These Pats? Not so fun to watch
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by Xinoph
I have to say that so far, as a diehard New England Patriots fan, I'm a little disappointed by this season.
No, it's not because I want them to win by even greater margins. Nor is it because I'm looking forward to them going undefeated; I don't really care about that. It's not even because I'm angry about Spygate and pissed at Coach Bill about it, though I am.
No, it's because the Patriots aren't fun to watch anymore.
See, it's hard to remember now amongst all the superlatives this season, but the Pats used to regularly creep into the playoffs at 10-6 or 11-5. I say creep not because those are marginal records - they aren't - but because at least four or five of those wins would be by a field goal or less. So you had the feeling that they were that close every year to being 6-10 or 5-11 and missing the playoffs entirely.
Did it mean that we had to endure constant whining from other football fans that Tom Brady wasn't as good as Peyton Manning because of the stats? Sure it did. But that was fun, too. How often did I have that debate here on AGM over the past few years? Seems like once a week at least. I'd argue that Tom won regardless of the individual stats he got, that it didn't matter whether he won by 20 points or 2, that he was amazing under pressure. And the Peytonites would say that PM got all the stats, and had better commercials. (Of course, the same people who said that Tom wasn't that good because he always won by close margins are now complaining about the Pats running up the score, but that's another issue for another day)
But, it also meant that nearly every week I could count on the Pats playing one of the most interesting games in the NFL. They'd find some new wacky way to win each week, some way to march down the field so they could get ahead. They always made it entertaining.
Not anymore.
That style of Patriots play is gone, now that Tom finally has one of the best receiving corps in the NFL. The only game that was even remotely like that was the Indianapolis game (surprise, surprise). Honestly, I can sympathize with the rest of the league's fans complaining. These aren't the Patriots we're used to watching. I'm not sure exactly who to compare them to, but they're something else entirely. The franchise went from being a terrible team, to being mediocre, to being great, to being now....what? It's hard to say.
But I know right now I'm going to concentrate on watching my 8-1 Celtics. I'm looking forward to tomorrow's Wednesday game against Golden State. They're fun to watch even when they win by a lot, just because it's fun to watch a good C's team again.
And if I get really bored, I might even turn on a Bruins game. Who knows. Stranger thinsg have happened.
