I didn’t realize you attended every Patriots game and press conference. Most of us see the Patriots as the villain because that’s how they have been shaped by the media.
And that’s the real point. You say it isn’t a media creation that they broke the rules. You also say that while other teams break the rules, the Patriots draw ire because of the way they act.
Well, the way we perceive them to act is a media creation. And if they catch flak about rules violations in a way that other teams don’t – because they are villains – and their villain status is a media creation, then by definition the entire spygate scandal is, in fact, a media creation.
LSD, I agree that all of the teams mentioned as cheaters are cheaters and assholes, especially the Broncos and Cowboys, two of my most despised teams. Thank you for feeding my hate. I shall let it stew until the playoffs, then let it spew forth in the form of vitriol and invective!
Where it does not conflict with my beloved Giants: Go Bucs! (Sorry to hear about Petitgout, but glad to hear about Hilliard. I always liked him.)
Sadly, on the off-chance that the Giants somehow manage to back into the playoffs, I fear a first round exit at the hands of Chuckie’s boys is the most likely outcome.
Well, as a Ravens fan, i was hoping that they could at least do something right in this fucking dismal season and ensure that Miami went 0-16. The useless pieces of crap couldn’t even manage that.
The symmetry of a 16-0 season for the Pats and an 0-16 season for the Dolphins would have been great. I’m not a huge Pats fan, but i don’t really dislike them either, and i’ve been rooting for them to go 16-0 ever since i saw this article.
Don Shula’s a stupid, self-righteous cock. A team could have three undefeated seasons in a row, playing blindfolded, and Shula would still find some reason to compare them unfavorably to the 1972 Dolphins.
Here’s one reason why, if the Patriots go 16-0, they will be better than the 1972 Dolphins. Actually, make that two reasons:
They play 16 games, while the Dolphins played 14.
More importantly, the teams the Dolphins played SUCKED. If you take the teams that the Dolphins played in 1972, and look at their collective records in all games except the games where they played the Dolphins, their combined record for the season was 78-108-4 (.396). The Dolphins played against a total of two teams that finished the season with winning records.
By contrast, if i’ve calculated correctly, the combined record (after 14 geams per team) of all the teams that the Patriots have played, in games where they did not play against New England, is 84-70, or .545. Of the 13 teams that New England play this season, 5 are already guaranteed to finish the season over .500, and two others are still a chance to have winning seasons, depending on their results in the final two games.
Come on, you are being deliberately argumentative here and you are creating strawmen left and right. You said that the Spygate thing is a complete fabrication by the media. That simply isn’t, by any rational definition, true. Hence, you are off base. Say that the hatred and villainization of the Pats is exacerbated and, in some details, fiction by the media and you have a case.
Where did you see me saying what the Broncos did was OK? I said that I’m not sure it gave them a competitive advantage on the field. Nothing more. I made that comment to clarify why I took issue with your “more clearly cheating” comment. I even went so far as state that the comparison of the Pats and Broncos violations was “valid” and that they were “punished equitably”. I’m not sure in what language you can possibly extrapolate that I was giving the Broncos a pass. Crock of shit indeed.
I can’t gather why you’d have to attend every press conference to form an opinion on some of the less likable characters. Belichick has jerrymandered his injury reports for years and actively been confrontational with the media. We’ve seen him be less than cordial with his opposing coaches. He’s just generally unlikable based on the information we have. The media has simply put a megaphone to those items. I don’t expect him or anyone else to care what I think, but you’re crazy if you think that this is all the media’s doing and even crazier if you are aghast that non-Pats fans would grow to feel this way. Same can be said of Rodney Harrison and his HGH violation and on-field taunting and late hits. Randy Moss needs no explanation. I don’t need to be inside the locker room or on the sideline or in attendance to form opinions on these guys, those opinions are based on actions, not some fabricated media fiction. Just one of many cases where you seem to be trying to frame my comments to suit your own outrage.
No one is demanding that you share their opinions. But you are acting like the Pats are a bunch of choirboys being slandered and demonized by a vicious media horde and that without those men with microphones and keyboards the Pats would be a universally cuddly group of men.
The Pats do deserve vilification for breaking the rules after receiving a warning about it. That said, I don’t think there is any rational you can attribute any of their success this year to spying. I saw these guys devour the Bills and crap them out in the shape of a football and spike them in the end zone. It was like the old Bill Cosby routine, “Hofstra.”
I consider Barry bonds and the Patriots similar, in that I think their villainy is a media creation. It’s the villainy that makes their rule-breaking bad. I pointed out the Broncos as an example of how rule-breaking is completely ignored without the villainy.
In other words, if the Patriots weren’t made out to be a villain by the media, spygate would have made as big a splash as the Broncos salary cap deal: None.
ETA: Btw, SenorBeef, you not liking the Patriots for cheap-shotting the Browns is not only understandable, it would be crazy if you didn’t. Apologies for giving you shit about that.
You’ve taken this into at least 3 threads now. You’ve certainly got a hardon for me.
I’m still waiting for you to point out the many times I’ve been hypocritical that you mentioned earlier. There was one time, which, upon reexamination, I admitted I was wrong.
But now your logic is getting even more absurd. You basically said that if you don’t root for the Patriots, and don’t hate the '72 Dolphins, you’re a hypocrite. Yep. Stone cold logic there.
You also make all sorts of assumptions about my motivations that have absolutely no backing whatsoever. You assume that I think the Patriots are the only team that has ever cheated or bended the rules, and that I have no problem with other teams who’ve been punished in the past for such violations. When have I ever even remotely implied this to be the case?
You throw out handfuls of motivations as to why you think I hate the Patriots (and I don’t, even, I don’t feel that strongly about them, I said I don’t feel comfortable rooting for them. Oh my god. Call the cops.) Oh, it must be because Bellichick was mean to the Cleveland media when I was 12. Right.
My “soliloquy” was absolutely accurate, and consistent with everything I’ve said. You’re essentially claiming to know my motivations better than I do, despite knowing very little about me, being clearly irrational (your pretense for responding to me on this thread was absurd), and having no evidence to actually support anything you’ve ascribed to me.
You’re absolutely, unambiguously wrong. I know this, because I know I’m telling the truth. You should know this because you have no evidence for making the assumptions that you’ve made. You’re becoming irrational and almost creepy with the degree of hardon you have for me over this issue.
Edit: For some reason I managed to miss your last post before I belatedly replied to this, and the apology. I didn’t mean to be quite so harsh in that case. Weird, I’m not sure what caused the change of heart.
In any case, the fact that it was the Browns doesn’t change my view that much. It’s because I was watching the Browns game that I saw the cheap shotting, but I think deliberately attempting to cause injury is about as low as you can go for any team against any team. Roy Williams, for example, I think is a classless asshole even though the Cowboys haven’t played the Browns in years.
Also, I’ve been conflicted about the Pats. I really don’t hate them. I find myself rooting for them because their accomplishments are incredible, then I start questioning whether I should do that, and I’m not sure. The Pats probably aren’t even top 8 on my most disliked teams.
Well, one thing is clear - it had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with this thread.
What? How does admitting you’re wrong confirm the following claim:
?
Okay.
You’re stating that I’ve made multiple hypocritical claims in the past few weeks. Which are you referring to? When you later state that one thing that bothers me is “amazingly analogous” to something that doesn’t bother me, you imply if not flat out state that I’m being hypocritical. Combined with your claims that I’ve been hypocritical multiple times lately, you’re essentially asserting that because the (in your view) media-created hatred of the Patriots affected me, but that the media-created myth of the 72 Dolphins didn’t, I’m a hypocrite.