So, where are we?  Chris and I are both sick with worry that my season-ticket account will be terminated.  Unless you’ve been accused of and punished for something you didn’t do, it might be hard to understand.  It’s an empty, helpless and all-around unpleasant feeling.  We will just have to wait and see what the Patriots decide to do, I suppose.  My "connections" may very well have succeeded in quashing it, and I have one more connection up my sleeve if necessary, but until I know for sure that no further action will taken against me and my season-ticket account, I'm not going to sleep very well. 

I wouldn't wish this kind of uncertainty on any fan, not even a Jets fan.

Open letter to Mr. Bob Kraft and the Patriot Place management.

By Steve B. - October 21, 2008

Hello,

As a frequent (8-10 games per season, incl playoffs) visitor to Foxboro for Patriots games, I must express my extreme displeasure with this entire Patriot Place project. It was very disruptive to the experience of last season, and likely will prove to be even worse this year.

There never was good access to the stadium, going back to the old building. Rt 1 is and will continue to be inadequate. And now you've gone and added all these extra "things" around the stadium, making it more congested, and taking away more of the available parking space near the stadium, pushing people further and further away to park for games. I'm glad I don't routinely take a limo to the game; THAT designated parking area is now about 1/2 mile away.

Virtually every other stadium in the league has available parking 360 degrees around the stadium.  Can you explain to me why we need a Victoria's Secret 50 yards from the gates?

If you could tell me that the extra income from these ventures would keep our ticket or parking prices down, I might be satisfied. But they do neither; our prices our among the highest in the league for both and have just gone up. what's it going to be to park a car this year? $50? We go to Buffalo every year. It's $20 per car. Get a grip! Just because you CAN charge it and people will pay it, doesn't mean you should. What do you think will happen when the team starts to struggle? People won't pay it, and you'll have empty seats again. Lots of them.

Just wanted you to know I don't approve, and I will not patronize any of your restaurants, shops, whatnot. This is one area where Mr Kraft is NOT doing the football fans any favors.

-Unhappy Pats Fan

May 23, 2008

“A Rambling Commentary”

Made Necessary by Patriots Haters Everywhere

By Bruce MacInnes – A Loyal New England Patriots Fan

May 23, 2008

First things first, for all who read this, known and unknown, I am a New England Patriots fan.  I have always been and I will always be a New England Patriots fan.  This is nothing more than my take on the so-called “Spygate” affair.

As we all know, in September of 2007, the New England Patriots were caught violating an NFL rule regarding videotaping of opposing teams signals from the sidelines.   Videotaping signals is not prohibited, mind you.  It’s where the camera was located that was against the rules.  Please read the rule below.  I’m including the applicable portion here so that you can read it as defined by the NFL.  I don’t want to swear that this is the exact wording but it’s the most consistent one I could find on the internet.  Regardless, it’s close enough for my purposes.

"Videotaping of any type, including but not limited to taping of an opponent's offensive or defensive signals, is prohibited on the sidelines, in the coaches' booth, in the locker room, or at any other locations accessible to club staff members during the game."

Now, this rule is fairly clear but there is certainly room for misinterpretation.  To me, the rule says that you may videotape the opposing coaches’ signals as long it is done from a location other than those listed and as long as that location is not accessible to the coaches “during the game”.  If videotaping were absolutely not allowed, the rule would not include the “accessible…during the game” part.   This is the part of the rule that Coach Bill Belichick broke.  This is the ONLY part of this rule that Coach Belichick broke.  The coach claims that he misinterpreted the rule.  I’m paraphrasing but he basically said that he thought he could videotape from the field as long as he wasn’t using the information gleaned during the same game.  I believe this to be a reasonable misunderstanding of the written rule.  Maybe I’m just practical, but to automatically accuse Belichick of lying, even though he has never been accused of or been known to do it before, is ridiculous to me.  The Haters will tell you that Bill Belichick is a devious, deliberate and deceitful liar and an all-around bad person.  None of which is a particularly bad thing when you’re a professional football coach.  All except that “liar” part, anyway.  But that’s still some pretty damaging stuff right there.  My personal opinion, which is what this piece is, is that the Haters are extremely envious of the success that both Coach Belichick and the Patriots’ have had and will continue to enjoy.  The Haters are very bitter and angry.  “Why,” you ask?  I’m not really sure, to be honest.  But I think it probably has something to do with the fact that the Patriots have beaten up on their favorite team in an important game somewhere along the line.  The Haters, by the way, are a carefully concocted creation of the liberal media, who jumped on this thing like a cat on a mouse and haven’t let up yet, nearly a year later.

