To cut past the individual replies...
Welcome aboard, although this is pretty much the crew that never left We got a sparkly new driver and pit crew, the primary weapon is loaded for buffalo, and the secondary batteries for dolphin and ratbird, if you take my meaning. (Jets just
self-destruct).
Bandwagon, yes, pink hat, never!
Goes without saying! Ticket punched, sir. Enjoy the ride!
I’ll get on the « this is awesome, I remember feeling like this before about this team ! » wagon. I’m most def not boarding the « let’s remortgage the house to bet on NE hoisting the trophy » wagon…
Ticket punched, mortgage untouched. Although refi rates are coming down, and while you're in there anyway...
At 6:54am you are soaring in the clouds of what might be and wrote this lengthy declaration? I barely manage a grunt if someone says good morning as I ponder if I need to take a $&!T or not.
Effin A! I have a new wife and she watched the game Monday night, and when we met she was psyched to finally have her own team, through me... she's Peruvian by birth, a U.S. citizen about 20 years... anyway, she was so stoked to see them play. Bonus. Her cousin's husband is from... drumroll... Buffalo -- so
she's a Bills fan. Every week she's been like "they won again?" (when they weren't on TV)... Monday, she just said "Amor, your team is really good. They never lose."
Maybe seeing it all again through someone's eyes who wasn't there the first time made me reevaluate how mega-blessed my football fandom has been!
Bud accepted, your ticket is punched sir. Welcome aboard!
I bet the Patriots to win the AFC back in July…
Conversely back in 2020 I said that Pat’s team was not going to be good.
I’m not always right, this game is too volatile… but always objective. This team is talented and well coached… that’s a contender.
That'll do, you dead-hearted analytical bastard! Ticket punched upside down. Because Australia.
If anyone ever questioned my loyalty I'd tell them the story of how Super Bowl XLVI put me in the ER because I thought I was having a heart attack. (Which in fact turned out to be my first ever anxiety attack)
When my brother told me the Giants had won my heart rate and bp spiked.
Since then I've reeled in my fandom somewhat for my own health and wellbeing, but I bleed Patriots blue red and white.
Ticket punched! The game didn't do it to me, but I've got the stents from the real deal - may your disengagement be rewarded with a sort of detached appreciation. (If I'm being honest, I can't muster veins-bulging-out-of-my-neck, jumping-up-and-down, yelling-kill-kill-kill levels anymore... more's the pity)
on the band wagon? what the hell kind of question is that? Was never Off the band wagon...
honestly, 99.1% of the people here have always been on the band wagon
( i say 99.1% because .08% are fans of other teams and .01% are bat-**** crazy, so who knows who they root for )
Ticket punched for '25 my friend, & good answer
I start every season saying we're going 17-0. Nice to see the Pats finally getting close to my expectations. I'm not sure I ever got off the bandwagon.
Ticket punched for '25... I might have slipped myself after riding the "Mac Jones made the Pro Bowl" high straight into no-OC, no QB-whisperer, no-receivers regression. Our drafts have been good to us lately. It'll take a minute for the league to catch up to that. This year not just MVP Maye, not just Coach of the Year Vrabel, but a team award for whoever handles personnel and however they handle it. Sure Vrabes might get to shop for the groceries but he needs scouts on the case too... they have excelled, both in draft and FA.
I don’t know what I am on but I do know that this season, I am feeling magnanimous in forgiving other teams fans who talk negatively about the Pats, I just pity them and have this feeling that I know something they don’t. I can’t quite put my finger on what exactly I know but it is there and growing with each performance. The closest thing that describes what I feel internally about this team and future is encapsulated in this exchange here. I have same feeling as Milton here.
Yeah it's in the air, and any Pats fan can feel it. The best way I can sum it up is, there's NE out there making Buffalo feel like this is way too familiar... and making us feel like "yeah it is" (you know, with a shlitz-eating grin). You can feel the next 20 years starting here. Ticket punched MF, glad to watch it start with you!
What I am loving about this team is that we already know we are the cusp of something special, but since it is still developing we don’t know how high the cusp is.
That is a feeling that is hard to beat as a sports fan.
Ticket puncned & let's find out I'm not feeling like the old "past returns do not guarantee future results" disclaimer, I'm going with irrational exuberance right now!
I've always felt like you can't truly enjoy the highest of the highs without having been there for the lowest of the lows. For me my favorite Super Bowl win was XLIX for so many reasons, but chief among them were the devastating loss in the game that shall not be named and the subsequent loss in XLVI.
10 years between championships, and many heartbreaks in those 10 years, was Brady really the GOAT or had those early D's carried him to titles? Would he ever match Montana and Bradshaw? Who's on First? What's in the chicken?
So much pain and heartache
instantly turning to unbridled elation when the Butler did it.
I felt it my brother -- feeling like maybe it was going to be a dynastic run, and then like having the main piece but missing just that extra oomph for so many years. The game that shall not be mentioned and son of the game that shall not be mentioned are really bitter pills in that nevertheless elevated period... then there's what came before, as your brothers below detail... and I could only co-sign. Welcome aboard for '25, ticket punched!
This is 1996 and 2001 all over again. Like 1996, the Bills were leading the division for most of the season, but the deciding factor was the Pats beating them in Foxboro as the Bills later went on a 3 game skid. Had the Bills swept the Pats, the Bills would've won the division and the Pats are hosting Jacksonville in the Wildcard round. Pats can repeat history by taking the division from the Bills in two weeks.
