Hear me out.
I recognize that for any Patriots fans who read this, the title of this post is going to seem deliberately inflammatory. I also realize I'm opening myself up to a million shots about how jealous I am because my team sucks, or how I dwell on the cheating scandal, or how my failure to comply with Patriot Law is going to lead to me getting my ass kicked by a robot version of Richard Seymour. I'd like to assure all of you that this is not the case.
I'm angry because they keep running up the goddamn score, plain and simple. I've tolerated it all year long because the Patriots are so good (and make no mistake, they are that good) that you just had to shake your head. It was annoying, it was unnecessary, but there have been other good teams who have gotten carried away in their eagerness to bury an inferior team. With the Falcons playing every week, it was hard to get up in arms about the Pats. But this week was a bye, of course, and now I have to say my piece.
When Tom Brady stays in the game until it's 45-0 in the fourth quarter, it's more than a little obvious what's going on. I don't want to hear excuses from Patriots fans, either: what if Brady gets hurt there? All of a sudden things aren't quite so funny in New England, are they? And if the team is "proving" to the NFL that it can win despite the tape, well...we already knew they were good. Great, in fact. I don't think the Washington Redskins deserved to beat like a pinata with a battle axe. And I find it more than a little tiring to hear the usual "we can still get better" bullshit from Brady and Belicheck. Or is that the point? Rubbing some more salt in the wound?
This is not to disparage New England fans, my able batterymate at Pats Pulpit included. I think there's a lot of teams out there who would kill for the kind of success the Patriots have enjoyed, and a lot more fans who would probably kill multiple times for that. It's just really discouraging to see an organization that really has always played the game the right way and had great team success suddenly turn to petty revenge, and it's even sadder to me to hear so many people defend it. I hope that the Patriots get this out of their systems and go back to whupping teams instead of intentionally embarassing them.
It's the least they could do.