Thursday, November 1, 2007

Where is the love?

When Michael Jordan’s Bulls were dominating the NBA in the mid-90s, we were told we were witnessing the greatest basketball player in the history of the game. And we probably were.


When the New York Yankees won a record number of games in 1998 and went on to win 3 consecutive World Series Championships … OK, a few fans bases called them the Evil Empire, but for the most part, writers waxed poetic about the perfection on the field.

When Peyton Manning and his offense was blowing the doors off teams with scores like 49-14, 41-10, 41-9 and 51-24 in the 2004 season, it was literally called a “work of art.”

So why are this year’s Patriots a-holes?

I’m a Patriots fan so I can’t really analyze this objectively. I’m hoping one of our other contributors or faithful readers can. It feels like any other time in history you had a dominating team, they got applauded. But today, pundits seem angry with the Patriots, finding fault with their success. As a longtime Yankee hater, I understand that fans tend to hate a perennial winner, but even national sports writers and commentators are getting in on this.

Is it “camera-gate”? Is it Bill Belichick’s prickly personality? Is it the confusing feelings American men get when they look into Tom Brady’s dreamy blue eyes? I just don’t know.

What I do know, is that somehow the Patriots are “classless,” even when before each game they say glowing things about their opponents and talk about how hard they are preparing to face them, while their opponents (like the Redskins two weeks ago) say that they see chinks in the Patriots’ armor and are going to beat them. I know that when Peyton Manning puts up 41 points on a team it's historic; when Tom Brady does it it's "piling on." I know that a sport that prides itself on toughness is essentially asking the Patriots to go easy and show mercy to their opponents. I know some of the people who are calling the Patriots’ character into question are saying they expect some other opponent to take a “cheap shot” at Brady one of these days. Yeah, that’s real classy.

As a fan, camera-gate was embarrassing. But now, with the league watching the team like a hawk for any hint of impropriety; with other players salivating at the chance to bring the villains down, the Patriots are still blowing through games. And somehow this is a bad thing. I just don’t get it. Someone please explain it to me.

I got some figures and quotes from this column. But I was thinking all this before I read that, I swear!

7 comments:

Red said...

I think it's a couple things. First, the blog-o-sphere has gotten so huge, EVERYONE has an opinion and it's more popular to hate everything and be snarky then to tell people how great something is.

Second, I think we like our heroes normal looking. We like our Peter Parkers played by Tobey Maguire, not Leo DiCaprio and our football QBs funny looking, not dating supermodels.

Dave Harrington said...

It's just annoying the Bilichick coashes these guys to play after the whistle so much.

If you actually watch many of their games, you will see a Patriot player fly in with an elbow or a shoulder late or when the other guy isn't looking way more often than any other team.

It's a win at all costs mentality that other teams are either not willing or not "smart" enough to adopt, depending on how you look at it. They are basically the new Raiders, who everyone also used to hate until, ironically, New England beat on the Tuck Rule to get into the 1st super bowl.

Plus Brady wears choo-choo train hats.

Anonymous said...

There are so many reasons to hate the pats but I will give one reason. The blogsphere thing is correct, but not in the way red thinks. The general population is now subject to all the arrogant, douchebaggery of the general boston population. Im not saying only boston fans are douchebags, they just happen to be the biggest ones right now. If there was the internet and every article had a place to put a comment during the niners of the 80's, cowboys of the 90's, the bulls of the 90's im sure people would have hated these fans just as badly.

Case in point, The biggest boston douchebag there is Bill Simmons during the whole cameragate thing said that the forty niners dynasty was tainted by cap cheating. Even though the cap was instated the year of the niners LAST superbowl. So that was a false statement that any respectable writer would have been able to research, yet is typical of your boston fan. Make some bs statement with no accuracy, and if anyone questions it, call them a hater. People dont hate the pats ANYWHERE NEAR how much they hate boston sports fans.

Anonymous said...

The above rambling run on paragraph can be summed up in two statements.

1)Fans of winning sports teams are annoying.

2)Bill Simmons is a douchebag

Dave Harrington said...

Nice one, San-Diatribe.

Don't forget to watch BS on E:60!

Dave Harrington said...

And we can add this one from Sunday to thie list:

http://sports.aol.com/fanhouse/2007/11/04/patriots-rosie-colvin-owns-peyton-manning-city-of-indianapolis/#comments

Liz said...

So everyone hates them because they're winning? I can understand that.