The Official Patriots Fan's "Running up the Score" Rant

Let me just get this out of my system.

Once again, angst has been building up within the Patriots-related synapses of my brain, until I feel the need to at least plant a verbal stake in the ground on behalf of the apparent minority of NFL fans who feel the way I do about this.

I know I shouldn't let things like this get to me the way they sometimes do. There's that expression -- haters gonna hate. I also can't say I have an exactly spotless record when it comes to irrational hatred of and criticisms for other teams (Peyton Manning and the Colts being the prime example).

And yeah, there are a lot of ways in which I really can't defend Bill Belichick, in particular. I understand why people find him gruff, persnickety, sarcastic, pedantic, condescending and generally a dick, sometimes all in the same sentence. The man has obviously not built his professional success on his stellar social skills.

But I've long since had enough of Belichick's team, its owners, and associated fans, being the subject of plainly idiotic double standards and / or collective amnesia because of the widespread personal distaste for the head coach. And there are times, like this time, that all the understanding in the world that sometimes these things are meant to get a rise out of me, to stir the pot, to get the phone lines lighting up and the eyeballs glued to the TV screen, or at the very least are an irrational defense mechanism akin to my own vis a vis the Colts, still can't make me abide the continued insistence on reverting to the oversimplified pigeonhole the league has collectively created for the New England Patriots.

Fellow Pats fans will know what I'm talking about. That unfair, exaggerated (but popular!) narrative in which the Patriots are, as a franchise, as a fan base, yea verily, as a concept upon the Earth, a despicable band of uniformly and uniquely unscrupulous villains. Especially when they're beating someone else's team, and especially when they're doing so by a relatively wide margin.

But seriously. However people feel about Belichick or Spygate or any of the other water under the bridge, as for the right here and now, I am here to tell you -- when this particular season first dawned, even the cockiest, most smug, most entitled, drunken hooligan stereotype of a Patriots fan didn't see this result coming.

Nobody had any right to expect this painfully young defensive unit to come together the way they have, and to the extent that they have. Meanwhile, Brian Hoyer's first abortive attempts to lead the offense after Brady stepped out briefly in yesterday's second quarter laid bare the leadership and the presence Brady brings to the field, and how he just makes it look easy. 

In fact, there's probably another whole post idea for me to throw into Ye Olde Sisyphean Draft Post Queue about the fact that this season has really been a two-year endeavor in the making, and all the ways last year has fed into and created the results we've seen this year.

But for now, the bottom line is: this team has earned this.

And so, it is with great earnestness and sincerity I beseech of thee, O Interwebs, especially you Patriots haters out there -- can we just retire the "running up the score" talk already? Could we for once acknowledge that this is not a big mean group of bullies beating up on helpless old ladies dressed up in Miami Dolphins uniforms, and that this team has been the furthest thing from a sure-thing, competition-stifling juggernaut for most of this particular season, past seasons notwithstanding? Must the collective amnesia and stereotyping about the Patriots really set in, again, now that they're back to being successful?

Here are five logical arguments in support of my requests, in the context of yesterday's game and some of the crap I saw flying around as a result. And yes, I realize that they (like this post) are an exercise in futility, but as I said above, I just have to get it out of my system.

1. There was still a game scheduled for yesterday, which was not cancelled due to the fact that it had no real bearing on the division standings or the AFC playoff picture. This game was still a professional football contest which was not going to play and win itself. (I realize that's such a basic statement of facts it probably comes off as condescending, but seriously, this seems to be the level of disregard for reality we're working with at this point when it comes to some Patriots haters.)

2. Despite how long Tom Brady stayed in the game, the Patriots weren't playing at full strength. From the beginning.

Before kickoff, the Patriots had already sat many of the first-string personnel, and continued to do so throughout the game. Inactives before the game included Brady's two best receivers, Wes Welker and Deion Branch, as well as one of his tight-end whiz kids, Aaron Hernandez. And while Brady stayed in quite a long time, for most of his playing time he was without his starting left tackle. Matt Light was substituted for early, and then returned to the game only briefly later to fill in for Logan Mankins at guard.

By the end of the game, full-on green rookies just drafted this year, like erstwhile Ohio State wide receiver Taylor Price, were making plays. Even with that game-long offensive line situation, New England QBs were not being sacked or pressured with any regularity.

At some point, isn't it time to also admit just how deeply the Dolphins sucked? How apparently without urgency they were from the very first moment? As long as we're being high and mighty about sportsmanship, how about the sportsmanship of that?

3. The real heart of the latest "running up the score" issue -- going for it on a 4th and 1 behind a backup QB getting approximately his dozenth snap of the season near midfield -- really wasn't the obnoxious jerk move, if by obnoxious jerk move you mean making an attempt to tack on as many cheap points as possible. The play the Patriots chose there actually meant the they were playing the lowest percentages, even though, YES!, they were still actually playing, unfeeling brutes that they are.

To me, the obnoxious jerk move would've been to go for a long field goal, and get the likelier points. Instead, the Patriots risked the pretty good odds they'd be handing the ball over on downs at the Miami 47, gift-wrapping field position for the Dolphins. And this was the point where the words "this is why they hate us" were actually used on Twitter. By a New England fan, no less. Stop the insanity!

4. If you believe the Patriots should have attempted a 20-to-30-yard punt at that point, within field goal range, solely out of deference to their opponents, I hope that you'd also insist on that if it was your team in that position, rather than the hated Patriots. Somehow, though, at least judging by some of the near-identical lopsided scores from around the league yesterday (which of course drew no such similar "running up the score" nonsense), I doubt that would be the case.

