Some thoughts on the Pats
With so much hype this week about the Patriots-Colts game, and so much of it being stupid, a few words are in order.
The media and the league just don’t understand the Patriots. Period. They freeze a notion of what a team is all about in their heads at the start of the season and then the team either plays well or it doesn’t according to that model. That’s why they’re always surprised when the Pats win. That’s why they always pick wrong when it comes to the Patriots, especially early in the season.
The Patriots play different every week. Whatever will work, they’ll do. Who would have thought they’d go 4-wide all game last week against the Vikings. The talking heads can’t grasp that the team they see in Foxboro in September is only a shadow of what Belichick expects it to be in December. The team grows, changes, evolves, improves – every week. Even when there’s injuries, the people who fill the gaps get better every week.
Kraft, Belichick, and the team go their own way. They say screw the personal stats, the endorsements, and the media – we want to win championships. Reminds you of Red Auerbach, don’t it? And even though they’re “underpaid” they’re happy, they’re winning, they’re taken care of. There’s no scandals, no one getting arrested, and the only fines are the ones on-field against Rodney Harrison (which he sets funds aside for every season).
And the media machine that is tied to the league doesn’t like the Patriots either. Without the statistics, the intrigue, the coach yelling at people there’s nothing to talk about. Who wants to talk about a bunch of guys who just go and win every week with no showboating? That doesn’t sell sneakers. Or SUV’s. Or whatever. So they prop up Manning or the Steelers or the Cowboys as being “interesting” and worthy of attention.
What a joke. If the Patriots win this year, Junior Seau will be the greatest recruiting tool the team ever had. He would have gone from ringless retirement to a Superbowl champion in one season. All by being willing to join a real team and settle for a fair salary as opposed to breaking the bank in Monte Carlo. Every over-30 free agent who’s stuck on teams who won’t win anything of worth this decade will be asking their agents to make a call to Boston and see if there’s room.
Next, this Colts-Patriots “rivaly” is nothing.
Not compared to the Bruins-Canadiens rivalry of the 70′s (frikkin’ Dryden). Or the Celtics-Lakers or Celtics-Pistons battles of the 80′s (frikkin’ Laimbeer). And nothing compared to the unwavering loathing held for the Tuna (frikkin’ Pahselz).
We hate the Raiders and Dolphins more than we hate the Colts because of History. We hate the Steelers more because they sidelined Rodney for a year – and then the league propped Ben up as the Next Brady (yeah, right).
We don’t expect the rest of the country to understand Boston. Better that they don’t, we don’t want a bunch of poseurs all moving in like what’s happened in Seattle. We pick our enemies for our own reasons and that’s all there is to it.
A lot of the resentment New England fans feel towards Manning and the Colts is the fault of the league and their media shills. The Patriots have won three championships in five years. The Colts haven’t won one in thirty-five years – haven’t even been to the Superbowl once in that time. Yet because the marketing weasels run things, the Patriots are forced to play in the shadow of the Colts even though it should be the other way around.
This work, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