In 2001, most media and fans had little expectations for the team as they were the "least talented in the NFL". Same thing was predicted going into this season, but they've gone on a tear so for with an 11-2 record and have won close games. If the Pats can beat the Bills and Ravens in the next two weeks, we should all be very confident they will be representing the AFC in the Super Bowl.
It's coming - a wide-open year this time, and by the time the dust settles into the opposite pattern... reigning king and pretenders - we're going to be Henry the F***in eighth. Sorry, I marathoned The Tudors and felt like "yeah that's how the Pats should look to the rest of the league." Ticket punched for '25, enjoy the ride!
This is my 38th year with season tickets so I’ve never hopped off the bandwagon.
Section 140 of the Bandwagon is glad to see you back. Enjoy the ride!
My 32nd, you beat me by six years. Although, I wonder if you thought about not renewing before Tuna arrived. Those Rust-MacPherson years were brutal.
You sit with him, ticket punched.
Too ****in right! Welcome aboard, & ticket punched
I, Vindicate, pledge myself to be distinctly annoying in my unending support of, cheer for, and solidarity with the New England Patriots, from once I first started, to now, and in perpetuity, through thick and thin, and will fulfill my obligation to constantly remind other fans that their team is trash compared to ours. I promise to raise my first kid as a Patriots fan and if they don't give in, I will board a boat with them and then leave when the use the bathroom. I will never try to find them again.
Well, if that's the level you feel you can commit to, we'll take it Tickets punched for you and the glimmer in your eye destined to become your first born, enjoy the ride, and teach the children... that once there was a time before Super Bowls, until the false prophet Eason, and the voice crying in the wilderness, Bledsoe, showed us the way... and then the Chosen one let us six times to the promised land... and with the Second Coming, we returned there. Teach them that once we were like the Jets of the air and the Buffalo of the plains and the Dolphins of the seas, with no relevance and few rings... bid them remember that from dust we arose, but to dust we have no intention of returning for any length of time. Welcome aboard the 2025 bandwagon refit!
I was always on the their side no matter how dire things looked. I have always bled their colours and was here passionately the last four years as well. Never rooted for another player over the Patriots . Love them wholeheartedly since the early 90's, never stopped and am so excited about this year because it was so unexpected just like 2001 !!
Feels so 2001 ish right? Welcome aboard, ticket punched!
What is this bandwagon people speak of ? On a serious note, why do do many other fans call Patriots fan bandwagon fan ? My friends and family have been fans for decades , we never gave up even in the lean times
It's just the last thing you can say when your team sucks and nobody but you and your defeat-embracing friends suffer through their bullcrap willingly. Yeah I'm talking about the Jest. Welcome aboard the 2025 vehicle, strap in, and enjoy the ride! Ticket punched!
I am on the championship in sight bandwagon but not the dynasty bandwagon. Not yet. And a lot of the reason not has to due with Maye.
There have only been 2 salary cap era dynasties. And they both had not good, not great, but all time QB play. Not just HOF QB play. But elite HOF QB play.
I believe to be a dynasty these days that is what is required. It is to hard to hold an elite roster together with a mid QB. The Eagles did but we are starting to see it fall off. The Rams are doing it with Stafford but I feel like that can't last. And they are a slip away from that window closing.
Each signing must be done with careful thought to the now and future. Each high price vet you bring in or trade for to stay bead the top really has to pay off. It is a hard balancing act.
Maye is arguably great right now. But he Lacks me in comparison to Brady and Mahomes of years past. There isn't that same air of enevitability they had. And it isn't just cause of the lack of accomplishment. His play leaves a little too much on the table. Leaves the door open. It never feels like he will turn the game upside down and take it from you regardless of what you try.
Can he be that? Maybe. But he needs to improve a bit more still. He isn't there yet. Which is odd to say as he is first right now in MVP voting, but let's be honest. This is a weak MVP year. In most years Maye and Stafford would be 3rd and 4th on that list.
Ticket cautiously punched! On the Dynasty 3 count, I'll believe for you! Worst thing I can be is wrong! (I'll return to reason at some point and bemoan this post I guess... but right now, call Canton, we need some busts made)
I’m still on the bandwagon. It was getting pretty dismal on here the past couple of years, what with the wagon mired in a bog of recriminations about past draft mistakes and departed coaches, with nothing to eat but crow and chicken **** salad made with ptomaine mayo. Glad we purged that useless effluent and got things back on track with Vrabel, a TRex at left tackle, and D”DM”M,MVP (Drake “Drake Maye” Maye, Most Valuable Player) at QB, plus a host of other stellar draft picks and free agent signings. Nice to see the wagon all spiffed up and beginning to roll again.
First of all, thank you for just going with the metaphor. A man's reach should exceed his grasp. or what's a "meta" for? I had to leave off much of this excellent reply for length... but welcome aboard for '25, ticket punched!
After the Jets won he Superbowl in '69 I switched my fandom from the Browns to the Patriots, as after that SB win knew the AFL was real and gonna stick around.
Since then been an unwavering fan since and will stay on this bandwagon forever. Took a crap load of abuse at work for being a Pats Fan for the most part in the 80's and 90's, but never changed my allegiance to our team.
Never rooted for another team except the Boston Breakers for 10 minutes in the old USFL (before they went to Portland.)
Welcome aboard the '25 Bandwagon - ticket punched!