5. For a playoff-bound team with a bye coming up, i.e. the Patriots on Sunday, this type of "meaningless" final game is also known as "an opportunity to test your depth chart in as close to a realistic set of situations as possible."

I know, I know, it's really boring and nerdy, the way Belichick and his team insist on honing and perfecting what they see as the craft of coaching and playing football, and Lord knows I've gotten an earful already about how tiresome and pedantic it is that the Patriots endeavor to play a strong 60 minutes of football each week, without regard for whether there are playoff implications.

But let's just get a grip, already, shall we? The Patriots aren't in business to help the Dolphins feel good about themselves, or anyone else, for that matter. They are in business to win games and championships, they are terrifically good at doing so, and that's because there is no head coach in the league more constantly, obsessively cognizant of that first essential fact than their current head coach. Not because he is evil, but because he is extremely good at his job, including recognizing its scope and maintaining focus on his and the team's core objectives, which, again, do not include mindfulness of their opponents' potentially hurt feelings, or whether fans in other cities think they are big doody-heads.

Really, Patriots haters, we can (and probably do) have a difference of opinion here -- many, in fact. But I really don't think it's unreasonable to request that it be recognized that all the gnashing of teeth about the Patriots is pretty much an irrational, if normal, defense mechanism, akin to my own irrational hatred of Peyton Manning, and not some crusade for True Justice against the Forces of Evil on the part of the rest of the league. Or, at the rock-bottom least, for the love of GOD, people, come down from the high horse --  you know, the one where you act like your team, or ANY professional sports team in business to win games and championships for that matter, would do any differently in the same set of overall and in-game circumstances the Patriots faced on Sunday.

Seriously. I'm not saying people have to like the Patriots. But enough with this disingenuous, holier-than-thou bullshit. We know -- good God, we KNOW -- how sick everyone outside of New England is of our football team. We're also well aware of the general consternation that we refuse to at least apologize for them.

But trust me. On this side of the fence? Those sour grapes are getting just as old.

Comments

[COD]

Another thing I'm getting sick of...the looks and snide remarks about bandwagons and how easy it is to be a Patriots fan these days, usually coming from a Dallas or Redskins fan where I live. My usual retort is that I was there during the Steve Grogan years. I usually get a blank stare back.

[Beth]

Oh! Oh! And! The comparisons with the Yankees, as a cheap attempt to get under a Boston fan's skin. I could probably write another whole rant about that, except I haven't heard that one lately...

[Vickie]

I find it interesting that football seems to generally be the only sport where this accusation is made. Our athletes are paid to do their best regardless of the situation, and I would not expect them to give less than 100% on any play. How does one just run out the clock in football? Are you supposed to intentionally run plays you know have no chance of working? Those that are complaining about the Patriots, "running up the score," should place the blame where it belongs, on the other team and their inability to stop the Patriots from scoring.

[Beth]

Well, you can run out the clock using lots of running plays. Which the Patriots did. And you can intentionally run plays that have a lesser chance of working, as I argue the Patriots did with that 4th and 1 play under the backup QB. Miami just didn't stop ANYTHING. Thus there are some who point out that the Patriots very well could've hung 50 or 60 points on them, but didn't. There WERE ways the Patriots backed off late in this game.

AFA this being the only sport where you hear this criticism, that's not ENTIRELY true -- after this game in 2003 http://scores.espn.go.com/mlb/recap?gameId=230627102 the Marlins manager accused the Red Sox of poor sportsmanship for scoring 14 runs in the first inning. But you certainly hear it more often in football.

Might just be one of the many cultural differences between the two sports. Baseball fans tend (realize I'm generalizing, and I am both, so I'm also talking about myself here) to be a bit more intellectual in their approach to the game.

In other words, a hardcore baseball fan's way of throwing down with you is likely to be statistical. A hardcore football fan's way of throwing down with you is likely to be personal. Don't know why that is, but that's the trend I've noticed.

Outside of NY and Boston, the US is pretty much all about football these days, and fans tend to take the game more personally. Individual games also mean more, since there are fewer of them, so individual plays within individual games can also be put under a greater microscope (again, Boston / NY baseball its own insane animal and exempt from this comparison).

Maybe it's also got something to do with that longstanding 'macho' aspect of football. As an equally 'macho' fan, you don't admit your own team sucked -- you accuse the other team of cheating and / or running up the score. Those are some guesses, but I honestly don't really know.

Generally, we are in hearty agreement that 'running up the score' is bunk, though.

It's funny, I expected to get flamed hard for this post. Maybe I shouldn't speak too soon...

[Mark]

One thing I've noticed is there are frequent complaints about the Patriots running up the score, but there aren't complaints on the other side of the equation.

I'll give you an example. At the end of the Eagles-Vikings game, the Eagles were down 10 points and Vick threw a complete pass in Vikings' territory. The team then rushed up to the line and Vick spiked the ball with about 5 seconds to go in the game. Why not just let the clock run out? There is absolutely zero chance of tying the game. Zero. Isn't that bad sportsmanship?

Well no, not really. Maybe the Eagles were working on their two-minute offense. Maybe they were trying to score a TD because it could have implications down the road in some playoff seeding scenario. The bottom line is that there was a valid football reason why the Eagles did that, just as there was a reason why Brady was popping in and out of the game and Hoyer went for it on 4th and 1.

I honestly don't understand how fans could love seeing highlights of BIG HITS but then whine about someone running up the score like this is Pop Warner.

[Beth]

Mark, all I can really add to that is that I agree completely.