Pats Fan Response to a trolling spammer

As some fellow Pulpit readers saw, yesterday a spammer appeared on the board and claimed to represent Patriots fans when he wrote that we were all just waiting for Tom Brady's return. Turns out it was just a ploy to link to an external "sports news" site.

As I'm sure it did with any real New England fan, the essay got me pretty fired up when I read it. Below is the response I wrote on behalf of the Pulpit and Patriots fans everywhere, which we'd like to move out of the comments and into its own post so we can erase the spam. I'll even leave it my mistake of using the word "media" too often in the same paragraph when talking about Bill...

The silver lining, in as much as one can be found in the injury to a franchise player and the public face of your team, is that the burden of expectation is gone from the punditry and fans. We know the players in the Patriots locker room still expect to win every week and leave everything on the field. As dedicated fans, we still expect and cheer for solid effort regardless of the final score.

Though I would much rather have Brady leading our team into championship contention, I do confess to finding a bit of relief this season as well. With the Patriots dynastic period, the burdens of winning grew heavy on the franchise and its fans in many ways. Here’s a few reasons why I can still enjoy this season:

A Win is a Win
No one is going to confuse Cassel this year with Brady last year. But with Tom Terrific at the helm, and the huge blowouts we had early on, winning was no longer the measure of success. Those of us who follow football know how improbable and difficult the Patriots’ win streaks and scoring proficiency were to achieve.

But the rest of the football world piled on. The whispers of a record setting offense spread like wildfire throughout the coverage last year, and any game where there weren’t three touchdown passes or more were perceived by many as disappointing, or worse, failures. When they did light people up, they were called poor sports. When they eeked out close games, they were lucky, a house of cards ready to collapse.

This year, every win is hard fought, a hardscrabble victory from an injury depleted roster. I can savor the downing of every opponent whether the margin of victory is large or small. And the only stat I obsess over is the win column, which is how it should be in a team game.

The Redemption of Bill
Depending on who you talk to, last year’s Spygate was the most horrible and invalidating instance of cheating ever discovered in professional sports, or an overblown incident that was taken out of proportion by fans and media alike. No matter the perspective, few would argue that Bill Belichick’s reputation as a great coach suffered. Cooler heads dissected how much impact the illegal videotapes really assisted his coaching, but to thousands of fans in other cities Bill wasn’t a genius anymore, he was a farce.

Even before the story broke, people were eager to hate him. His success was often attributed to having lucked out in the drafting of Brady when everyone else passed on him for 6 rounds in 2000. His press demeanor won him few allies in the press. It speaks volumes that someone who’s loss of his father was very public was still reviled by so much of the football world.

This year, with star players on his roster dropping left and right, Bill is still winning. Not at a record setting pace, not with offensive domination like last year, but he has the team in position for the playoffs after 9 games and still in control of their own destiny. The Bill we’ve always had faith in is still here and never left. But this year, with no videotape scandal and no star quarterback for his critics to lean on, Bill is earning back the respect his football acumen deserves. The genius is back.

Unquestioned Loyalty
As a fan who grew up in Milford MA, the Patriots were always the “local” team for me. I loved the Red Sox and Bruins and cheered for the Celtics, but the gridiron warriors were the guys right in my backyard. I was in elementary school when the Bears steamrolled us in the Super Bowl. Green Bay blew past Drew and Parcells when I was a junior in college. In between, there were many losing seasons. When Scott Zolak winning two games in a season at QB is the highlight of your year, you know you have it rough.

I’ve got nothing on the fans who are twice my age and have followed the team since it was in the AFL. Still, for the vast majority of my life, for decades, I’ve followed this team and known many others who did the same. I remember how crowded 495 and Route 1 got. I’ve got a Bledsoe jersey, a Curtis Martin jersey, a Deion Branch jersey. I still have the Pat Patriot nightlight I used as a kid. But after three Super Bowl wins and last year’s oh-so-close season, football fans of other teams would regard us as “fair weather” or “bandwagon” fans.

Those other fans didn’t know us and they never spoke to us. But they impugned our loyalty, for no reason other than the team we loved had finally become successful. They questioned our heart, questioned our honesty, and held us personally responsible for Spygate. They wanted to see us fall off what they called the bandwagon when Tom got hurt and were sure that we would.

We didn’t. We’re still here, we’ll always be here, and we aren’t going anywhere. Yeah, there’s a bandwagon for the Pats, just like there is for any other team. But me and the other loyal fans, we’re not hanging off the back of it, scrambling for room when the team wins and jumping off when it loses.

We’re the ones driving it.