War Criminal: Patriots Fans

God dammit. I've held my tongue long enough.

I can no longer stand Patriots fans. it takes a lot for me to say that I "hate" any kind of fan, but I can honestly say that I HATE Pats fans.

There are tons of fans I "don't care for". As a Bears fan, I don't care for Lions or Vikings fans. I really don't care for Brett Favre or Packers fans. I also don't care for fans of the Pistons, Jazz, Pacers, Brewers, Cardinals, Astros or Red Wings. The only kind of fan that I come close to hating is Yankee fans, but Patriots fans have passed them in my book.

Did you read that correctly? Patriots fans are now more annoying than Yankee fans have ever been.

When the Pats got caught spying on the Jets in week 1, and all of the Patriots fans leapt to Beli-cheat's defense, I didn't really care. A certain amount of blind faith is allowed sometimes (this coming from a Cubs fan).

When the Patriots started blowing out opponent after opponent and claiming that they weren't running up the score, I put it behind me. After all, Houston did score 28 points in garbage time against the Titans a few weeks ago, so "technically" you need all the points you can get in the NFL.

Even last week when the Pats were on a bye and their fans were still trolling message boards leaving comments like "Yeah, you know you'll miss us this week. The NFL isn't the same without us!", I didn't lose my cool.

So what pushed me over the edge?

Toward the end of the Pats-Bills game Sunday night, buddy to the Saloon E-Claire's Cream Puff put up a post about how it's unsportsmanlike for the Patriots to keep running up the score every week. This post was up right about the time the game was officially over (as opposed to 25 minutes into the game, when it was "unofficially" over). Not 2 minutes later, the following comment appears:

"Sorry,if the Bills can't stop them, even with the Pats third and fourth running backs in there, what more do you want them to do, take a knee?

Besides the last TD was "given" to them by the Bills offense.

BTW - Dick Jauron's high school team, Swampscott High, went defeated for 10 years, partly during his time there, and won by much bigger scores. And didn't Nebraska just score 73 points? And these are amateurs, not pros."

If you're anything like me, you read the following comment and decided about halfway through to stop forming the rebuttal in your head because there were just too many points to make. But I'm going to dredge through this thing just to prove a point. War Criminal is not a term I throw around lightly.

Douchebag: Sorry,if the Bills can't stop them, even with the Pats third and fourth running backs in there, what more do you want them to do, take a knee?

Daft Funk: First of all, don't pretend like the Patriots had their 3rd and 4th string running backs in as a favor to the Bills to try to keep from scoring. Their #1 and #2 guys were hurt. And none of that matters because the Patriots were throwing the ball most of the night. I don't expect them to take a knee, but here are 2 things they could have done to not come off as such colossal pricks:

1. When you're up by 28 and you've got 4th and 1 in the red zone, just kick a field goal and be done with it. You can't make the argument that going for it is more sportsmanlike because there's a chance you could not convert and it would give the Bills the ball back. Come on...we know how good the Patriots are. There's no way they won't pick up the 4th down and they know it.

2. If you do decide to go for it, put in your subs. I would have all the respect in the world for the Pats if they would have not only taken Brady out when they were up by 4 touchdowns (or 5...or 6...), but also send in their second string linemen and wideouts. Every NFL team has a bunch of backup linemen that only get in on special teams that would love nothing more than to come in and play a few quarters, especially on a nationally televised game.

Douchebag: Besides the last TD was "given" to them by the Bills offense.

Daft Funk: Hey dipshit, read the post you're commenting on. No one said anything about the turnover that the Patriots ran back for a touchdown except you. You know how sometimes when you're arguing but you know you have no real evidence to back yourself up, you start refuting points that no one ever brought up just to save face? Yeah, that stopped working in 3rd grade. I'd like to give you a B for effort, but that comes with the D- you get for being terrible at life.

Douchebag: BTW - Dick Jauron's high school team, Swampscott High, went defeated for 10 years, partly during his time there, and won by much bigger scores.

Daft Funk: How can a team go "defeated" for 10 years, but still "win by much bigger scores"? You're starting to lose me, Sully McPatsfan. I'll assume that you mean "undefeated" and I'll begrudgingly give you credit for making a point. However, when the best point you have in an argument is that because a coach may have run up the score when he coached high school it's ok for another coach in the pros to do the same to him decades later, you're probably going to lose.

Douchebag: And didn't Nebraska just score 73 points?

Daft Funk: If Johnny pushed his sister off the tree fort, would that make it ok for you to do it too?

Look buddy, you may not have noticed it (or you may just be in denial (or you may just be hopped up on meth)), but the current system in college football is set up so that a team can actually improve their rankings by running up the score on other teams. All college teams run up the score as high as they can to get more attention, which can mean a better ranking, which can mean a better bowl game.

Douchebag: And these are amateurs, not pros.

Daft Funk: I have to hand it to you. To succeed in making only one true statement in the course of an argument, but having that statement completely contradict everything you were trying to say takes a lot of talent. Either that or a lot of inbreeding. You're right in saying that high school and college players/coaches/teams are amateurs and not pros. So if anything, they should be excused from running up the score more than a professional team would, because they aren't in that top level. If you're an amateur at anything, and you fuck something up, no biggie. But if you're a pro, you're at the top of the heap and it's your responsibility, whether you like it or not, to set an example.

Look, this could have just as easily been a War Criminal about Tom Brady, Bill Belichick or the Patriots in general. But I chose Patriots fans to single out for one reason. This rebuttal came literally minutes after the Patriots game had gone final. That means that there are Pats fans out there that will search through Blogger to see if anyone is saying anything negative about their beloved Patriots the second the damn game is over, so they can dish out their own brand of Patriots Charm. After that, they probably go back to jerking off into their Wes Welker jersey while simultaneously watching Bill Simmons on E:60, reading his columns and listening to his God-awful podcasts.

I'm sure there may be a few logical Patriots fans out there. But from my experiences with them, I assume they all look like this. Or this. Or this.