Logically you are correct. The Patriots have also lost some real heartbreakers since their last SB victory (2006 AFCCG, 2007 SB, 2009 WC, 2011 SB), which people have really enjoyed. It's not like it's been all glory and champagne. But they basically have a realistic shot at the Super Bowl every year as long as Brady is QB and Belichick is coach. This will be their 6th Super Bowl appearance in 14 seasons. They've had a stranglehold on their division forever. The QB is a handsome millionaire who married a supermodel who is even richer than he is. Our coach is a surly bastard who pushes the limit, ignores the unwritten (and sometimes written) rules and has no problem expressing his disdain for dumb questions and a large portion of the media. He's also smarter and better than almost all the other coaches. There's Spygate, obviously. There's the Patriots using every kind of play and advantage to win games (hurry up offense, quick snaps, unusual formations). There's the fact that they never let up on an opponent until the clock strikes 0.
The fans are from a city that went from being joked on (Red Sox, 1918, Who's Your Daddy, etc.) and irrelevant for the last 25 years (Celtics post-1986, Patriots always, Bruins) to winning championships consistently across all the sports. It's created its fair share of obnoxious, entitled fans that seem to stand out loudest among the crowd. Not exactly a recipe for everyone to love the Patriots, you understand. To an extent I really do get it.
If you're a fan of the team, you just have to accept it and realize it's just noise and it comes with the territory of utterly unprecedented winning over a long period of time. Some people are never going to like the Patriots, and they'll latch on to whatever far-fetched reason to discredit or disrespect them. If you give me the option of the Patriots success of the last 15 years and being hated vs. the Browns last 15 years and being lovable losers...well, the choice is simple. 🙂
Those are all good points.
I don't hate the Pats for winning when they did but the two high profile losses made even me feel bad for a team on the other side of the country from me.
But if you want to hate somebody for winning in general, then for professional sports the last years since 2000 have belonged to Boston (uncontested professional sports title town in those years), and not the usual New York.
New York was always weird, win or lose, with those Madison Square Garden Knicks fans. Why, I don't know but there's some ego mojo going on over there. Then you had the LT era NY Giants and their larger than life image. There was Favre and overinflated hopes with the record setting QB. There was the Yankees core four dynasty not to mention too many WS wins in that 20th century. I think in the '80s and '90s, at least for me and everyone I knew, New York was the city to hate, hands down.
But I don't think amazing post-2000 wins from Bruins, Red Sox, and Celtics are going to erase the Pats 2007 and 2011 heartbreaking seasons for me and start hating Brady. Yes, he's good looking and reportedly prettier than his Victoria Secret wife, but how do you lose two Super Bowls to a mediocre Giants and less than elite Eli Manning? That has to hurt and I think a lot of newly minted Pats fans from other areas of the country, like me, will really be pulling for Tom to get those two monkeys off his back which are just as unsightly, even with pretty looks and a pretty wife.
😉
And then there's the aging America who will be pulling for a QB many deem past his prime to take out the young, and full of (well, you know what) Seahawks who come across as bullies too new to know the concept of respect. Experience and patience can win over the fastest 40 and youthful stamina.
And for "
...I'll turn that question over to the other football fans in this thread that hate the Patriots":
You may find Pats haters on this board, OK Jets fans, but wait until you start seeing what stupid stuff Seahawks fans and Richard Sherman himself start saying before the big game.
If Seattle isn't already hated more than anybody, what they say in coming days will make even the most pro-Jets fans take up sides with the Patriots. I think one of the Jets fans here already said they will be rooting for Patriots and that alone shows there's no hate, these days, against New England. I think a national poll the day before the game will show a country behind the Patriots and there will be this little part of the map showing Washington state being for the Seahawks. Trust me, Niners fans in Calfornia and Raiders fans (who were victims too many times of the then AFC West Seahawks) will guarantee that the biggest state will be a Patriots state.
