The entire team is smug, whereas the only people who hate a team like the Cleveland Browns are their own fans.
I don’t hate the Patriots. I did root for the Giants, but I almost always root for the underdog. I rooted for the Patriots against the Rams. It’s nothing personal.
This whole notion that there’s something wrong with you if you aren’t a frontrunner is laughable.
Fun bit of trivia: For six years, the then Boston Patriots played their games at Fenway Park.
I went to one of those games, and lemme tell ya, it was most peculiar watching football in a park so exquisitely laid out for baseball.
ETA: Check out that skyline in the photo! The only skyscraper then was the Pru.
The Bard said it better than I could:
For me, it’s mostly a divisional rivalry thing, and I just didn’t like something about them - the name, the uniform, who knows - the first time I saw them. And so it’s remained. The fact that they’re excellent despite playing the role of “bad guy” (with ever-increasing media polish and quasi-cheating) to the hilt just makes it worse.
I fucking HATE Shakespeare. He’s just so fucking GOOD. Asshole.
(Kidding. Love the Swan of Avon.)
Oh, yeh, for you Redskins and Yankee fans, from that same link:
“Exquisitely”? It’s a weird shape. It’s famous, now, but weird. No left field, and that weird angular thing in center that injures many a centerfielder. Nah, I stand by the… um, I think Mark Harris* (?)… description of Fenway that it looks like the guys who built it were drunk.
*No, wait – it was probably Kinsella, since Fenway figures into Shoeless Joe.
I love this kind of stuff. Thanks for the back story.
Hell, did you know the Twins used to play in Kansas City? (As the Blues, in the Western League, before they moved to Washington and became the Senators…)
I’m not going to pick up the invitation to a hijack, but merely warn you not to blaspheme Fenway if you ever find yourself in Beantown. The natives get a might tetchy on the subject. 
At least the hockey team has become just the Anaheim Ducks. But the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim? I can’t believe that stupid name has managed to hang on for this many seasons already.
I hate the Patriots for the same reason that I hate the Red Sox:
After years of sucking, and years of being somewhat endearingly resigned to their fates, a few years of success have turned Patriots fans into fucking Yankees fans.
They look at winning as a divine right.
The feel somehow personally superior by dint of their team’s success.
They act as if it has ALWAYS been this way.
You know what I heard on Boston radio this morning? “The Pats are the best team in the NFL. The Giants aren’t better, and I’ll tell you why- if the Pats and the Giants played 10 games, the Pats would win nine of them. They’re a better team.”
Guess what, fucko- THAT’S NOT THE WAY IT WORKS.
It’s seriously fucking annoying. I love my Saints. But winning a couple of playoff games does not mean that my opinion on the loss of individual rights to expanding police powers holds more weight than yours. When the Mets won the Series in 1986, that didn’t make me more interesting to Lauren from Maywood. I own more Devils gear than some members of the Devils, but the Pope ain’t ringin’ on Line 2 to get my thoughts on how he ought to word his next encyclical.
Boston fans think that (if they were able to comprehend the terms “expanding police powers” or “papal encyclical”) that by virtue of their wearing a Papelbon or Brady jersey that their opinion means something.
Plus, the fucking accent. DAMN I hate that accent.
It’s took me reading three posts to realise this isn’t another Hawks vs Doves Iraq debate. Sorry. Carry on.
It all boils down to envy. Up until last nite, the Pats had a perfect season, and had confounded all their opponents.
Even after last nites win, you still have all the haterz spewing vitriol for the Pats. Why are they still a target? You might think the winners would take the high road and win gracefully, but no, they have to spread their hate for the other team.
It’s pretty pathetic… it’s beyond pathetic. You people need to rise above your fixation with the Pats. Its over… they didn’t have the perfect season. They fucked up the one game then really needed to win.
It’s over. Until next year.
so move on now.
If someone can answer this in 2 sentences or less, I’d appreciate it:
What do the 1972 Miami Dolphins have to do with anything? I heard today that this game will increase the 72 Dolphins resentment of the Pats. How so, since the Pats lost? And 1972 was a long time ago… 
If you need to get into stats, just picture me asleep from boredom and don’t go there, kay?
Other than that, I don’t hate the Patriots and would have liked to have seen a perfect record, just for fun.
My hatred for the Patriots died with this loss. Bill Bellichick does not deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence as class acts like Chuck Noll, Tom Landry, and Bill Walsh. Thanks to last night’s choke job, he likely never will be, because it’s looking like a rebuilding year for them next season.
I was filled with a sense of unholy joy that he both lost his perfect season and he didn’t get his ring. Had it been virtually anybody else I would have been cheering for them. But that man deserves nothing but contempt.
Oh, yeah, one more thing: the Patriots ruined the Steelers’ best regular season in history not all that long ago, and as a Steelers fan I find that I still have a bad taste in my mouth over that loss. Mostly, though (around 99% mostly), it’s because the Hoodie is a miserable excuse for a human being.
Whoah! Whoah! Whoah!
You seem to be implying that Red Sox fans have come to expect success. I assure you, nothing could be further from the truth! Any Red Sox fan knows better than to anticipate success! There is no surer way to jinx a game!
You may now return to your regularly scheduled Patriot-bashing. Hey, I like the Patriots and I still can’t stomach Tom Brady.
I’m not sure. The 72 Dolphins won the perfect season with less games to play, and at a time when football was not as intense as it is played today. So would the 72 Dolphins have the same perfect season if it was played in today’s game? No. So I don’t know what their ass-ache is.
Yeah, I think you’re describing the Yankees here - and their fans. I mean, isn’t it the Yankees who have to ‘BUY’ their way into winning? Damn straight it is.
And after decades and decades of losing, how could you possiblyhave the audacity to accuse Red Sox fans of turning into “yankee fans”. That’s the biggest insult on the face of the earth. You need to take that back.
Redsox fans have been true for years on end even when there were no wins in sight…
so you’re actually blaming the Pats when in reality it was the Steelers who just couldn’t cut it?
Talk about deflecting.
Where did I blame them for beating the Steelers? They did what they had to do. That doesn’t make it any more tasteful, nor does it make me less of a Steelers homer. I mean, come ON! You didn’t really think that I enjoyed watching the Steelers get thrashed, did you? Quite the contrary- while the game was on I had an M-16A2 on my shoulder and an M9 on my hip, and it was all I could do not to shoot the television.
Also, note that that comprised a very minuscule percentage of my underlying hatred, which has now been defused by the pathetic display that Bellichick put on last night after losing. Seeing that dour face and knowing why it was that way made me one of the happiest people in America.