Try though I might, this year, I just can't manage to hate the Patriots like I did last year. Last year, a healthy antipathy blossomed up in my chest every time I saw a red, grey, and blue uniform. It was hard to be civil to pictures of Tom Brady online. Even after the Broncos beat them on the way to the Superbowl, they were still the "evil Patriots" in my mind as in the minds of so many others.
Maybe it's because the Patriots were trailing the Ravens by two touchdowns at home when I started this blog post. Maybe it's because they started the season by losing three games. Maybe it's because Brady looks a little older and a little scruffier and downright tired at times and there's a rumor that he might be released in the next couple of years (seems to be the Patriots' modus operandi to release expensive veterans, or at least so the experts say). But of late I just can't muster the anti-Patriot luster. Of course, now that they're going to the AFC championship while the Broncos are eliminated from the playoffs, I can feel a bit of the old spite coming back. Just a bit.
Football feelings are funny things. Watching football is kind of like watching no-penalty politics. Mini-nation states form around the success and failure of these people in pads and helmets, and real animosity forms around victories, losses, and gestures of unsportsmanship. Of the two, I think politics generates more heat, but football generates more commentary (at least in the U.S.) and almost as much venom. It all stays pretty civil in my football communities. My husband comes from a multiple team family, and neither betting nor gloating happens untowardly. Unless something head to head is happening, they view having multiple teams as a chance to appropriate a win when one's own team is losing. (I.e. At least the Packers are going to a championship.) But I have heard stories, oh I have heard stories.
If you think about it, every office and many families are like tiny United Nations of sports fans. Temporary alliances form, prejudices develop beyond the conflict at hand, and sometimes forces have to be brought to bear to keep the peace. Identity among the masses is at stake. This thing that I love must have success so that my love will be vindicated before the peoples. Yeah, people are weird, and the Patriots are too good to be anything but football evil.
