SumnerH said:
The gravity of Robert's situation is approximately a million times bigger than the gravity of Butler's. Even in a vacuum, Butler was involved in bringing the 4th title in recent memory to a fan base that wasn't starved for a title, while Roberts was involved in bringing the first title in 86 years to a fanbase that hadn't won one in that time period. That would be huge in any town, even a football town.
The relative place in the Boston pantheon of the Red Sox vs. the Patriots just exacerbates that difference, but it goes way beyond that--the Red Sox weren't just a local story, they were a national one. Had the Pats lost, it kind of would've sucked but people would've been over it pretty quickly. The Pats winning is about as big a story as the Seahawks winning would've been--yeah, the Super Bowl winner matters, but the Pats weren't much more than that.
The 2004 Sox title changed how almost everyone in the region watched sports, and was a weight off people's back of the like that I cannot imagine from any other title in any other sport--even non Red Sox fans saw it as a massive MLB-changing event. The Red Sox winning was the biggest baseball story not just of the decade but arguably of the 30+ previous years. Seriously. I have friends who aren't Boston or baseball fans who either quit or started watching the sport on the basis of the 2004 Sox win. Some of my DC friends still call it "the end of baseball". The Pats in 2015 are just another title.
Ten years since the last Pats title.
In between we got the devastating end to the 2006 AFC Championship Game, SpyGate, SB 42 (and the Helmet Catch and Samuel's missed interception, among other indignities) ending the chance for a perfect season, a difficult loss to those same Giants in SB 46 (which was punctuated by yet another unbelievable catch), the prospect that the Pats would not win another SB with Belichick and Brady at the helm, and the bullshit DeflateGate debacle. We also got the fun of listening to people uttering the now dead "you know they haven't won another SB since SpyGate...just saying...."
This was not just another title.
That's not to say that its importance equals or exceeds 2004 Red Sox for most Sox/Pats fans. It doesn't. But it most definitely was not just another title.
And what Euclis20 said.
PS: Upon further reflection, I don't think there is any such thing as "just another title." Let's briefly review the last eight Boston titles before this year's Pats:
1. Pats 2001. This was the first Patriots Super Bowl, the whole season was a Cinderella story and the Rams game itself was incredible. Coming in the wake of 9/11, with the Bledsoe-Brady drama and ending on a game winner all made this special and puts it high up on most Boston sports fans lists.
2. Pats 2003. After missing the playoffs in 2002, this game cemented the Pats as anything but a one time fluky winner. And the game itself was another thriller with practically another walk off Adam kick.
3. Sox 2004. Nothing to talk about.
4. Pats 2004. A rare back-to-back made this incredibly satisfying and special.
5. Sox 2007. Like the Pats in 2003, this win cemented the Sox as not just a one-and-done kind of champion. This one gets a little overlooked but for many Sox fans this title was viewed an affirmation.
6. Celts 2008. What a season. The KG-Allen-Pierce thing was so unexpected and the selfless way in which they all clicked, culminating in an epic series against the LeBron Cavs and a drubbing of the Lakers for the title in Game 6, and the first Celts title since the Bird era, made this rather unique.
7. Bruins 2011. With a drought ranging back to 1973, this was again anything but ordinary, and the final series against the easy-to-hate Canucks made it forever memorable, even ignoring the long drought.
8. Sox 2013. Between the Marathon bombing and the closeness of and characters on that year's team, and the Papi granny in game 2 of the ALCS, that title will always resonate with many Boston fans.
Can any of these be called "just another title"? Not easily. If forced to designate one or two, I guess I would gravitate to Pats 2004 and Sox 2007. But either would be a begrudging choice.
Maybe Celtics fans of the sixties could call one or more of those titles "just another title." That's beyond my data base. Maybe Yankees fans could do that.
That doesn't mean that your point about 2004 is not understood. It does stand alone for me and I think even most Boston sports fans.
Anyway, please excuse the long divergence. The phrase just got me thinking....