Just to be clear.  Bill Belichick (and any other coach in the NFL) is allowed to videotape the opposing team’s signals if he so chooses.  He just should have done it from a different place.  That is what it all breaks down to.  The camera was in the wrong place.

The National Football League reviewed the allegations made by Rat Mangini during the first game of the 2007 season.  They found that Bill Belichick had indeed violated the rule regarding videotaping.  They asked for an explanation from him and they received one.  Commissioner Roger Goodell chose not to believe him, as is his right.  However, just because the commissioner doesn’t believe him DOES NOT mean that Belichick lied.  Roger Goodell is not a court of law.  He alone can not determine if a man is lying or telling the truth.  He is only a man with one man’s opinion.  The Haters don’t care about that, though.  They continue to accuse Belichick of being the most despicable sports figure this side of Barry Bonds.  They say that he is sneaky, deceitful and arrogant.  They come up with very unflattering names like “Belicheat”.   I’m disgusted by it.  If this incident was “cheating” then so is every penalty that is ever committed during a game.  So, too, is scouting your opponents or trying to gain an edge by interrogating a newly acquired player recently waived by a future opponent.

For his “cheating” Bill Belichick was fined $500,000.00.  That’s one half of one million dollars to you and me.  I don’t care how much money you make, that has to hurt.  The team itself was fined $250,000.00.  That’s a quarter of a million dollars to you and me.  The team was also stripped of its first round draft pick in the 2008 NFL collegiate draft.  This punishment constitutes the most severe in the history of all of professional sports.  It should have ended there.  But that’s not enough for the Haters.

A national Hater named Gregg Easterbrook, a columnist for ESPN.com, would have Belichick suspended for a year if it were his NFL.  Others in the media have called for Belichick’s job.  All of this, for having the camera in the wrong place.  To his credit, Patriots owner, Bob Kraft, has continued to stand by his coach. 

Very troubling to me, also, is the perception that New England Patriots fans don’t think Coach Belichick did anything wrong.  This could not be any further from the truth.  I, and every other fan I know, readily admit that Belichick broke the rule and he should have been punished.  Coach Belichick himself admitted that he broke the rule.  He, the team and, indeed, the fans of the Patriots have paid a very steep price for his mistake.  Why this isn’t enough punishment for simply having a camera in the wrong place is way beyond me.  I’m beginning to think that common sense just isn’t very common.

Let’s talk about Matt Walsh for a minute.  Even that’s too long but I’ll give him a short paragraph.    Commissioner Goodell would rather believe an admitted thief and liar than Bill Belichick, who again, has never been known to or accused of lying prior to this.  That is unless you count Ty Law, the former standout cornerback, who shot his way out of town a few years ago.  Matt Walsh, on the other hand was not only fired by the Patriots (can you say “ax to grind”), he has since admitted to stealing their property on the way out the door.  Why was he fired?  Oh, nothing serious.  He was only caught illegally taping conversations with the Patriots Director of Player Personnel, Scott Pioli.   To me, this makes him unreliable at best.   Call me a crazy conservative.

Anyone want to talk about Senator Arlen Specter?  He’s a crotchety old fool and a bad loser.  Aside from that, his statement after speaking to Matt Walsh lacked any real form or substance.  He rambled on about a bunch of stuff that everybody already knows.  He sounded stupid, really.  He sounded uneducated.  He referred to “facts” that weren’t facts at all.  Among other things he wanted to know why Commissioner Goodell didn’t question Matt Walsh about the years 2003 through 2006.  Uh, Senator, Matt Walsh wasn’t employed by ANY club in the NFL after 2002, likely because he sucked at his job and stole from the Patriots.  That fact must have slipped the Senator’s mind as well.  I was actually embarrassed for Senator Specter and I am still embarrassed for the people of the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania that elected him.  Talk about silly.  He claims to be outraged about the Patriot coach’s behavior and how the NFL handled it.  He would also like to spend taxpayer dollars for an independent investigator because the Patriots put a video camera in the wrong place.  His anger is so misplaced it is truly laughable.  His own favorite team, the Philadelphia Eagles, is being run by Andy Reid who has two sons that are drug-dealers and kept a virtual pharmacy of illegal drugs in his home.  At least one of them is currently serving prison time.  Where is the outrage?  The San Francisco 49ers once gained a competitive advantage by deliberately and illegally manipulating the salary cap.  This was done during their heyday as the NFL’s “model” franchise.  Where is the outrage?  The 49ers were also caught tampering with another team’s player just this past off-season.   This was a much more blatant and severe offense than videotaping signals will ever be.  Where is the outrage?  (I’m still waiting for the punishment for that to be handed down by the league.  I think I’ll be waiting for a long time.)  The New York Yankees had no fewer than 10 players from their 2000 World Series championship team named in the Mitchell report as having been involved with or having done steroids.  Where is the outrage?   I’ll tell you where the outrage is.   It’s directed at the New England Patriots because they put a video camera in the wrong place and because they are the best.  It is a very out-of-control case of jealousy and envy and it is uglier than Freddy Kruger.

