What national media members are saying and writing about the Patriots
"Every time we doubt them they are back in."
The Patriots have found inspiration in their doubters.
Thus far through this year’s playoff run, Patriots players have used perceived slights as motivation, carrying chips on their shoulders all the way to Super Bowl LIII. Is anyone still doubting the Patriots after a dominating performance over the Los Angeles Chargers and an improbable overtime win on the road in Kansas City?
Here’s what national media members have said about the Patriots ahead of the Super Bowl.
Kalyn Kahler, Sports Illustrated: “One day in the near-ish future, Bill Belichick and Tom Brady will retire… and when that day comes you’ll wake up feeling a little bit empty inside. You’ll realize you actually miss the Patriots era of the NFL.”
Kahler shoots straight in this piece on Sports Illustrated’s website. A lot of NFL fans hate the Patriots. According to a map put together by sports betting website betonline.ag using geotagged Twitter data, a majority of the United States is rooting for the Rams in Super Bowl LIII. As Kahler points out, though, the Patriots’ run with Tom Brady at quarterback and Bill Belichick as head coach is simply beyond anything seen in professional sports before.
“And if you can’t stomach the thought of ring No. 6 for Belichick and Brady, consider 10-year veteran Jason McCourty,” Kahler wrote, urging fans to find at least one true underdog on a Patriots team that has not truly been an underdog since that first Super Bowl win against the Rams in 2002. “The twin brother of nine-year Patriots safety Devin McCourty, Jason played for the Titans and Browns before New England acquired him in March. Before this season, he had never once made the playoffs, while Devin had never once missed the playoffs.”
Will Cain, ESPN’s First Take: “Every time we doubt them they are back in, and I’m not going to start doubting them again, not in this Super Bowl, and not next year.”
“Tom Brady and Bill Belichick own the AFC.”
— @willcain pic.twitter.com/4lGOnAfXit
— First Take (@FirstTake) January 25, 2019
Cain said on First Take Jan. 25 that the Patriots have earned the benefit of the doubt with their unrivaled run: three straight Super Bowl appearances, four in the past five years, and nine of the past 18 seasons. Cain said sports media has focused for too long on who and what will take the Patriots’ place as the next big thing and ignored the fact that the Patriots never stopped being the next big thing in the process.
“We make the mistake that everybody consistently makes,” Cain said. “That is ignoring what is for what could be. What is, and has been, for going on well over a decade now, is that the New England Patriots, Tom Brady, and Bill Belichick own the AFC. And it will be that way. You should have learned. I should have learned. We all should have learned.”
Colin Cowherd: The Fox Sports personality took to Twitter last weekend in an attempt to dispel the notion that the Patriots’ success is rooted in playing in one of the league’s weakest divisions year after year.
Roughly 80 percent of the Super Bowl bets are on the Patriots. Let me guess…:it’s because the AFC East is so weak.
— Colin Cowherd (@ColinCowherd) January 26, 2019
Discussed this last week. Great teams, coaches and players MAKE their rivals look dysfunctional. https://t.co/Uv2KYn0h1i
— Colin Cowherd (@ColinCowherd) January 26, 2019
Max Kellerman, ESPN’s First Take: “The reason the Patriots have had the success they’ve had through these years is because they always focus on the job at hand, the team and the game they have to play that week.”
Kellerman, who never fails to share divisive opinions on Tom Brady and the Patriots, appeared on First Take this week with a more positive spin before the Super Bowl. Appearing to take inspiration from ESPN reporter Seth Wickersham’s bombshell Jan. 2018 report about unrest between Brady, Belichick, and Robert Kraft, Kellerman said that Brady and Belichick appeared to put their rumored differences aside this season to lead the Patriots back to the Super Bowl makes this year’s Patriots success only more impressive.
To say the rift between Tom Brady and Bill Belichick was overblown actually takes away from what they accomplished this season. #Patriots #SuperBowlLIII pic.twitter.com/ohl7k1qWDI
— Max Kellerman (@maxkellerman) January 29, 2019
“Brady undermines his coach and GM, and he did it because the GM was making plans eventually to get rid of him. They put all that aside and were able to focus on the job at hand to the point where they made it back to the Super Bowl,” Kellerman said on First Take. “We didn’t overblow it. If you’re saying we overblew it, then this accomplishment isn’t as big as it actually is.”
