Cursory Google search shows up with nada. I saw it in the NY Post last week.
That’s funny, because I saw in the Herald that Eli Manning eats babies. :rolleyes:
I have read that his son was rumored to be gay among his friends and that he was extremely uncomfortable in his own skin, partially because of his father’s intolerance of it. It’s just speculation, of course, but it’s a possibility. Unfortunately, mentioning it just makes people think you’re taking a low blow at Dungy, instead of really illustrating how homophobia hurts people and destroys families.
I’m wondering if the Pats would have went 18 - 0 without Brady. I’m gonna take a stab and say no - but that’s obvious…but I digress.
I think what really burns non-Boston/New England fans is the CONSTANT crying, whining, hair pulling, teeth gnashing, and complaining EVEN AFTER WINNING GAMES!
The initial hoo-rah for the winning teams are expected. The initial heartbreak after a big loss is expected. However, the nonsense that occurs afterwards is a little hard to stomach. After the wins, comes the entitlement crap. After the losses comes the “It’s-not-our-fault-why-does-everyone-hate-us-have-sympathy-we-just-lost-a-big-game” thing that is so incredibly annoying.
But I will tell you one thing - when the Sox won the series, I, as a lifelong Yankee fan (Bronx born and raised), was happy for them - I know, I know, I’ll be turning in my Union Card now…but my point is, I had sense and class enough to know a decent team effort when I saw one. And that’s the one thing I don’t think will ever come out of Boston/New Egland fans - class and a sense of that old “We were beat fair and square” mentality - it always seems to be someone else’s fault.
Placing responsibility on a man for causing the suicide of his son based on pure speculation, when one doesn’t have any CONCRETE PROOF of homophobia of the man or CONCRETE PROOF of the homosexuality of the son, when one would REQUIRE CONCRETE PROOF OF BOTH in order for that rumor to have any credence whatsoever is the very definition of taking a low blow, dude.
Well, I was only confirming that I’d seen the stories. I didn’t write any of them.
This piqued my curiosity – cuz I had these sorts of trademark shenanigans, too – and Google turns up a few cites. Never heard of these sites before, but the story is out there. From the second link:
Heh.
C’mon, the Yankees have gone seven years without a championship. What more proof do you need that everyone hates the Red Sox? 
This is the reason I, personally, was rooting against the Patriots. I’m at best a courtesy football fan - the only reason I really pay attention at all is that I married a huge fan. However, like so many non-sports-fans who marry big sports fans, I wind up following the sport basically by default. My husband talks about it, he listens to sports radio and watches ESPN. I pick it up by osmosis. All of which is to say that I have no long-standing, deep-seated indoctrination to rivalries. No strong feelings about any particular sports team based on really anything other than their behavior. No dog in the fight, really.
At the beginning of this season, the Pats got caught (and penalized for) cheating. Instead of manning up as an organization, taking their lumps and apologizing, they acted like even making the accusation was a personal insult and proceeded to behave throughout the rest of the season in the most obnoxious fashion they possibly could.
Yeah, they’re a great team. No denying it. Yeah, they went undefeated throughout the season right up to the Superbowl. Absolutely without question. It was a phenomenal accomplishment. But they were assholes about it. I do my best not to cheer for assholes. Not to mention, their coach behaves like a jackass in public on a consistent basis (who cares what he’s like in private - in public, where everyone can see him, he’s a jackass). I’ve never seen or heard an interview where the man managed to be civil and courteous for the entire time (not that I’m a sports expert). Including when his team was dominating everyone in sight and he should have been in a good mood. Also, I, personally, think their starting quarterback is a smug, smarmy, arrogant wanker.
If the Patriots had done what they did without the shitty attitude, if they’d gone about it with a modicum of class, I would have been happy for them that they could finish what they started and win the Superbowl on their way to a place in sports history (I’d still have rooted for the Giants - but that’s because I’m a sucker for an underdog and the Giants were definitely an underdog in this one). But they didn’t. Instead, I look at them as an exercise in applied karma - in my view they reaped what they sowed.
I was excited when the Red Sox finally won a World Series - but I have to agree that their fan base since then is just as obnoxious as the Yankees fan base. I was excited for the Red Sox even though I get really, really tired of the self-pitying martyrdom that so many Boston fans affect - even worse was the “we deserve this because of all our years of suffering and defeat” schtick.* But I was excited for the team.
