For the past 25 years in American sports, we have known one constant: Everybody who doesn’t have the last name “Wahlberg” or “Affleck” hates the New England Patriots. Since the Patriots and some random backup quarterback came out of nowhere in the 2002 Super Bowl and shocked the heavily favored St. Louis Rams, they grew to be the grand villain of the NFL. Whether it was because of Tom Brady, Bill Belichick, Robert Kraft or Gronk, cheering against the Patriots felt like doing your civic duty. It’s why, when the empire finally collapsed the year after Brady left for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with four losing seasons in five years (and Belichick decamping for college football and Instagram influencing), it felt just and fair: It was about time, after two decades of glory, the Patriots had to get down in the muck with the rest of us.
Well: I have some bad news.
As we head into the first weekend of the NFL playoffs, it brings me no joy to inform you that one of the favorites to win the Super Bowl this year is, alas, those very same Patriots. Yep. They’re really good again. Already. To paraphrase the great Jesse Pinkman from “Breaking Bad,” they can’t keep getting away with this.
Now, it should be said that these Patriots are very much not like those Patriots, even though their first-year coach, Mike Vrabel, did win three Super Bowls as a linebacker during the team’s dynasty years. (To be fair, he was always one of the least annoying Patriots.) These Patriots are a legitimate underdog who weren’t expected to do much heading into the season but shocked the league by ending the Buffalo Bills’ five-year AFC East title streak and coming into the playoffs as the No. 2 seed in the AFC. These Patriots are also much more subdued than their brash, football-deflating, opponent’s-practice-filming Foxboro predecessors: They’ve sort of sneaked up on everyone this year, with even the hardly publicity-shy Kraft keeping mostly quiet. They have just studiously, meticulously dismantled their opposing teams for months: After a 1-2 start, they’ve won 13 of their past 14 games. According to Sports Reference’s Simple Rating System — a statistic that measures how your team would do against a league average team — this group is actually better than the 2018 Patriots team, the last one to win a Super Bowl. If they weren’t wearing those uniforms, you might almost be tempted to cheer for them.
Much of that success is due — just like it was in the previous incarnation of the Patriots, and this is where it starts getting emotionally complicated — to the ascension of their quarterback Drake Maye from “promising but still learning youngster” to “leading MVP candidate,” seemingly overnight. Maye is only in his second season, but he has become a shockingly good quarterback, thanks largely to his calm demeanor and pinpoint accuracy: His 72 percent completion percentage was the best in the NFL this year and is tied for fifth-best in NFL history. He looks, instantly, like a guy who can win multiple Super Bowls, and it should be noted that he’s only 23 years old, younger than Brady was when he earned his first ring. Which means this could just be starting. Again.
Maye could not possibly be more different than Brady. Whereas Brady’s romantic travails have been exhaustively chronicled for decades — I would like to thank my tween children for informing their father who, in fact, Alix Earle is — Maye is dull, solid, unassuming and downright square: He started dating his wife when they were both 12, with their relationship lasting through college and now well into NFL superstardom. (Brady had already won multiple Super Bowls when the two met. At 12.) But you can nevertheless be forgiven for being a little irritated that the Patriots, just a few years removed from having an all-timer of a quarterback, stumbled into yet another one.
Most fans of NFL teams spend their lives praying for a quarterback to lead their teams to the promised land just once before they die; the Patriots just got two of them, almost back to back. And as likable an underdog as Maye is now — and he very much is — remember that there was a time when Brady was a likable underdog as well. No one likes to admit this now, but we were all rooting for the Pats against the Rams more than two decades ago: How little we knew. I can tell you up and down how good Maye is and how fun he is to watch and cheer for, but if he does this for 20 years like Brady did, you’re going to end up hating him. This is how this works.
He is, after all, a Patriot, and that’s what’s so frustrating about this. In any other context, this Patriots team would be a refreshing new face in the Super Bowl chase, a welcome respite to years of Brady, Patrick Mahomes and relentless sameness. Unfortunately, they’re wearing those uniforms, and they’re being cheered for by those fans. The most exciting, unlikely and pluckily lovable team in these NFL playoffs happens to be … the New England freaking Patriots. Honestly, it figures.
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