We’re all Patriots
Owners can put hatred aside for money
Each new day brings yet another shocking headline, an outrageous statement, a crazy breach of decorum defying logic and slapping good taste right across the face. And you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.
Patriots fans are going to be sleeping with Roger Goodell this weekend.
It’ll be one for all and all for one late Sunday afternoon as the NFL commissioner and thousands of loyal Patriots fans root, root, root for the home team to demolish the Jacksonville Jaguars in the AFC Championship Game.
It’ll make no difference if Goodell actually shows up at Gillette Stadium. If he does, he’ll be among friends. Maybe he’ll duck into the Patriots Pro Shop and emerge with a spiffy, officially licensed team jersey. A Tom Brady No. 12? A Rob Gronkowski No. 87? How about a throwback Gino Cappelletti No. 20?
The hometown fans will be very happy if the Patriots vanquish the Jaguars and proceed to Minneapolis for Super Bowl LII.
Roger Goodell will be very happy if the Patriots vanquish the Jaguars and proceed to Minneapolis for Super Bowl LII.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, there’s plenty of deep-in-thebones jealousy and Patriots rage going on throughout the NFL, particularly among NFL owners. Each year, it gets harder and harder for Pats owner Robert Kraft to show up at the league meetings while toting around those five Lombardi trophies, and nobody’s keen on the idea of seeing him try to balance a sixth on his head.
But while the owners know all about petty jealousies, they don’t know a blessed thing about petty cash. It’s the big bucks that warm their hearts,
and they all know, deep down, that another trip to the Super Bowl by the Patriots is going to be solid gold for everyone.
Yes, “everyone hates the Patriots.” That is, fans outside New England, or beyond the borders of that magical kingdom known as Patriots Nation. Everyone hates the Patriots. This is the theme of a well-written piece by Dave Lozzo at vice. com. The headline says it all: “We Should All Be Rooting for America’s Team, the Jacksonville Jaguars: Good vs. evil. Bortles vs. Brady. There’s only one team to cheer for in the AFC title game.”
The article touches on the usual bullet points, noting the Patriots “... are villainous cheaters with a player, coach and owner that consider Donald Trump a friend.”
That’s about right, though I would quibble with Brady being an active member of the Donald Trump Christmas Card Club. Having taken a lot of grief a few years ago after planting a Make America Great baseball cap in his locker for all the world to see, New England’s iconic quarterback now makes it clear he won’t talk politics.
Brady so scrubbed himself from the Trump brand that our president was sufficiently miffed as to omit any mention of the quarterback’s name when the Super Bowl champion Patriots, sans No. 12, visited the White House last year.
Look, everyone gets it: Everyone hates the Patriots. Except the owners — this weekend, anyway — and Goodell represents the owners.
You know how Bill Belichick always says stats are for losers? He’s mostly right, except when the stats are used to figure out a profit margin. Which brings us back to NFL owners, who always win. And their margin of victory will be ever the more pleasing if it’s quarterback Tom Brady and the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl instead of quarterback Blake Bortles and the Jacksonville Jaguars.
From a purely fan perspective, the Jaguars are going to be the darlings of the weekend. They are plucky underdogs, and everybody loves plucky underdogs.
But while plucky underdogs make for good copy, the Super Bowl will get the highest ratings if it has big stars and/or heinous villains. The Jaguars have neither. The Patriots boil over with both.
If you roll back the video tape far enough — all the way to Feb. 3, 2002 — you’ll be reminded of a time when it was the Patriots who were the plucky underdogs. They had a sixth-round draft pick as their quarterback, taking on the St. Louis Rams, aka The Greatest Show On Turf. When the Pats emerged with a 20-17 victory on Adam Vinatieri’s 48-yard field goal, Kraft reminded us of the troubled post-9/11 times in which we were living when he said, “Today, we’re all Patriots.”
Today, everyone is a Patriots hater.
Except Roger Goodell. Come to think of it, forget about the commish wearing a Pats shirt. This would be better: Roger lets his hair down and sports one of those Barstool Sports clown-nose T-shirts that were all the rage last year.
He could even borrow one from Pats defensive coordinator Matt Patricia. In a few short weeks, he won’t be needing it anymore.