice to me. I once wrote and article about the Pat’s lack of killer instinct back in the day (early 2000’s), and he told me it was good. It was probably ****, but I appreciated his kindness that he showed towards me. Obviously I didn’t agree with his anti Charlie Weiss fervor. But he kept things interesting.

 

[PATSNUTme]

Miguel had a draft site back in the day. I use to go there as he updated and posted all other draft sites on the internet. He did his usual flawless job.
He mentioned patsfans.com on the draft site so I decided to look in to see what it was all about.
I lurked for a while not being sure if I wanted to mix it up with a bunch of crazy bastards. But I was young and dumb, barely 55 years of age when I made the dive in.
I made some great buddies, some sadly have passed.
There were times, when there was much turmoil here, it would have been easy for Ian to pull the plug. But he kept his baby alive.
Congrats to Ian for continuing to make this the best fan site on the internet.

 

[Patriot Missile]

I joined the new site in 04 or 05 but was member of previous site until I lost my password. It was god awful, a cascading column of threads that continually over lapped each other with each new post. So hard to navigate. But like Ian said, a lot was also about the posters and at the time its all we had in the early 2000’s and the content was good.

Amazing how much history and lore has been uncovered and created here in such a short 26 years.

Btw Ian, it may be the posters that give this board creativity, substance in the threads and comments but don’t think for a second the thousands of hours and your own earnings you’ve put here go unnoticed. I’ve got to assume you enjoy doing it because I can’t begin to imagine the effort and time that goes into running a 24/7 website on the side. All the updates to keep it secure and functional, staying up late or setting an alarm clock to do updates and patches after hours. Thanks Ian for all of it and making this a place to always have just a click away.

 

[patriotsdynasty12189]

Ahh yes, Think I came over here in 2006ish from scout.com

 

[Patjew]

This place has been an important part of my dumb life for a long time. I’m thankful to @Ian for his friendship and the friendship of so many others that I’ll never meet IRL… people I feel like I know well and who know me well.

 

[Triumph]

I remember NEM. He was intense. I remember he actually wrote a few articles for PatsFans I believe. He was very nice to me. I once wrote and article about the Pat’s lack of killer instinct back in the day (early 2000’s), and he told me it was good. It was probably ****, but I appreciated his kindness that he showed towards me. Obviously I didn’t agree with his anti Charlie Weiss fervor. But he kept things interesting.

I met NEM at the AZPats fan club during the undefeated Super Bowl in Phoenix.

The Krafts were there one night and I could tell that NEM wanted to speak with them. Andre Tippet was with the Krafts too because he just was inducted into the NFL HOF. I had no idea that he would be there and I happened to be wearing a white Tippet jersey that I bought on clearance at the mall.

 

[Mike the Brit]

This place has been an important part of my dumb life for a long time. I’m thankful to @Ian for his friendship and the friendship of so many others that I’ll never meet IRL… people I feel like I know well and who know me well.

You too, buddy, you too!

 

[TheRainMaker]

I once wrote and article about the Pat’s lack of killer instinct back in the day (early 2000’s)

Spot on and I noticed that as well. Many people don't remember Tom made a lot of dumb throws that got teams back into games when the offense had the opportunity to put games away. Defense also collapsed a lot.

 

[Triumph]

Spot on and I noticed that as well. Many people don't remember Tom made a lot of dumb throws that got teams back into games when the offense had the opportunity to put games away. Defense also collapsed a lot.

NEM no doubt blamed it all on Charlie Weis. IIRC, NEM wanted Weis up in the booth and not on the sidelines too.

Remember NEMs campaign to acquire David Boston? Bob Kraft received letters about him too.