Sometimes you have a team that just comes together flawlessly. Sometimes you have a team that just dominates their sport. It’s rare, and that’s a good thing for sports in general, but it happens. When that happens, there’s nothing I like more than to watch it. It’s like poetry or a flawlessly performed symphony. It’s a work of art and fate and glorious to behold. There are sports teams that will live forever in history because they were this kind of team. Their fans can say “I was there when…” Sports fans live for the moment when their team is that team. They hope for their team to be that team. I think that most sports fans are willing to put aside their rivalries and just appreciate the beauty of the moment even when someone else’s team is that team - there’s envy, don’t get me wrong, but not hate. But when you have a team that’s that team and they, themselves, mar the moment of glory - the perfect season - with things like cheating, or spend the whole season flaunting a shitty “fuck you all” attitude, and generally treat their fluke good fortune in being part of such a moment like dirt, then I have a really hard time feeling sorry for them when their flawless season falls apart on them and their moment of glory ends up being celebrated by another team.
The Patriots this year had the prize - they had it all. They had that season. They were that team. And they treated their great good fortune like garbage. That’s why so many people were happy to see them fall. They had what millions of people live for - what thousands of their fellow athletes hurt and suffer and work for through out their whole careers, and what only the smallest percentage can even hope to have - and they acted like it was nothing. In the process of getting it, they cheated - meaninglessly. While their perfect season gained momentum and speed and it got clearer and clearer that they were *that * team, they chose to grind other teams down - rub their faces in the fact that they weren’t that team. Winning by 15 wasn’t enough if they could make it 30. In interviews, they made it clear that because they had the great good fortune to be that team, everyone else was unworthy to hold their shoes.
Faugh on them. They earned the glee people are exhibiting over their fall from grace.
*I’m a Chicago Cubs fan and have been since birth - Boston fans aren’t allowed to whine to me about their team’s record. When they hit the century mark without a World Series win, then they can complain. Until then, they can have a nice tall glass of shut the fuck up.
That’s ok so do I.
What should they have done? Seriously? Should they have mentioned it every week? Worn sackcloth and ashes to the postgame press conferences? Wept openly? Should Junior Seau have flagellated himself on public television because his coach got caught in a minor technical violation?
It’s not like they went out each week and said, “Fuck all y’all, we cheated and we’re happy about it.” What did you expect?
I must have missed that. Can you point me toward a few quotes? Can you show me where Tom Brady is quoted as saying “we’re awesome and everyone else needs to step off,” or where Matt Light insulted the mama of some opposing defensive tackle? Because every quote from a Patriot that I read - all year - was basically: “Talk is cheap. We take every team seriously, and we’re focusing on our next opponent; we’ll let our play on the field do the talking.” Did they produce reams of bulletin-board fodder that I missed? Sure, the canned quotes were boring and trite, but asshole-ish? Only if you’re predisposed to think they’re assholes.
Yeah, he’s a dick. NFL coaches, by and large, are dicks. Tom Coughlin, before he had some kind of miracle turnaround this year, was a massive tool, who basically spent his entire life yelling at people to get off his lawn. Bill Parcells is arguably the most arrogant blowhard is history. Dennis Green famously erupted at the media when questioned. Why single out Bill Belichek.
Why? I’ve never seen the man make a quote that sounded smug or arrogant. He’s focused on the field. He keeps his cool, on the field and in the press, in spite of the fact that people who hate him for no articulable reason attack him as a man and a father. Where is the arrogance?
Once, in the first game of the season, and that was their coach.
Again, where did you see this attitude? The sportswriters attributed it to the players, but I defy you to produce quotes that suggested this attitude coming from any of the players.
Once again, I saw no indication of this. Every quote I heard coming from those players was one of excitement and appreciation, coupled with a healthy interest in focusing on the next game instead of the last one.
Cite?
Man, fuck that noise. When I was playing sports, if I got the sense that the other team was condescending to me and letting up, I’d have punched someone in the face for thinking I needed a pacifier. If I want you to stop scoring, I’ll damn well stop you from scoring. If I can’t stop you from scoring, that’s my problem. It’s telling that complaints of this nature come mostly from fans and writers - the actual players on the losing end of those games mostly didn’t complain, because they know it’s a ridiculous complaint.