Clay Travis, Fox Sports: “You don’t want to go to bed the night after the Super Bowl, if the Patriots, Tom Brady, and Bill Belichick win again, win a sixth Super Bowl, being the idiot who had money down on the Rams, on Sean McVay, on Jared Goff.”
Tom Brady and New England have been favored in 69 of the last 70 games:
“This is fascinating to me that Tom Brady, who may be the best individual player on a team sport in the history of American sports, is still looking for disrespect at the age of 41.” — @ClayTravis pic.twitter.com/CkGrmxI5Ca
— Bear Bets Podcast (@BearBetsPod) January 28, 2019
Travis finds it a bit ridiculous that Tom Brady and the Patriots, with all their success year-to-year, still play the disrespect card. Nevertheless, he thinks it does play into what makes the Patriots so dangerous in playoff games and notes that nobody wants to look foolish by betting against the Patriots in the Super Bowl.
Rob Parker, Fox Sports: “I’ve always said he [Tom Brady]’s a great quarterback, but he’s also one of the luckiest guys I’ve ever seen. Things always seem to line up for him.”
“Tom Brady is the L.O.A.T. He’s the luckiest of all time.” @RobParkerFS1 has one simple message before he heads off to Mexico 😂😂 pic.twitter.com/B5dEReUMSx
— Herd w/Colin Cowherd (@TheHerd) January 24, 2019
Patriots fans should be intimately familiar with Rob Parker’s Patriots takes. The team made a video poking fun at Parker after they won the AFC Championship, which Parker had confidently asserted the Patriots would lose. Parker also stated earlier this season that Tom Brady was in severe decline. Last week, Parker walked his views back a little bit on Colin Cowherd’s radio show. Brady has always been a great quarterback, he said, but with one new twist: he called Brady the luckiest athlete of all time.
Doug Gottlieb, Fox Sports: “There’s a reason Tom Brady walked around and said ‘Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Unbelievable,’ at least 30 times he said it to his own teammates. You know why? Because it really is unbelievable that he’s here. That they’ve accomplished this again.”
“The thing that Hollywood tries to simulate is what sports actually has, which is the happy ending… I think Tom Brady should walk away if he wins the Super Bowl.” — @GottliebShow pic.twitter.com/z9SiXzWlpU
— FOX Sports (@FOXSports) January 25, 2019
Doug Gottlieb is not actively calling for Brady to retire. He doesn’t think Brady has nothing left in the tank. But, he points out, retiring after beating the Rams in Super Bowl LIII would certainly bring his career full circle. Gottlieb also said it would additionally avoid a potentially dangerous Brett Farve-like last season.
“If you’re [Brady], after, by your own estimation, an unbelievable win on the road in Kansas City… if you back that up against the LA Rams in Atlanta on Sunday, why not just call it a day?” Gottlieb asked. “Six rings is more than anybody can ever fathom. Nine Super Bowls is more years than most players will ever contemplate playing in the National Football League. I think Brady should walk away if he wins it.”
(Brady already said there is zero chance Super Bowl LIII will be his last game.)
Ray Ratto, Deadspin: “The Patriots are designated as evil because they used to be evil, and you decided they should always be evil when what they should be faulted for is persistently being, well, ‘there.'”
Ratto penned an editorial in Deadspin Tuesday that expressed the detestable, evil Patriots of Spygate are long gone, and fans should acknowledge there’s nothing really worth hating about the Patriots as an organization anymore. Ratto lays out a list of controversial NFL topics – the Rams leaving St. Louis without an NFL team, officials who can’t call games correctly because the sport is so fast, Rodger Goodell and the NFL owners he works for – and asks if the Patriots are more hate-worthy than any of those.
“Face it, you’re hating them out of habit and obligation now,” Ratto wrote. “Mostly, you hate them because they won’t give you the end of their dynasty yet—the one you knew was dead when they lost to the Eagles a year ago, or when they went all room temperature against the Detroit Lions in September, or the two times they made Eli Manning a future Hall of Famer. It is the one thing they won’t give you more than all the other things you have wanted from them.”