Another Hater, John Tomase of the Boston Herald (which I will never spend money to buy again),  wrote an extremely venomous and damaging piece the day before the Patriots faced the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLII in January of 2008.  In the piece Tomase quoted and unnamed source as saying that the Patriots had videotaped the St. Louis Rams walk-through practice prior to Super Bowl XXXVI in 2002 and that such a tape existed.   This unsubstantiated, vindictive and false news article set off an avalanche of criticisms, accusations and utter disdain for the New England Patriots, Coach Belichick and the citizens of Patriot Nation the likes of which has NEVER been seen in the sports world.  Outrage filled the airwaves and the newsprint media.  Uninformed pinheads like Chris Carter, Chris Collinsworth and Mark Schlereth took up arms against the Patriots and bad-mouthed them and their coach at every conceivable turn.   These libelous untruths told by John Tomase, Matt Walsh, Senator Specter and the national media continue to go unpunished while the fans of the Patriots have to keep taking it on the chin for their team.  That, to me, is the outrage.

I’d like to talk about outrage for just a minute more.  I am outraged that society believes that greatness must be taken down.  It outrages me that the Haters and the media have demonized my beloved Patriots simply because they are the best.  It outrages me that some now consider the Patriots three Super Bowl championships to be somehow tainted.   The Patriots players and coaches worked very hard for years to achieve their success.  To suggest that videotaping signals from the wrong location somehow taints their achievements is the biggest outrage of all. 

The Haters would have you believe that somehow, taping these signals was beneficial to the Patriots during the same game.  In order for this to be true, the tape would have to be fully edited and analyzed at halftime to match up the plays to game situations.  Then, a second half game-plan would have to be drawn up and communicated to the players.  Then of course, they’d have to execute this hastily thrown together plan without any practice.    Or maybe they have time for that during the 12 minute halftime as well.  Let’s not even mention that because ALL teams are very aware that other teams will be trying to, and do, steal their signs, that they change the signs several times during any given game.  Given this known fact about the game of football, anything learned from a videotape at halftime would be rendered useless.  But don’t bring any of that into the conversation when you accuse the Patriots of cheating.  The point is that there is just no conceivable way that the Patriots used any of the information gained for an in-game advantage.  Anyone who contends they did doesn’t know what they’re talking about and is likely just a Hater.   I don’t care if you’re Matt Walsh, Arlen Specter or Don Shula.  You don’t have time to assess, sync, plan and execute a bunch of stuff based on information that has changed since the tape was made.  There’s just no way it is possible.  It couldn’t be any plainer to most sensible people.  The Haters, however, will just brush that fact aside and continue to squawk without any kind of logic.  If it wasn’t my team, I’d probably be laughing at them.

I'd like to talk about Robert Kraft.  How I feel for this man.  This is a man who has done nothing to deserve the kind of vile accusations that have been directed at his franchise.  He resurrected the Patriots from the dead, literally, after purchasing the team from Anheuser-Busch heir, James Busch Orthwein, in 1994.  He built them into one of the premier sports franchises in the world only to have a bunch of overreacting zealots try to tear it down because the camera was in the wrong place.  Mr. Kraft deserves nothing but thanks and congratulations for what he has done with the Patriots and for the NFL since he joined the league.  I wouldn’t blame him at this point if he just said, “Fuck it!” and sold the team.  I truly wouldn’t.  But it would be a deplorable shame if he let the Haters get away with what they’ve been trying to do.

A few days ago, I read a brilliant column by Mike Dussault of the BleacherReport.com and FoxSports.com (Column no longer available).  He brought up an angle I just hadn’t thought of and I agree with him.  It’s time for Patriot Nation to embrace the dark side.  If the rest of the football world wants us to be the bad guy, I think it’s time to oblige them.  They just better be prepared for what they ask for.  I am fiercely loyal to my team.  I’m going to get a set of those black and silver, spiked Raiders shoulder pads and a spiked helmet.  Then I’m going to paint them fucking red, white and blue!  Then when someone tries to cut down my team, I’ll stab them with my head.  My buddy Steve even came up with a good slogan.  “Embrace The Hate in 2008!”  I loved it!  Not long after Steve came up with the slogan, another email arrived from Opie.  He found a picture online.  I put the two together and came up with below image to represent the 2008 Patriots.  this is my commentary on the whole sordid affair.  We’ve become the new Raiders and I don't have any problem with it at all.

