The Patriots are trolling the rest of the league, and it’s awesome

The Patriots will tell you that they don’t listen to the noise. They’ll tell you that they don’t listen to the haters that say they’re overrated, or lucky. They say these things, but they’re lying, and the things they do show that. I, for one, love every second of it. This has been going on for years, maybe even before Rodney Harrison started saying that no one believed in them, even though they would go on to win back-to-back Super Bowls.

But I want to focus on what’s happened more recently. After their epic comeback, the Patriots put 283 diamonds in their Super Bowl LI ring. The message there was clear — as it was when Tom Brady was talking to media after their dismantling of a good Chargers team in the Divisional round. “I know everyone thinks we suck, and we can’t win any games, but we’ll see, it’ll be fun,” he said at the time. A direct shot at all the talking heads, and the people who said they couldn’t win in Kansas City (who would be dumb enough to say that??).

This is illustrated again this week, when Brady signed his two-year contract extension. First, the extension makes him the sixth highest paid quarterback in the NFL, it feels like, after Brady won his sixth Super Bowl in February, this cannot be a coincidence. And, if someone signs a big contract between now and the start of the season, he ends up seventh, not a bad place to be either. You can argue that they were just giving him a raise, but I refuse to believe that the number six was a happy accident.

The Patriots doing things like this makes me incredibly happy. They are notorious for not saying much in the media, but sometimes your actions speak louder than your words.

Pat is a host of The Patriot Nation Podcast

Interact with him on Twitter @plane_pats