The State of My Fandom Address - Patriots Edition

I became  fan of the New England Patriots sometime in 1985. I don't know exactly when or how it happened. It just happened. It was te year we got cable TV and there was one hour of football a week on SKY. The Patriots were having a good year and must have been featred a couple of times in the Game of the Week. They snuck into the playoffs as the fifth seed. Back then there were only two wildcard teams per conference. They went on the road and in three successiv weeks upset te New York Jets, The Los Angeles Raiders and the Miami Dolphins to qualify for Super Bowl XX. I was hooked. And then the Super Bowl shufflin' Chicago Bears crushed them 46-10 in the biggest blow out of Super Bowl history. I was and still am hooked.

It hasn't always been easy to be a fan of the Patriots and I learned that immediately with that first disappointment. Even though the Patriots were still good occasionally after SBXX it wasn't until they had gone through the valley of the shadow of Marc Wilson, Tom Hodson, Hugh Millen, et. al. and Drew Bledose arrived that there was any hope they'd ever win the big one. And then you slowly had to realize that Bledsoe wasn't going to be the one either. They came close but never really close, even when they made it to the Super Bowl and lost to the Packers. Even in the golden era of Belichick and Brady there have been a fair share of disappointmets and challenges: 18-1, Spygate, Deflategate. However much there may have been to these "scandals" - and the quotation marks are there because we're talking about football, not bational security - they certainly weren't fun times for a fan.

But let's be honest here. The last 15 years have been an unparalleled run of success and no fan along for the ride has any right to complain for the rest of their life. The biggest upset in SB history against the Rams. Back-to-back in '03 and '04. The incredibly satisfying comeback capped by the victory-clinching Butler interception last year. Two more Super Bowls that came right down to the wire. Six Super Bowl and three more AFCCG appearances in 14 years. If Brady were to make it to a mind-blowing seventh Super Bowl this year, he would be 7 for 14 in seasons that he finishes healthy and as the starter. I will have more to say in what I think is the essence of the Patriot method, but that is for another day.

Given the turmoil of the off-season, the lack of noticeable free agent signings to offset the big-name losses, and the unholy shitstorm of injuries, finishing 12-4, winning the AFC East for a seventh consecutive year and getting a first round bye for a sixth consecutive year must be considered an unqualified success. The successes of the Brady-Belichick era have, however, set the bar almost impossibly high. Anything other than a SB win is if not a disappointment, then at least a wasted opportunity when clearly time is running out. Brady is 38. Belichick is 63. They can keep doing this for a couple more years. But the end of the era is coming, much like winter is coming to Westeros. And when you realize how near impossible their achievemnets so far have been, you want to get as much out of this partnership as possible. Because it is going away and it is never coming back. And never mind having no right to complain ever again. I'll stop coplaining when B&B are gone. Till then I'll be one greedy MFSOB.

This year's Patriots can win it all. Had they not lost Dion Lewis and Nate Solder early in the season  I'd feel much better about their chances but they can win it all. All their remaining starters should be healthy enough to play in two weeks, but how healthy will they be? The key to their success to me will be the offensive line and injuries have little to do with it. Vollmer should be back in two weeks but the O-Line struggled before he missed this weeks loss against Miami. When the offense struggled early last year part of it was the inconsistent and rotating line play. When they settled on their eventual winning combination and stuck with it things turned around. Both injuries and inexperience have made that impossible this year. Early in the season the talent surrounding them covered up a lot of their problems. The injuries to almost all skill position players have revealed their weaknesses. Getting Vollmer and Edelman back will help but everyone will have to step up their play for the Patriots to reach a fifth consecutive AFCCG.

I find these AFC playoffs harder to predict than usual. All home teams will have big question marks and it would not surprise me if one of the wildcard teams made it to the SB. The hottest team coming into the playoffs is actually Kansas City who almost won the division when Denver tried really hard to lose to a depleted Chargers team by turning the ball over five times and completely blowing a coverage late in the game. The Bengals are starting A.J McCarron. Who knows what to think of Pittsburgh who in December beat both Cincinatti and Denver in consecutive weeks only to then lose to Ryan Mallett and the Ravens. Both 1st round match-ups are rematches of regular season games but how much does a split of the Bengals-Steelers season series and a Week 1 win by the Chiefs before their 5-game losing streak really tell us? Can both road teams win? I'm not picking, all I'm saying is that the Patriots have the QB and HC with the best track-record in the playoffs and I wouldn't be surprised if they snuck into the big game another time. On the other hand, I saw Mark "Butt Fumble"  Sanchez and the 11-5 Jets beat the 14-2 Patriots in the divisional round in 2010 after losing to them 45-3 a month earlier, so I guess everything is possible.

Whatever the outcome, the state of my Patriots fandom is strong.