Perplexing Patriots

I should dislike the New England Patriots. Usually teams that have their qualities I utterly despise.

Their coach seems like a pretentious prick that will do anything – legal or not – to gain an advantage. Their golden boy quarterback left his pregnant girlfriend (who is really hot) for a Brazilian supermodel, who is also off-the-charts banging. And their best wide receiver once said he’d pay his $5,000 fine from the NFL with “straight cash homey.”

They kind of remind me of Duke’s basketball team in the early 1990’s. That Blue Devils squad had guys like Christian Laettner, Bobby Hurley and Grant Hill. They dressed like choirboys but played like Soviet spies. They were well manicured and absolutely lethal. They looked at basketball like Karl Rove looks at politics: All tactics are always on the table. In terms of preparation and execution, nobody was even close. But I hated them on a visceral level for reasons I simply can’t explain. Watching Bobby or Christian hug Coach K and then have to hear them talk about how the parts of the team came together as a whole made me want to vomit - preferably on one of their blue cashmere sweaters.

But with the Patriots something is different, appealing even. It’s like they all wear Teflon coats. So far just this year, they have been caught cheating, one of their best defensive players was suspended for performance enhancing drugs and they’ve run up the score in so many games, they’re almost universally vilified. However, they also happen to be the most appealing team to watch in a league that is mostly unappealing.

This is largely because they are undefeated after 15 regular-season games, something that had never been done before in league history. The 72’ Dolphins won 14 straight, when the season was only that long, and then ran the table in the playoffs as well.

The undefeated season is pretty much unheard of in the NFL and it’s even starting to be that way at the collegiate level. LSU, which is probably the most talented team in the country, will play Ohio State in the National Championship next week, and they have two losses. And the last few champions have all had at least one defeat.

An impressive achievement still doesn’t explain why people give the Pats the benefit of the doubt, though. Barry Bonds’ anabolic achievements were no doubt awesome but also cancerously soiled in most people’s eyes. Yet the Patriots haven’t been sent to the public guillotine for their supposed sins.

I wonder if once the season or the streak ends, they’ll face more scrutiny. My bet would be no. People don’t seem to care that they were caught taping the Jets sideline (something they surely did multiply times prior to that Sunday). Or if they do, they feel electrocuting dogs is more worthy of their dismay.

But what I can’t put a finger on is why Belichick’s boys seem pissed off that they have to be so good. I’ve never seen a team that, from top to bottom, exudes their type of non-emotion emotions. They never stray far from the game plan, rarely go off message off the field and seem to have magically installed robotic qualities in narcissistic athletes. Somebody on that sideline knows the formula for transforming money-hungry individuals into kool-aid drinking altruists. And it’s nothing short of amazing.



As Brady throws deep into double coverage for the one guy who could catch the clap from a nun, he knows Moss will bring it in. The superstars may bump helmets in the end zone afterwards but then they’ll walk off the field and act like they just went three and out.


The underdog is always fun to cheer for but New England is bringing style back to Goliath. Which makes it confusing for fans hoping to form an opinion on the inevitable.