Some Millennial fans are sort of annoying, though. All they care about is brady and stats, and they take the anti-bb media cheese way too easily.
Anyone who goes back to the 70s or 80s sort of knows why the crowd has been weak at times during these games, too.
Spoiled rotten and don’t know the other end of it.
The 70's and 80's included a ton of tremendous victories and great stretches for the Patriots, who were serious title contenders several times, as opposed to over a dozen other NFL teams who did not sniff the title in the 60's, 70's or 80's.
The envy and hatred of Boston has lots to do with the Celtics, Bruins and Red Sox.
"These fans are spoiled. They just expect us to show up and win every week."
-John Hannah, after beating the Jets in Foxborough in 1979.
The bemoaning and complaining about a five-year stretch here from '89-'93 of rebuilding with the retirements of several key veterans and upheaval in the front office is sickening. There was a quarter century of utter futility in Green Bay between Lombardi and Favre, and no, they never ruined their uniforms.
It has never been easy to make the trek down Route 1, and struggling ownership in staggering debt causing minimal amenities made it a tough road for fans. Not me. My Celtics fandom diminished not one iota in the late 70's when the franchise really was a laughingstock...for real. They were still the Celtics...I remember Johnny Most delivering the most passionate, touching speech toward the end of one of those seasons, pleading with fans not to lose faith. I didn't need it, but it was moving nonetheless.
The New England Patriots had a world wide fan base and following in the mid-eighties.
The denigration and prejudice against the Patriots since the merger in '70 picked up huge steam in the 90's, with the inevitable struggle in ownership and on the field; and the league, and the media, locally and nationally, pouncing like hungry sharks in a pool of blood-drenched water.
Bob Kraft bought the team, kept it here and hired BB. Bravo.
But all along, he has kowtowed to the NFL in every conceivable way. Going along with every stupid, wrong denigration and insult. He starts every one of his speeches with "Since 1994..."
He should have just renamed the team. Bill Parcells - whom Kraft did not hire - and financially secure ownership brought the fans in and sellouts continued, even after Kraft drove Parcells out of town. That's where the bandwagon accusation stems from. Virtually every pro franchise suffers declining attendance when they struggle on the field. Younger fans, and young parents with money followed Kraft's lead, really, really wanting the team to be "reborn from obscurity" and believing the team was "broken and ridiculed" and that it previously "damaged the league".
How many posts right here on this site, when referring to games we saw or attended from '89-92, have the phrase "by the way, we won that game" or "we just barely lost" in them?
All the money, propaganda and acquiescence to the NFL cannot make Drew Bledsoe and the Patriots of the 90's nearly as good, exciting or heroic (or good-looking) as their predecessors the previous three decades.