February, 2001

Author's note - 08/09/08:  This column was written in February of 2002, shortly after the Patriots won their first world championship with their 20-17 win over the St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI.  At the time, it was published on a website called BartCopSports.com.  I had challenged one of their writers in an email about a column he had written.  The basic theme of his column was "Why do we have to watch the Patriots get their asses kicked in the Superbowl AGAIN?"   Fair enough question, given the circumstances.  Remember, the Patriots were 14 point underdogs to the Rams going into that game and had been beaten pretty badly in their two previous Superbowl appearances by the Bears (XX) and the Packers (XXXI).

To put the column in perspective, it should be stated that I did not read the original column until after the game had been played.  The author, who's name I no longer remember, told me that my email was one of the best he'd read in some time and offered me his space on the site if I wanted to write a piece on why I thought the Patriots had beaten the Rams.  The result is below.

Untitled - by Bruce MacInnes

When the 2000 season ended with a 5-11 record for the Patriots, it was accepted as a rebuilding year.  Bobby Grier, now with the expansion Texans and not in New England for a reason, had had at least three very bad drafts in a row.  Several very high draft picks were wasted on players that, while hanging around, had not contributed much.  Bill Belichick was given this ‘grace period’ because of the mess Grier left behind.  He was allowed a bad season and probably would have been given this year, also, had he needed it.  It turns out he didn’t.  But who knew?  I had a feeling.

I’m not saying that I foresaw a Super Bowl championship.  Nobody did.  Anyone that says they did is a liar.  What I will say is, as a nine-year season-ticket holder and an avid fan; my opinion of how the Patriots would do in 2001 was solicited from friends and coworkers on a fairly regular basis leading into the season.  My response, having seen what Bill Belichick did in free agency and the draft, was that I thought they were going to do better than people thought.  The general consensus was that they might go 8-8.  Most of the national guys were predicting them to finish at the bottom of the division.   I recognized what it was that Belichick was trying to do.  On many occasions before the season started I stated that I liked what Bill had done in free agency.   I truly believed that he had gone after smart, tough football players.  Unlike most of the “professional” prognosticators, I actually believed that they might go 9-7 or even 10-6 and make a playoff appearance.  This would have been more than acceptable given the young tenure of Belichick and the mess he had to clean up.

It felt good to be right.  When the Patriots started out 0-2 I thought, well, so much for that.  I’m not usually right anyway.  But then something happened.  No, I’m not going to say Tom Brady although he was definitely part of it.  It’s the “O” line, man.  That was the area that came together the most.  For much of the preseason, the line hadn’t been able to play together due to some nagging injuries.  I don’t think they played together as a unit until the last preseason game, if even then.  After Drew Bledsoe took that hit from Mo Lewis and was knocked out of the game (and seemingly right out of Patriot Nation), Tom Brady did stand in and get the job done.  It isn’t a coincidence that around that same time the offensive line started playing like one.  Brady lit up the sky for a few games but then was forced back to earth in Denver where he threw four picks.  (It was after this game that I signed him to my fantasy team.  That was a mistake.  He didn’t have decent numbers, at least not good fantasy numbers, for the rest of the season.)  Beyond the Denver game, it’s what he and the others on the team DIDN’T do that helped them to start winning consistently.  They didn’t make the mistakes that can kill you.  Brady was never asked to do more than he could.  This is a tribute to the coaches who knew what they had and how to use it.  The other players seemed to sense that something was going on.   They truly began to buy into Belichick’s plan and they started to execute.

The comparisons I’ve heard to Bill Parcells’ Super Bowl Champion Giants teams are not as “out there” as you might think.  It’s also not a coincidence that Bill Belichick, as we all know, was the defensive coordinator for Parcells during those glory years.  I’m beginning to wonder who the real brains of that organization was.

By the time the first Miami game ended, we were 1-3 and reeling.  Even with the big win against the Colts in week 3, it seemed that it would be another rebuilding year.  Then, in week 5, with Doug Flutie and the Chargers in town and down 10 points in the fourth quarter, the turn came.  When the Patriots fought back in that game and went on to win in O/T, I started to get the feeling that something was going on.  I could see the fight they had in them.  They just didn’t want to give up, so they didn’t.  They never gave up again.  They lost two more games, but they didn’t give up.

