Pats Fan: Call Us What You Want, We'll Just Keep Winning
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The season is finally upon us. Tom Brady is free, but the witch hunt continues. And that's just fine with Patriots fans, says the author.[/caption]
By Mackie, Smack Zone contributor
Just a few days after Tom Brady’s suspension was overturned and sports fans nationwide returned to their cubicles following Labor Day weekend, Patriots fans looked to have won the battle against the NFL and the media. … Until shortly after, stories dropped from ESPN and Sports Illustrated with many anonymous sources claiming Spygate was much more elaborate than it was portrayed to be nearly eight years ago, and that it went much further than the illegal video recording of opponents’ play calls in about 40 games.
The accusations included claims that since 2000, the Patriots had been cheating in ways that included going into visiting team hotel rooms to rummage through trash cans and sneaking into opponent locker rooms to steal play sheets in hopes of finding anything that would give them an extra edge. The ESPN article also claims that low-level Patriots employees would go into opponent locker rooms and steal game plan play sheets, and that the organization even went as far as to bug opponent locker rooms and/or coach’s boxes.
Am I a Patriots fan? Yes.
Am I saying that we’ve never done anything wrong and that the Patriots didn’t ever cheat?
No, we got caught and we have paid the price after Spygate, from the league and publicly.
Is Tom Brady guilty of “being generally aware or having an elaborate scheme” of deflating footballs before the AFC Championship game?
Honestly, none of us can say for sure.
But what I do know is this:
The New England Patriots have already been labeled as cheaters by football fans worldwide since the Spygate scandal dropped in 2007. With the Deflategate controversy, the Patriots are still labeled as cheaters, regardless of the ruling.
It’s safe to say this label won’t be changed in the minds of football fans anytime soon. I’m sure you’ve either said or heard statements such as “The Patriots are a bunch of cheaters, that’s why they win all the time, that’s why they beat us.” But how long do you want to beat that dead horse? It is dead. Stop beating the horse.
Yes, the Patriots were caught and punished for recording the signals of opponents 8 years ago illegally on the sidelines, rather than the regularly practiced and legal recording of signals from the Press Box. They were punished for it eight years ago, and all the damage has already been done. Do we really want to reopen that wound by tossing anonymous accusations out from something that might or might not have happened anywhere from eight to 15 years ago?
But then, if the movies have taught us anything, it’s that people don’t forget (NSFW, language):
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9tcA_AM4BE]
Tomorrow night marks the beginning of the NFL regular season. It’s a shame that around the country, the main headline and topic of conversation isn’t about who the favorite team is to win the Super Bowl or each division, or how good everyone’s fantasy football team is looking. News media and fans around the country aren’t even focused on the fact that FOOTBALL IS FINALLY HERE or excited to see some football TOMORROW NIGHT.
The funniest part of all this to me is that regardless of whether what the Patriots did was illegal or just frowned upon, whether they are considered cheaters or not cheaters, they were winning a mental game against the rest of the league by a longshot, while being able to concentrate on preparing for the game itself. Essentially, the other teams were so focused on the possibility and perception that the Patriots are cheaters that they were warped with paranoia that every time they faced off against the Patriots, New England would cheat in some way.
It's a nationwide phenomenon, evidently:
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Source: ESPN Sportsnation.[/caption]
Commissioner Goodell and the rest of the NFL now have the Patriots on a tight leash, and it’s safe to say their every movement will be watched from here on out. Still want to call them cheaters and use that as an excuse for their success in the future? Fine, I encourage that. You want to know why? Because it’s what fuels a Patriots fan's passion: dedication and loyalty to our team.
We Patriots fans are willing to put it all out there and fight to the figurative death. Our beloved sports teams have been the heart and pride of New England for as long as I have been alive and for many decades before that, back to when Red Auerbach led the Celtics to several championships, and even long before that. We aren’t about to abandon this great tradition, regardless of what people who aren’t us think about how our teams do what they do.
(Which is, by the way, win. A lot. Deal with it.)
So please, keep on calling us cheaters. When it comes down to it, all it does is make us look forward to kicking your team’s ass that much more!
Mackie is a lifelong New England sports fan from down the Cape.
Image: Kansas State University.[/caption]
This video shows how it ACTUALLY looked:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKGwf7CBWuw]
Um. OK. There were a number of interpretations of the band’s routine floating around the Internet this weekend. We’ll leave it to you to decide what … it … really … is.
Every fan has an origin story to tell. Sometimes the passion for a particular team is inherited. Geography often plays a role.
Rationality rarely comes into play. Logic is laughable.
Why do you love the teams you love (and love to hate their rivals)?
Sometimes, the answer is as simple as, "Because I always have. And I always will."