Once more, for posterity: cite?
I submit that if you weren’t already a Giants fan and you didn’t want to see the best team in the NFL win the Super Bowl and cap an undefeated season, you are an asshole. How could you not want to see a team do something so amazing?
Every reason I’ve heard for hating the Patriots comes down to “I hate them because they are so good.” That’s jealousy and has no place in sports. Tom Brady didn’t become one of the best quarterbacks in NFL history because he was jealous of guys like Aikman and Favre. He became the best because he admired those guys and strove to be as good as them. Jealousy is for losers.
The Giants won the Super Bowl, but the Patriots were still the best team in football this year. If you can’t admit that you are a dick.
Sure, some other NFL coaches are dicks. But that has nothing to do with the fact that Belichick is a smarmy, arrogant asshole. People can dislike him on that basis should they choose to.
This is possibly the stupidest statement I have heard this entire football season. And I watch plenty of ESPN.
Because I don’t like the Patriots. They’re division rivals of my team, and I think their uniforms look stupid. Do you want me to make up a better reason? I will, if you like. It’ll be a doozy, something like “Randy Moss ran over my mother with a car, Wes Welker pointed and laughed, and Tom Brady told him to do it again.”
People root against the favorite all the time. Is this a surprise to you? I was kinda torn this year, since I don’t like the Pats or the Dolphins, and the '72 squad is really, really obnoxious. If it had been almost any one of the other teams in the league, I probably would have wanted them to pull it off. But not the Patriots.
And this might be the most naive statement I’ve heard this entire season. 
Okay, hating a team because they’re good is trite and sorta dickish, but so what? Why get all offended about it?
And that’s why people around New York have been chanting “18-1” on and off for three days. It doesn’t matter that the Patriots were the better team, and it’s pretty clear that they were one of the best handful of teams in the history of the league - and the Giants were not. They lost the game and that’s the end of it.
Oh, really? :rolleyes:
Well, Brady did take Burress to task for predicting New England would score only 17 points. Does that count?
On the other hand, a good winner doesn’t go for it on fourth down and continue to pass the ball deep when up by 35+ points in the fourth quarter. There is beating a team soundly, and then there is rubbing their noses in it. The Patriots did the latter to the Redskins.
Oh, and I disagree…New Jersey is as bad as it seems. That’s why the parade was (finally) in New York. 
I’d say it’s pretty poor sportsmanship to run up the score meaninglessly, and that was my biggest problem with them this season.
Examples:
In Week 8 Belichik kept all his starters in in the 4th, constantly throwing deep against the Redskins, embarrassing Joe Gibbs to end up beating the Redskins 52 - 7. Including going for it on 4th and 1 late in the 4th with 9 minutes left on the Redskins 7 yard line, resulting in a TD to make the score 45 - 0 rather than 41 - 0, which prompted Belichik’s quote “What should we do - kick a field goal?”?
Up 42 - 10 on 5-5 Buffalo in Week 11 they went for it twice on 4th down in the 4th quarter on their last two drives to run up the score to 56-10 - all starters still in the game.
After the aforementioned Redskins game, Randall Godfrey was somewhat upset:
I agree with him. It’s poor sportsmanship and disrespectful, coming from a team that got caught cheating and should be acting contrite, not running up the scores on opponents.
On yet another hand, don’t forget that the Pats lost the AFC championship to the Colts last year through a big lead getting shot to hell. They led 21-3 at one point but got beaten 38-34. If I were a Patriots player or coach I’d never forget something like that, and never take a chance on it happening again.
Granted, since I didn’t read EVERY SINGLE THREAD EVERY TIME the Super Bowl was mentioned in this forum, I missed this.
Good on you, Eddy. 
But I was speaking in VERY general terms in reference to “Boston/New England fans.” I’m not sure why the eyeroll was necessary. Either way, thanks for being one of the few - eyeroll not withstanding.
Nit pick here - 9 minutes left in the 4th quarter is 60% of that quarter left. it is hardly “late in the 4th.” It is late in the game, but there is no need to exaggerate it.