I think we're all trying to make sense of this team, optimists and pessimists alike.
The team is within a game or so either way, the same team it has been for 18 years.
Yes, yesterday was a terrific win. Not just to get the all important W, but we looked dominant on both sides of the ball. So everyone should feel at least encouraged by what we saw, but we shouldn't dismiss the last two weeks as complete aberrations or completely meaningless.
They were adversity. This team respond to and grows from adversity. Always has. When it plays poorly, it fixes the problem.
After all, I feel one bad performance is expected.....there will be a game when one team just doesn't show up (think 2010 vs Browns), but two in a row....with one being on the national stage to the lowly Lions after a week of the team talking about 'executing better' and 'focusing more'? That just doesn't happen.....at least not since 2002. So as much as we look towards history to help give us hope, there was a different vibe to this season.
No different vibe.
Last year we lost 2 of the first 3 HOME games and allowed 108 points, 33 + in each
In the next 5 home games we allowed 59 total and won them all.
In 2015 we lost 4 of the last 6 games, losing back to back to the jets and dolphins in the last 2 games to lose the 1 seed.
In 2014, we got drubbed in the opener, barely beat the raiders, who were the worst team in the league, at home in week 3 and got blown out of kc. We were FAR worse in the first 4 weeks of 2014 than 2018.
We are the dominant franchise in the league but are not in any way immune to bad games, and never have been.
I think everyone is justified in continuing to feel uneasy as we try to figure out who the 2018 Patriots really are. Right now, it's trending well given the recent win, Edelman's upcoming return, and knowing that Gordon will only build in chemistry with Brady.
His people feel is how they want to feel. Posts on this board actually make it seem like people think how they feel will affect how the team plays. Who gives a crap is someone is uneasy? What difference does it make?
To me you waste the beauty of being a fan if this dynasty by sitting around in fear that the team may stop wining and you didn’t see it coming. How is that fun? I mean do you (not speaking to you personally) sit around home watching everything your wife does wondering if it’s a sign that she is leaving you? Wow, she was in a bad mood 3 days last week I wonder if that’s the beginning of the end? I’m going to sit at work tomorrow and spend some time thinking about whether this bad mood feels the same as the others that she got over. While I’m at it I’m going to tell my buddies all the thinks that are bad about her so if she leaves me I can say I saw it coming.