Patriots Running Up the Score, Again — Get Ready for the Sour Grapes
Another week of football and the New England Patriots take another step closer to the Super Bowl and a possible perfect season. If you’re not a New England sports fan, you probably hate the incredibly successful and seemingly unstoppable Patriots. Of course, if you are a New England sports fan, then brace yourself for another week of “sour grapes” — the Patriots ran up the score again…whine, complain, whimper, sniffle.
Patriots put the Bills out to pasture
If you’re not a football fan, or thought all the games were over by 8:15 PM Eastern (since when did Sunday games start that late?), let me give you a quick summary:
The 9- 0 New England Patriots returned to the grid iron, after an extra week off, to take on the 5 - 4 Buffalo Bills in New York. Buffalo had been on a 4 game winning streak and traditionally gives the Patriots trouble. The Patriots had been undefeated coming into this game and still living under the fading shadow of “VideoGate.” The end result of this match-up? The Bills took a beating from the Patriots with a final score of 56 - 10. After delivering such a beating New England needs to brace itself to receive a post game beating of its own. There will be no shortage of criticisms about the final score and the Randall Godfrey’s of the league will certainly come out of the woodwork to complain.
Can everyone really complain about the score?
A 46 point spread in the game of football is large. Therefore when you beat someone by that much, the question gets asked: did the winning team run up the score? The answer? In the case of professional football, absolutely NOT.
Scoring points is a large part of the sports “entertainment equation.” The “paying” customer expects to see a good game between the top players of both teams. No one wants to pay good money to see the second stringers play because a win is already inevitable by the start of the second half.
The NFL isn’t a town organized Pop-Warner youth football league. If a professional athlete’s “feelings” get out of sort due to a complete thrashing, no one cares if he/she might “give-up” and “quit” playing. And if players like Randall Godfrey are so concerned about “showing some respect” to the league, then they ought to step up and start earning that $1,902,970 salary instead of complaining about “class” and “respect.”
on November 19th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
With any score blowout there are the seemingly unlimited amount of commentators, both professional and amateur alike, that feel the need to weigh in. I myself am not a big sports enthusiast, but I did stop channel surfing long enough to see Carolina Panthers’ John Kasay kick a pooch punt and have it returned 94 yards by Green Bay for a touchdown. Nice job Kasay. Next time, go for the posts!
on November 24th, 2007 at 10:22 am
I yearn for the day that Tom Brady and the Patriot video mafia once again become “just another NFL team” . . . or maybe MY team (Panthers) become more like the Hatriots so I can defend their senseless beating of a lessor team.
Seems to me that Patriots must still feel neurotically vulnerable if they feel that they need a 46 point “cushion” in order to avoid a possible loss.
Yeah, I’m whining and complaining, especially since the Panthers suck this year. Perhaps some of the off-field hype includes cursing another team while other fans enjoy faithfully defending their teams ludicrous actions.
A famous ex-Cowboy quarterback, Don Meredith, once alleged that in the NFL “a point spread of more than 3 touchdowns is an embarrassment, 4 touchdowns is a shellacking, 5 touchdowns is a first degree butt kicking, and 6 touchdowns is a felony and subject to investigations.”
Personally, I, as a NFL fan, prefer a close score in games that I watch. It’s nice to see a lot of scoring, but not when 90% of the scoring is from one team.
There . . . I feel better. I hate the Patriots and their glamor-boy quarterback, just like I hate the Yankees, the Florida Gators, and Coach K & the Bluedevils. I DESPISE them all. I loathe and ABHOR THE LITTLE BUMS. I wish I could SMASH them all and cruuussh them INTO LITTLE SMOTHERING BLOBS OF GOO!!!!!
Merry Christmas to you and yours during this season of joy . . . .
on November 25th, 2007 at 9:18 am
And here come the sour grapes. *heh heh*.
I was hoping someone would chime in and try to defend the idea that running up the score violates some unwritten rule of professional sports. However, since you also hate the Yankees I’ll resist the temptation to completely mock your comments.
on November 25th, 2007 at 11:49 am
And I wish you a joyous season . . . .
on November 26th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
And now that the Patriots are 11 - 0 it is shaping up to be a very joyous holiday.
on December 8th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
this comment is a bit late, but here goes– yesterday at newstand I noticed on the front page of USA Today that 4 sports commentators had a plan for the Steelers to beat the Patriots this Sunday Dec 9. I should’ve bought the paper but I didn’t. Wonder if their “game plan” will be the one that wins for the Steelers. It’s bad enough to listen to them during the game (we usually ‘mute’ them) and guess that’s why I wasn’t too tempted to buy the paper to read their coaching advice in print. I’ll bet on Coach Bill, the Patriots & New England weather!
on December 10th, 2007 at 10:30 am
Guess the Steelers also failed to buy that paper as they lost to the Patriots 13 to 34. Two field goals, one touchdown, and no points in the second half. The Steelers didn’t do so well and I’ll predict they do lose again next week when they face Jacksonville. Why? Because a game against the Patriots has become that team’s in season Super Bowl. Team’s are exhausted after such a game and incapable of sustaining that level of intensity two weeks in a row.