When the Patriots take the field Sunday, New England hearts will fill with pride, but much of America will be full of hate.
Look at this map of who believes Belichick and Brady don’t know how those footballs got deflated. The red states say the Patriots are lying. If this were a political race, you’d be looking at a landslide.
But it’s not just deflate-gate that has America down on the Pats. As USA Today puts it: “The Patriots are widely viewed as rich, entitled, arrogant, and smug.”
Can that be true? If you’re not a Patriots fan, the answer is absolutely yes.
Rich? That would be team owner Robert Kraft, who has a net worth of $4 billion, according to Forbes magazine.
Entitled: That could be Tom Brady, the future Hall of Fame quarterback who looks perfect and has an equally perfect looking wife.
Arrogant: Come on–to a Patriot hater–could that not be Bill Belichick’s middle name?
“We all know that air pressure is a function of the atmospheric conditions,” said Belichick.
And we Pats fans can sometimes be smug.
But the biggest reason people hate the Patriots may be because they win so often. While fans in other NFL cities pray their team makes the playoffs, we settle for nothing less than Super Bowls.
In the “us versus them” battle, I’m with us.
So, bring it on, Seattle.
Because, come Monday, I hope to be quoting former Mayor Tom Menino, who loved to say: “Cue the duck boats.”