Let me ask you (and anyone else) this: do you think Patriot fans have generally changed over the past 15-20 years? If so, how?
I will take a shot at this question, because I've certainly noticed some changes in Pats fan both in real life, and in places like this message board, over the years. Quick background, I started regularly attending Pats games shortly after getting my driver's license in 1992. I went to college 20 miles from the stadium, and had a buddy with season tix, so I probably attended 10-20 games from 1994-1998, while I was in college. During the fall of 1998, I started buying 2 of his season tickets outright (and have had them ever since). I missed exactly one home game at Gillette from 1998-2013. Since 2013, I've realized it takes me about 3 days to recover from a hangover, and frankly, I love the Red Zone channel, so I've attended a couple games each year with my son, etc. I've also been a member of this site since 2003. Bottom line, I think I've got a pretty good grasp on the changes amongst Pats fans.
For the vast majority of Pats fans who predate the Brady years, its' simple. They are no different than Red Sox fans. I've seen a couple of people say things like the Pats "tasted" success prior to 2001. If the Pats tasted success prior to 2001, then the Red Sox similarly tasted success prior to 2004. But let's be honest here, the Pats sucked prior to 2001. Sucked. Yeah, they made it to a couple of Super Bowls, the first of which resulted in the biggest blowout in SB history for quite some time. Those seasons were lightning strikes of luck surrounded by season after season of Cleveland Brown level awfulness. The Pats played in the worst stadium, had the worst ownership, and fielded the worst team in the NFL. We were sitting on metal bleachers in December in New England, need I say more. The bottom line is those fans that went through those years, and then subsequently reached and won a Super Bowl, then another, then another are, IMO, no different than Red Sox fans who endured years of misery and then won a World Series, then another, then another....I don't see anyone comparing Sox fans to Yankee fans, so I don't even understand the argument when people say Pats fans are like Yankee fans.
I admittedly can't speak to the "younger" generation of Pats fans, people born after say 1985, who generally never suffered through any dark times with this team, because frankly, I don't associate or have much contact with those folks outside of the very young children in my family or their cousins, etc.
Where I have noticed a difference though is on sites like this and on social media, and I can't speak to whether it's an age thing because most of the time, i have no idea what the age of the poster may be. I've been dumbstruck the passed few years of people and the way they post in the game threads or on Facebook/Twitter, for the most part. I don't want to say the word is "entitled" because half the time, I can't tell if people just don't understand or know the game of football, or if they are young, old or in between. What I do know is that if Brady made a bad throw in 2004, we wouldn't have a dozen people jumping in to immediately say how he's lost it, or he doesn't have it, or he's off today or he sucks. If the defense in 2004 gave up a touchdown on the opening drive, it would have been met with concern or anxiety, but we wouldn't have people freaking out and saying our defense sucks, or Patricia blows or BB forgot how to coach. I mean, we still shit on the guy that said "TB quit on the Patriots" back in 2014, but we have posts that make that look tame on every page of some of the game threads nowadays. It's like folks believe that the result of every single play is somehow indicative and predictive of everything going forward.
I think there are either a lot of people that are just so accustomed to winning, or having Brady and the Pats perform well that they almost expect perfection. I shake my head in wonder when I see these posts because to me, it just exposes the poster as someone that either only watches the Patriots or is so spoiled (which I think is the better word than entitled) that they don't even realize what they are saying. I say they only watch the Pats because if you actually watched the rest of the NFL and then watched the Patriots, you'd really do nothing but thank your lucky stars that you are rooting for a QB, coach and a team that is doing what they do on a weekly basis, and not shitting on them for every single "bad" play. These people would have been turned to stone by the regulars around here in the early/mid 2000's, game thread or not, but I think the tide has turned on that front. And let me be clear, there is no issue with pointing out mistakes by Brady or shitting on Malcolm Butler when he makes a bad play, but every incomplete pass is not a mistake, and every time the other team scores a touchdown doesn't mean our defense failed (the other guys get paid to make plays too). I think fans of other teams are happy to win on a given Sunday, whereas I think a lot Patriot fans (again, online versus real life) aren't happy unless they blow a team out and play to near or total perfection. Fans are starting to hold the Patriots to a nearly impossible standard, and that's something that has most definitely changed in the last 5-10 years, IMO.
To be clear, I didn't spend a ton of time putting a lot of thought into this, as long as it might be, so I probably didn't lay out my thoughts as well as I should have, but I don't have time for that anymore either, but that's been my experience as a Pats fan.
