Underdogging

There's no need to fear! The underdogs are here!

Look, I know the Pats and their fans are being roundly mocked by pigskin pundits and bobbleheads for playing the Nobody Believes In Us Card (© Rodney Harrison, 2003) but just because New England holds a 20-year lease on the AFC East penthouse, has made it to 8 of the last 18 Super Bowls and took 5 Lombardi Trophies back to 1 Patriot Place, and is appearing in an 8th consecutive AFC Championship Game, that means we can't complain?

No?

Well, too bad because here goes…

If you said to me, "You're old, you're slow, and you aren't athletically gifted," I'd have to tip my cap and say, "Nailed it."

I think you might also be able to see, though, how a group of professional athletes might take umbrage with that narrative, which has been the subtext for this New England Patriots 2018 season, with the chattering class reaching a Losing Their Shit-level of intensity leading up to the divisional round game with the road-tested, that Most Complete Team in the AFC, you know them, you love them… your Los Angeles Chargers!

I guess Tom Brady must've taken his Underdog Super Energy Pills (or bathed in the blood of 13 virgins) before that game.

While the voices west of the Connecticut River singing of the End of Times for the Patriots reached a Bolero-like climax (admittedly deserved with that loss to the Detroit Lions on their curriculum vitae) in the run up to that systematic, Patriots Classic, no quarter given or taken, hide the children and cover their eyes demolition of the Chargers, it's really just another moment; diminishing the dynasty has been something of a cottage industry for more than a decade.

Perhaps you've heard this before…

The Patriots are Cheaters!

The Patriots aren't even the cheatingest team in the AFC East but okay, Spygate happened. Eleven years ago! Granted, the Belicheat/Cheatriots thing is more of a trope for the trolls and ESPN than it is for the majority of pundits and bobbleheads (who now seem loathe to touch the flawed "science" in the Wells Report). Still, if you can show me a comments section on any post related to the Patriots that doesn't mention cheating, dinner is on me.

Considering how many players left Foxborough pissed off at Bill Belichick (Lawyer Milloy, Richard Seymour, Asante Samuel, Ty Law, Logan Mankins for a few examples), there's been a surprising lack of Michael Cohen-type revelations of Patriots' cheating. Surprising if, in fact, the Patriots were the line-steppers the trolls and ESPN seem to believe they are.

More importantly, if there so cheatery, how do they only have 5 Lombardi Trophies?

Tom Brady is a System Quarterback!

If Tom Brady is a "system quarterback," why isn't your team running that system?

Tom Brady is a Whiny Little Bitch Who Gets All the Calls!

This is provably false but as we're now living in a post-fact world, do statistics even matter?

No. The answer is no.

Not when there was that one time Brady was on TV when he complained to the ref about something.

Tom Brady Doesn't Like to Get Hit!

Um...Okay.

Tom Brady Can Be Beat With Pressure Up The Middle!

Unlike every other quarterback in the NFL, Tom Brady really hates it when a 6' 3", 325 pound defensive tackle shoots through the A gap with malevolent intent.

The Bill Belichick Chicken vs. The Tom Brady Egg

Bill Belichick and Tom Brady are apparently incapable of synergy. One is routinely used to denigrate the accomplishments of the other.

Brady would be nothing without Belichick!

Belichick never won anything without Brady!

Somehow, these two feebs found each other in a lonely place and wound up becoming the most successful Head Coach-Quarterback combo in NFL history but it wasn't because either one of them was any good. At least, not without the other. Except they were, so... I think that's the argument being made.

As for Belichick, I'm contractually obligated to note he's still the last Cleveland Browns head coach to win a playoff game. (Yeah, I probably won't be able to say that a year or two from now.) He also coached the Patriots to an 11-5-0 record with Matt Cassel as his QB when Brady was out in 2008. His game plan from Super Bowl XXV is the "stuff of legend" and an artifact in Canton but that was when he was just a defensive coordinator so it doesn't count, right?

The "Brady would be nothing" argument is easier to make because TB12 has only known the Patriots and Belichick in his professional career but… nothing? I don't know. Feels a bit harsh. I still think he'd have been a solid pro. Fight me!

Maybe it's the system?