After playing St. Louis tough on Sunday night in front of the whole country (11/8), even with the loss (their last this season), the Patriots knew they could play with anyone.   They’ve since proven it.  They didn’t have all the flashy names.  They didn’t have all the big-dollar contracts.  They also didn’t have any huge egos to get in the way of the plan.  Belichick doesn’t like “ME” players.  I don’t either.   These players kept on going and going like that stupid rabbit.  There was no quitting in them and they showed it.

Drew Bledsoe is the silent MVP of this team for not taking up verbal arms against the organization when he didn’t get his job back.  Troy Brown, overlooked for far too long, became a standout wide receiver.  David Patten, the “Cleveland Castaway”, become a fine looking number two man.  Antowain Smith, another cast-off from the Bills roster, had his best season as a pro.  Brady, again, did nothing to harm the team’s chances even though he wasn’t posting the big numbers you’d hope for from the position.  But, again, he wasn’t asked to.  He was simply asked not to lose.  So he didn’t.

Some people will point to strength of schedule.  That’s relative.  People who would do that don’t have a lot of knowledge of the AFC East and how tough these teams have been playing each other over the years.  Take the Buffalo series for example.  Something like seven of the last nine meetings were decided by three points or less.  The Jets and Fish always play the Pats tough.  The only team in the division that the Patriots may have dominated is the Colts.  That’s just going on my own memory but it seems to me that we’ve beaten them up a lot more than they’ve beaten us up over the years.  Let’s not forget that they were the ones that were supposed to beat up on everybody in the division this season.  Look how the Pats spanked them around like a bad little monkey.  Twice.  So much for that high-powered offense.

That’s a good lead-in to my next point.  Look at Belichick’s record against alleged high-powered offenses.  He always seems to come up with something to shut them down.  That applies even more so in recent years.  He has the ability to choose the right players for the right opponent.  Note the increased absence of Brian Cox and Ted Johnson toward the end of the season.  This wasn’t just because of injury or because Tedy Bruschi was playing well.  It just happened that Bruschi was more suited to what Belichick was trying to accomplish against a given opponent.  I’ll give you that Bruschi has also vastly improved his run stopping this year so that may have something to do with it as well.  The point is that Belichick is very good at choosing which players can do best what he needs them to do and then putting them in position to do it.  Because of this, the big name isn’t always the best fit.  You can apply this logic to the offense.  Start with Brady and work your way down if you want.  You’ll find it’s true.

I’m not going to give you the “team of destiny” crap.  I don’t buy into that stuff too much.  There’s something that I do have to admit, though.  They did seem to have a horseshoe up their collective ass, didn’t they?  That being said, what’s wrong with that?  They certainly aren’t the first team to be helped up the championship ladder by a leprechaun.  I truly believe that lucky breaks even out in the end.

When the opening line of 15.5 came out, I was floored.  I just couldn’t believe it.  I think that’s what gave the Patriots another little edge.  They were being disrespected yet again.  This time it was by a bunch of suits in Vegas.  I believe that once the spread was posted, the Rams were cooked.  You’ve got a team here that beat the Raiders, in the snow, in one of the most memorable and remarkable playoff games of the modern era.  They go into Pittsburgh the next week and win in an extremely hostile environment as the ‘dog.  They shut down the run whenever they really have to.  The specials teams are dominant.  I didn’t (and still don’t) understand where that spread came from.  There are bookies in New England that have to borrow money from loan sharks to pay off on all the bets they took for the home team.  If only I were a betting man I would have cleaned up on Sunday night.  It seems to me that a good number of New Englanders knew what they had in the Patriots.

There’s one more aspect of all this that isn’t as obvious and needs to be included.   Mr. Robert Kraft, very early on, established certain standards to which he would hold his players and, indeed, everyone in his organization.  He has renounced draft picks because of their shady past.  He has released or traded players for bad behavior.  Mr. Kraft has set a league standard for how to win a championship with real pride.   He did not have to compromise his convictions to win.  He did it his way and he was successful.  That Patriots organization, as a whole, should be commended for how they won this championship.  I’m more proud of that than I am the actual trophy.

Say what you want about luck and bad calls.  Again, these things all even out in the end.  The 2001 New England Patriots took me on a wild ride that any football fan could only wish and hope for.  The ride ended in what some have already referred to as possibly the greatest Super Bowl ever.  New England is proud of our football team.  The nation should be, too.  They’ve lived the American dream and achieved it with dignity, determination and good, old-fashioned, hard work.  That’s how it’s supposed to be done.