Well, I don’t really have anything against Miami but it’s fun to witness history.
If they did have to win, though, winning against the ratbirds is the best thing that could happen. I hope Miami goes 1-15 and everyone remembers that the pathetic ratbirds were their only win.
At first I was hoping that this sent the team into such a meltdown that they all turned on each other in a fit of murderous rage eventually culminating in cannibalism, but I would like for them to try to recover, play for pride, and beat the Steelers. Ideally in the process somehow convincing the people in charge that keeping Billick around is a good idea.
I hate the Dolphins, and I’m quite sick of the “1972 Dolphins have popped the champagne bottles” story we have to put up with every year. It would have been very symmetrical for them to be the first team to go 0-16 in the same season. I’d be perfectly happy if they never won another game. I guess I’ll have to settle for them being the only Florida team not to make the playoffs this year.
The bright side, I guess, is that now I’m starting to hate the Ravens for losing to the hapless Dolphins, so maybe I can join your club.
Funny thing is that it’s mostly a myth . The media plays it up as some big showboating celebration, but it doesn’t seem to actually happen.
So Miami takes hatred for something that doesn’t really have anything to do with the current team and is mostly a media creation.
Personally, I never saw it as a big deal, even if it were real. It’s a pretty big accomplishment and I don’t fault them for feeling proud of it and celebrating its uniqueness.
Feel free to sign up. There are just so many reasons to hate them. Maybe I’ll start a newsletter.
Well, at least it’s nice to see that your unreasonableness is confined to only two AFC East teams, as opposed to three.
Your whining about the Patriots strikes me exactly the same as others whining about the 72 Dolphins strikes you. Well, less reasonable, actually, since I personally remember Bonicotti celebrating like a douchebag every year on Inside the NFL. That was probably before your time, though.
Sign me up. I can’t stand the fucking Ravens. The only team I hate more than them is the Eagles, so I was almost as happy as you to see the purple shitstains lose to the Dolphins.
Are you going to be a dick to me in every thread we’re involved in even when it has nothing to do with the topic at hand? What’s next? “Oh, you don’t like the Eagles throwback color scheme? Well at least you’re reasonable on one issue, because when it comes to the Patriots and the force out rule you certainly are stupid!”
Nope. Just when you present an argument that is amazingly analagous to the one you are immune to when it comes to the Patriots. You are aware, I trust, that the whole spygate thing is mostly a media creation, right?
It’s reported that the remaining '72 Dolphins all get together to celebrate the loss of the last team. This is factually false. Hence, a myth.
It’s reported that the NFL punished the Patriots for violations for repeated and blatant violations of taping rules. This is… factually false? Hence a myth?
Besides, I said that even if it were true, it wouldn’t bother me. If the cheating allegations are true, it would bother me. I don’t really see the how they’re “amazingly analogous”.
Why don’t you jump down, say, Omni’s throat when he says that the Patriots are cheap shot artists? Do you not disagree that they take cheap shots, or do you think it’s unimportant when he says it, or that the act itself is unimportant? Because I’ve already said that the cheap shot thing is a bigger deal to me than the spygate thing and enough for me not to be a Patriots fan regardless of everything else.
Are you being deliberately obtuse? I stated, clearly and unambiguously, that I PERSONALLY WITNESSED Nick Bonicotti (sp?) celebrating each year after the last undefeated team lost. I don’t give a flying fuck what your cites say. IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED ON A NATIONALLY TELEVISED SHOW, YEAR AFTER YEAR.
I capitalized for you in the hopes that it won’t be yet another thing I write that you ignore.
You wrote a novel saying how it bothers you. If you then subsequently recanted with a quick sentence or two, surely you’ll forgive me for missing it. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised if that’s what you did. Fair enough.
I’ve jumped down Omni’s throat on every occasion where I think he was being either a hypocrite or unreasonable. Interestingly, I recall no time where I felt he was being a hypocrite, though I do recall a couple occasions where I felt he was unreasonable. The most obvious one that comes to mind was when he asserted that rate stats aren’t particularly meaningful. It was during a discussion about whether Big Ben is overrated.
You, OTOH, have made posts that struck me as both unreasonable and hypocritical on several occasions in just the past couple weeks. No surprise then tht I’ll notice when you present an argument that you yourself have handwaved away when it was presented to you.
As for cheap shotting, don’t get me started on that one either. I didn’t notice your outcry over the Steelers players intentionally stomping on Ricky Williams, ending his season, for example. (Ricky’s back had better traction than mud, don’tchaknow. hehheh.)
So one guy celebrates. That’s not the myth. The myth is that the whole team gets together and pops champagne corks. When people talk about it, they say they’re tired of hearing about “the 72 Dolphins” popping champagne corks, not Nick Bonicotti.
What are you talking about? Is this the “novel” about how it bothers me?
Nowhere in that do I indicate that, even if it wasn’t a myth, the behavior would bother me. I have no idea what you’re talking about.
I’ve never seen you that I recall jump on him for saying the Patriots take cheap shots. If I had said that (by itself), you’d be all over me.
You have a valid case for calling me hypocritical about the force out issue. I made a hypocritical statement when I was emotionally charged the night of the loss - a night where my memory of the previous incident was a year old and also hazy. After reviewing the two instances and being more objective, I admitted I was wrong.
What are the other “several occasions” I was being hypocritical? Is it the completely nonsensical stuff you’re trying to manufacture like me “writing a novel” about how the 72 Dolphins bothered me?
If my crappy Browns board had a search function, I’d link you to a post about it. What evidence do you have that I A) believed that it was a cheapshot and B) decided that it was okay?
