Massarotti: Why America Hates The Patriots, Part II

Know what this makes Patriots fans? The nouveau riche. The toothless goobers who struck oil in their backyards. The Beverly Hillbillies. (Tom Brady was a sixth-round pick, after all.) And so now Patriots fans think they have it all figured out, that they will be great forever, and they want their owner to crush the league as simply as Belichick and Brady have crushed the competition.

Usually I try to stay above the fray with guys like Felger & Mazz, Dan Shaughnessy and the rest of them who care more about stoking the fire than actually analyzing football. That’s why I started blogging about the Patriots almost eight years ago, because the reporters actually following the team and providing insight about the most complex and violent sport on the planet were few.

I think it’s unfair to stereotype any fan base. There are Jets fans I like better than some Patriots fans to be honest. But now Mazz wants to lump all Patriots fans together and certainly he’d have no love for a blogger like me regardless of what stance I’ve taken on this issue or the integrity that I try to maintain with no oversight from any editor or corporation.

The unique problem with what happened yesterday with Mr. Kraft is almost entirely related to how much he’s stoked the fires ever since he first stepped in front of the microphone in Arizona and said he would demand an apology if the Patriots were found to have done nothing wrong.

That set the tone for this entire thing and the sides were only more galvanized with the Wells Report Context website and then Mr. Kraft’s lengthy conversation with Peter King this week.

Had Mr. Kraft played the role he usually plays, quietly working behind the scenes, most of Patriots Nation would not have been quite as whipped into such a frenzy.

At the very least they would not have been looking to Mr. Kraft as the leader in this episode of us against the NFL. 

I know what Mr. Kraft has done for this franchise and what he has meant to the NFL, especially what a vital role he played in 2011, when we might not have had a season if not for him.

But Mr. Kraft’s complete about-face and what is being spun as an admission of guilt pulled the rug out from under a Patriots fanbase that had rallied behind him and taken his lead. That is what stings.

I believe most Patriots fans understand why Mr. Kraft did what he did and I’d even venture so far as to say some of us respect him for it despite disagreeing with it.

But painting the entire fan base as entitled crybabies is just Boston Media Trolling for Dummies 101 and it’s why I don’t listen or read any of these guys. What have I ever learned about football, about team-building, about scouting, about strategy from Felger and Mazz or Shaughnessy or Ben Volin or any of these guys who write about the Patriots like they were the Kardashians?

I refuse to respond exactly how they want me to – with outrage and discussion that will only drive more traffic to them. That I even linked to Mazz’s article should be surprising.

Regardless of the reason why, a lot of the NFL, it’s employees, pundits and fans do hate the Patriots. Some might just hate them because they’ve been on an unprecedented run of success. Some of them hate Belichick. Now some of them hate Brady too. True or not, their reputation is that of a team that pushes the boundaries, and perception is reality. That’s the reality Patriots fans have lived with since 2007.

But what are Patriots fans supposed to do? Yes, we get to watch the best team in the league win a lot of games and championships, but we also have to be called cheaters and “toothless goobers” just because we refuse to abandon a team that has been with many of us since we were kids in the stands of the shitty old Foxboro stadium watching the Patsies get smoked just like Mr. Kraft used to do.

Should we abandon our team? Give the NFL the benefit of the doubt this time that the glaring holes in the Wells Report don’t really matter because well, we’re cheaters and if it wasn’t deflating balls they must’ve been surely doing something else that deserves punishment?

Most of us with an online voice have been “Defending the Wall” ever since September 2007. Spygate galvanized Patriots fans unlike any other fan base in the NFL and now Deflategate has pushed it to another level.

We are attacked by the other fans, the national media and many members of Boston’s own media. How else do they think we will respond?

I respect the hell out of Robert Kraft, but yesterday hurt when the man who was leading the charge against the big, bad NFL suddenly changed his mind and sided with them. Now the Boston media trolls can pile on the Patriots fans and say how silly we looked for following Mr. Kraft’s lead. We’ve been through this stuff before and yes, it will eventually be behind us and the community of true Patriots fans will never have been stronger.

It might take a few months but eventually we’ll be able to go back to just rooting on our favorite team and favorite quarterback and hoping they win football games. 

As the saying goes, “winning cures all”, unless you want to listen to Mazz.