More Thoughts About Why I Hate the Patriots
The Patriots are 15-0 now, and they're going to go 19-0. I know it. It will happen. And it annoys me.
I'm pretty sure it also annoys most football fans. Most? Like, 98 percent of them who don't live in New England.
It ticks off NFL teams, too.
I made reference to this idea a week or so ago, but it hit me again today, and I'm going to suggest it again. Why the Patriots bug the NFL. And me.
The National Football League (and it's true at all levels of football, actually) really respects only those teams that are physically better than everyone else.
It's a physical game. A game of strength and speed and also of courage and recklessness. And if you run into a team that has oodles of that, and they just kick your butt up and down the field, you have to respect that. And football teams always do. "Man, they handled us."
The thing about the Patriots? They are the all-time finesse team.
That's not to say they don't have some tough guys, some people who can impose their will on your, mano a mano.
But what separates these Patriots from just about any team that ever existed is how the Patriots just out-wit you and carve you up with Tom Brady's short-range passing.
It's like being cut to pieces by a skinny little rapier, rather than hacked to death with an ax. Football people can accept the latter; the former enrages them. Death from a thousand cuts is not how they want to go.
Today, the Patriots actually ran for some yards, mostly because the Miami Dolphins are horrible. But even against the worst team in the league, the Patriots came out and passed on their first six, seven, eight plays. Because that's what they do. Pass. Dink. Nibble you to death with 4-yard passes.
It isn't a "manly" way to play the game. And I know, they don't give the Lombardi Trophy to the team that is the roughest and toughest. They give it to the team that scores the most points.
It's just that for nearly all of football's history, the team that scores the most also was the most physically imposing. These Patriots are not that. And it's unnatural. It's wrong. I hate it.
The Patriots defeated Miami 28-7. All that's left between them and a perfect season is the New York Giants. Then the roll through the playoffs, the inevitable rout of the NFC champ in the Super Bowl ... and it's going to bug me for years. If the '72 Dolphins are any indication ... it could be decades before another team is perfect. Ack.