Smack Zone asked five writers and passionate sports fans to share their fan origin stories this week. All five articles are live as of this morning, and we encourage you to check them out.
All of the writers are conducting a giveaway of one Smack Apparel t-shirt of the winner's choice. Enter all five sweepstakes, and you could win five shirts!
In addition, all five will co-host the first Smack Zone Twitter party with us on Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET. It will be an hour of smack talk and fun, with $200 in Smack Apparel gift card giveaways.
To participate in the Twitter party, follow us on Twitter (
After a newsy (and boozy) offseason, college football is finally back! Illustration: Steve Hill.[/caption]
By Bob D’Angelo, Smack Zone Contributor
You live and die for your college football team. You savor victories against your hated rival. Losing is unthinkable.
“I’d rather have a Pap smear and a root canal, simultaneously, than have Alabama lose to Auburn,” said author and Tide fan Bonnie Bartel Latino.
You get the idea.
Some rivalries date to the early 1890s, and we LOVE the fact that we are on the verge of starting yet another season. Here’s hoping that this year brings even more fuel to the smack bonfires of history.
And now, we present the Smack Zone top 10 college football rivalries of all time:
Ohio State and Michigan is No. 1 on our list. Where did your team's rivalry land? Who did we miss?[/caption]
The third Saturday in November usually has Big Ten and national title implications. In fact, Ohio State was No. 1 and Michigan was No. 2 when the teams clashed in 2006. Ohio State won 42-39 in Columbus. Interestingly, the Ohio Lottery Pick 4 drawing that night was 4-2-3-9.
Michigan owns a 56-46-6 lead in this border war that began in 1897, but this series has been defined by two coaches.
Woody and Bo.
Woody Hayes had a genuine hate for “that team up north.” Late in the 1968 game, a 50-14 OSU rout, the Buckeyes went for two. Hayes was asked why.
“Because they wouldn’t let me go for three,” he said.
Michigan’s Bo Schembechler was a former Hayes assistant who went 5-4-1 against his mentor from 1969 to 1978.
We might have a modern-day coaching parallel: Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh against Ohio State’s Urban Meyer. Time will tell.
The two fierce rivals have an equally loyal fan base.
When 10-year-old Ivan Applin needed heart surgery in Michigan, the Toledo resident was afraid the doctors “were going to make his heart love Michigan instead of Ohio State.”
Doctors assured the boy his heart would not be trifled with.
The Iron Bowl hosts the country’s best in-state rivalry. The teams began play in 1893 and Alabama owns a 43-35-1 series lead.
The two most memorable games were Auburn upsets. In 2013, top-ranked Alabama attempted a 57-yard field goal with one second left in a tie game. Auburn’s Chris Davis fielded it nine yards deep in the end zone, then sprinted past the lumbering Tide field goal unit for a shocking 34-28 victory.
Then there was “Punt, ’Bama, Punt” in 1972. Leading 16-0 in the fourth quarter, Alabama lost the game when two of its blocked punts were returned for touchdowns in a 17-16 final.
As dawn breaks in Jacksonville, Florida and Georgia fans break out the Bloody Marys to kick off “The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party.”
Then the taunts begin.
“Why does the St. Johns River flow north?” a Florida fan asks. “Because Georgia sucks.”
Georgia fans counter with “Lindsay Scott.”
The Bulldogs dominated this unpredictable series during the Vince Dooley era, but Steve Spurrier brought the Gators some swagger and victories in the 1990s.
These rivals rarely agree. Georgia counts a 1904 game it won, while Florida claims its football program didn’t begin until 1906.
It creates some lively debate over those Bloody Marys.
By any name, this game has been bitterly contested since 1900 — seven years before Oklahoma was admitted to the Union. Sixty-seven times since The Associated Press poll began in 1936, at least one of the teams has come into the game ranked.
The game has been played at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas since 1932. Both teams’ locker rooms spill into a common corridor. Surprisingly, there have been no incidents; both teams prefer to settle their differences on the field.
It took an act of the Florida Legislature to sanction this series, which began in 1958. Florida dominated for years, but that changed with the arrival of Bobby Bowden at Florida State in 1976.
In the 1994 “Choke at Doak,” the Gators blew a 31-3 fourth-quarter lead and the Seminoles scored four touchdowns in a 31-31 tie.
In 1996, FSU beat No. 1 Florida 24-21, but thanks to some timely upsets, the two teams met several weeks later for the national title. Florida won 52-20 in the rematch.
In 1993, Warrick Dunn’s momentum-changing 79-yard catch-and-run for a touchdown at Florida Field sent the Noles to the Orange Bowl, where they would win their first national title.
After that play, Dunn said, “you could hear a pin drop in that place.”