Rooting Against the Patriots
I was reading Bill Simmons's column today (I am a fan of Simmons and read his columns regularly) and his comparison of the Patriots to the Yankees.
He basically said that the Patriots are hated by everyone that isn’t actually a Patriots fan. I think he is on to something in terms of people rooting against the Patriots, but I don’t think the Yankees comparison is quite right.
Clearly most people actively root against the Yankees because they spend a ton of money and try to import the best players to win championships. That makes them easy to despise. But the Patriots are different. New England doesn’t overspend for players. It is very team-oriented and doesn't really have any me-first players who want the spotlight. And everyone respects the Patriots for that. But, I think there are two reasons people are beginning to turn on them.
The first is the woe-is-me, underdog, down-on-luck, high-on-our-injuries attitude the team constantly tries to push. The Patriots have won three of the last five Super Bowls!!! You absolutely cannot be an underdog, no matter who is on your team and what obstacles you are facing when you have won so many titles in the recent past. You are a dynasty and by definition dynasties aren’t underdogs; they are the best in their sports. Underdogs cannot be the best! People will root for an underdog, but some champion trying to play the underdog card is annoying. And this everyone-is-hurt, we-are-banged-up crutch the Patriots have been leaning on is a farce too.
Yeah, the Patriots might have injuries, but teams have been playing football since August. Football is one of the most physically demanding and violent sports in the world. Players get hurt all the time on every team every season. And there tend to be more people banged up or injured as the season wears on. You can’t play the injury card when your best players (i.e. Tom Brady, Corey Dillon, Laurence Maroney, Tedy Bruschi) are all playing this week and have been throughout the playoffs. The injury excuse is not valid at this point in the season unless a team is missing at least two (if not more) of its top stars. Only Rodney Harrison is out among the Patriots top players.
The Patriots are in the midst (maybe at the tail end) of one of the best runs in professional sports history. And because of that there is just no reason to be making these claims. Embrace the greatness. People who root for underdogs aren’t going to be fooled by Goliath masquerading as David.
The second reason is people actually root for the underdog! Face it, in the world of free agency and parity people enjoy seeing new teams win (of course they root for their team first, but when that fails, they start rooting for the underdog). And for the reasons I described above, the Patriots cannot be considered the underdog. Dynasties are great if your favorite team is the one that is the dynasty. If that isn’t the case, it’s usually pretty easy to rally around the opponent.
So that is why people are starting to root against the Patriots. The second reason might be a bit similar to why people root against the Yankees, but the first is practically the opposite.
Do you actively root against the Patriots? Why? Why not? Post your comments below.
He basically said that the Patriots are hated by everyone that isn’t actually a Patriots fan. I think he is on to something in terms of people rooting against the Patriots, but I don’t think the Yankees comparison is quite right.
Clearly most people actively root against the Yankees because they spend a ton of money and try to import the best players to win championships. That makes them easy to despise. But the Patriots are different. New England doesn’t overspend for players. It is very team-oriented and doesn't really have any me-first players who want the spotlight. And everyone respects the Patriots for that. But, I think there are two reasons people are beginning to turn on them.
The first is the woe-is-me, underdog, down-on-luck, high-on-our-injuries attitude the team constantly tries to push. The Patriots have won three of the last five Super Bowls!!! You absolutely cannot be an underdog, no matter who is on your team and what obstacles you are facing when you have won so many titles in the recent past. You are a dynasty and by definition dynasties aren’t underdogs; they are the best in their sports. Underdogs cannot be the best! People will root for an underdog, but some champion trying to play the underdog card is annoying. And this everyone-is-hurt, we-are-banged-up crutch the Patriots have been leaning on is a farce too.
Yeah, the Patriots might have injuries, but teams have been playing football since August. Football is one of the most physically demanding and violent sports in the world. Players get hurt all the time on every team every season. And there tend to be more people banged up or injured as the season wears on. You can’t play the injury card when your best players (i.e. Tom Brady, Corey Dillon, Laurence Maroney, Tedy Bruschi) are all playing this week and have been throughout the playoffs. The injury excuse is not valid at this point in the season unless a team is missing at least two (if not more) of its top stars. Only Rodney Harrison is out among the Patriots top players.
The Patriots are in the midst (maybe at the tail end) of one of the best runs in professional sports history. And because of that there is just no reason to be making these claims. Embrace the greatness. People who root for underdogs aren’t going to be fooled by Goliath masquerading as David.
The second reason is people actually root for the underdog! Face it, in the world of free agency and parity people enjoy seeing new teams win (of course they root for their team first, but when that fails, they start rooting for the underdog). And for the reasons I described above, the Patriots cannot be considered the underdog. Dynasties are great if your favorite team is the one that is the dynasty. If that isn’t the case, it’s usually pretty easy to rally around the opponent.
So that is why people are starting to root against the Patriots. The second reason might be a bit similar to why people root against the Yankees, but the first is practically the opposite.
Do you actively root against the Patriots? Why? Why not? Post your comments below.
posted by Steve Bernard @ 7:32 PM
1 Comments:
At 1:43 PM EST,
Anonymous said…
So who is claiming the patriots are injured? As far as I know no one from the patriots has ever claimed that. It's sports writers that say those things. I looked through a whole bunch of quotes from http://www.patriots.com/search/index.cfm?PCID=47 and I didn't find anything in there about injuries at all. No real player is going to whine about inuries to their team. They have way too much pride for that. Everytime I have ever heard a football player talking about an injury on their team they just say, "hey it happens, we gotta go out there and keep playing to win".
Also, If most of the pundits are picking the Colts to win, then the Patriots are the underdog. There is no other way to put it. I saw on Fox sports last night 3/4 of the experts picked the Colts to win. Everybody seems to think it's Peytons turn.
So, while I personally enjoy rooting for a team with 'team first' attitude, I think the thesis of your article is not really based on facts. It's based on spin from the media.
Post a Comment
<< Home