First off, I wish this argument was happening over a bar in front of a dozen plasmas with everyone charged up with about 8 Budweisers and Hot Wings and a handful of people on each side nodding and grunting an agreement! Woohoo, football season!
Point of fact, I was not arguing that Rate Stats aren’t meaningful. I was arguing that Counting Stats are meaningful. The two concepts aren’t mutually exclusive. And I was right damn it!
I was mistaken; I thought you said this in reference to spy-gate.
No, it would appear that you’re still aghast at the Patriots for cheating. It is clear to me that the entire spygate brewhaha is much ado about nothing; a media creation through and through. Tell me, do you feel the same way about the Broncos? What they did was much more clearly cheating and worthy of scorn. (Though I personally don’t hold any cheating against anybody in professional sports. If they ain’t cheatin’, they ain’t tryin’.)
Wait, you mean you can’t hold an entire team responsible for the actions of a few guys? I guess that’s consistent enough. I mean, surely it wasn’t just the actions of a few guys that feeds into your “cheap shot” argument, right?
You were right in the general, but completely wrong in the specific. You were holding Ben’s low total yardage against him despite the fact that he missed a bunch of games. When I pointed that out to you, you conceded, and the argument then moved over to rate stats in general.
What you were very right about (and I was very wrong about) is that you can’t extrapolate rate stats from games with few attempts to games with many attempts. The more passes you throw in a game, the lower your passer rating gets. Big Ben turned out to be the poster child for this phenomenon.
For anyone who holds spygate against the Patriots, you’re either very naive, or you have a lot of grudges you’re going to have to maintain in order to be consistent.
Hey, that’s cheating! According to your arguments, anytime you get fined for breaking a league rule, you’re a cheater. I guess the Browns are cheaters just like the Patriots then. Even worse, this is the second time Carmen Policy’s name has come up in this post. Clearly, the Browns brought in a known cheater who then cheated for them. CHEATERS!!!
It took me a matter of minutes to find these. I am confident I could bury you in a blizzard of cites of cheating and/or cheap shots by every single team in the league. My point all along is that what the Patriots did was no big deal both because the “advantage” they gained was basically worthless, AND because every single team in the league does equally bad stuff.
How many cites do you need to be satisfied that every team in the league is dirty before you agree that the Patriots aren’t particularly noteworthy in this regard?
Sorry, but you are off base on this one. Yes, the Spygate scandal (I hate that all scandals are “-gates”, time for that cliche to die!) is seriously overblown by the media. The Pats aren’t the only ones who have done it, but they did specifically ignore a pointed memo from the league in regards to this specific rule. To claim that it’s wholly a media creation is just patently false. You can argue about how much of an advantage it gave them, but you cannot deny that they violated clearly defined rules multiple times in disregard to a specific directive by the commish.
They were fined $750,000 and a conditional first round pick by the league. This is not a “a media creation through and through”. Have they been vilified for it beyond merit? Probably, but considering the way Belichick and some of his players have acted this should hardly be a surprise. Baltimore is an extremely hated team because if it’s coaches personality and the off the field actions of some of it’s players. Neither of these teams have the market cornered on asshole coaches and dirty and/or criminal players, but they certainly have a way of being defined by it. Certainly there are other teams that deserve hatred, but for whatever reason it’s visceral with these two teams. The fans and defenders play no small part in that of course.
The Broncos were fined just under $2 million and two 3rd round draft picks. Your implication that they got off easy is off base, and I’m not sure I agree that what they did is “more clearly cheating”. They deferred payment to players in order to fund the building of a new stadium. Not to pay other players. I find it difficult to see how that offers any competitive advantage on the field. The reason people don’t kill the Broncos is two-fold. First, they don’t clearly understand what the Broncos did wrong. Second, they don’t have quite the same history of obnoxiousness from it’s fans and unlikable players. Pretty simple really.
Point is, lets stop acting all surprised that the Pats are getting heat from all directions. There are villains in sports and more often than not it’s partly undeserved, but that’s par for the course. It’s crazy to say that the spying violation was all the media and pretend they did nothing wrong. Sure, they probably weren’t the only ones, but that doesn’t make it OK.
Comparing them to the Broncos is only valid so far as the violations are concerned. Both teams were punished, equitably in my estimation, and that’s that. But it’s pretty easy to understand why people hate the Pats more, not that you have to agree with it.
Depends if you are referring to the Jerry Jones, Troy Aikman, Michael Irvin Cowboys or the Tom Landry, Tony Dorsett, Roger Staubach, Randy White Cowboys.
This is my point exactly, so I’d say your assessment that I’m off base is, uh, off base.
Also, this particular hypocrisy drives me up a wall:
Okay, so no matter what you might think of what they did, it’s bad because it was against the rules. But:
The Broncos ALSO broke a specific rule, but it’s okay because it didn’t give them a competitive advantage?
That reasoning is a complete crock of shit. Either you can take the violation in context or you can’t. If the Patriots violation is bad simply because it’s a violation, then you can’t turn around and put qualifiers on any other violation.
You all but agreed that the Patriot hate is irrational. I take no issue whatsoever with irrational Patriot hate. What pisses me off is when people justify their irrational hatred, dressing it up as justified, rational, and legitimate. That’s exactly what Senorbeef did in the original thread this came up, with his soliloquy on “I’d love to root for the Patriots, since they seem to do so many things I like, but I can’t because of these factual reasons.”
Just admit you don’t like them because you don’t like them and I’m all good. Painting it in a way where you don’t like them because they are objectively unlikeable is offensive to me, and that is what I take issue with.