#DeflateGate (Court of Appeals Reinstates Suspension)

[D.o.s.]

However I have no doubt that the Patriots fans will store this as yet another arrow in their largely-imagined "everyone in the NFL hates us because we're sooooooo goooooood" quiver. That is a certainty.

Largely imagined?  That went out the window around midnight after the AFC championship game, when the league, three rival teams and a law firm paid 5 million dollars engaged in a witch hunt, sting operation to stain the reputation of the greatest QB of all time and the best franchise of the current millennium.

Largely imagined. The entire deflategate debacle had/has much less to do with anything to do with The Patriots (although, as Donoghus has said throughout, the fact that they're a very well known franchise certainly escalated it) and much more to do with the national front office reeling from a series of PR blunders and circling in on an opportunity for the commissioner to reassert his authority on something that a child couldn't screw up.

The fact that he screwed it up is, of course, a whole lot of fun.

In order to get the public support behind the NFL again they needed to pick a target that was largely hated among football fans. While I agree that the NFL was trying to reassert its authority, there is no other team in the league that the NFL could attack and have it be a pr win.

It is not largely imagined, the hate is real. In fact, the hate for the Patriots is what made this a viable PR strategy to begin with. Other teams have been fined for cheating but the Patriots are the only team that consistently gets tabbed as cheaters by the general public.

I don't think this is true -- you could have picked any massively successful franchise and done something similar: Seattle would be the most obvious example -- but I do think that the Pats history of rule-skirting did them no favors in this instance.

If in the last 4 years the Patriots had 7 players disciplined for PED do you think people would be talking about it? That is the case with the Seahawks and yet we hear nothing about it.
http://yourteamcheats.com/SEA

I'm sure all the teams in Seattle's division hate the Seahawks, but there is no way the hate for the Seahawks comes close to the hate for the Patriots.

Turn on any tv station there is and you will see players who have been beaten by the Patriots taking every opportunity to speak ill of them, this simply isn't true of other teams.

I think that you, as a Patriots fan, are much more inclined to seek out comments pertaining to the Patriots than the Seahawks -- who have received a mountain of criticism (usually of the call in radio show variety) about their various PED suspensions.

[Donoghus]

However I have no doubt that the Patriots fans will store this as yet another arrow in their largely-imagined "everyone in the NFL hates us because we're sooooooo goooooood" quiver. That is a certainty.

Largely imagined?  That went out the window around midnight after the AFC championship game, when the league, three rival teams and a law firm paid 5 million dollars engaged in a witch hunt, sting operation to stain the reputation of the greatest QB of all time and the best franchise of the current millennium.

Largely imagined. The entire deflategate debacle had/has much less to do with anything to do with The Patriots (although, as Donoghus has said throughout, the fact that they're a very well known franchise certainly escalated it) and much more to do with the national front office reeling from a series of PR blunders and circling in on an opportunity for the commissioner to reassert his authority on something that a child couldn't screw up.

The fact that he screwed it up is, of course, a whole lot of fun.

In order to get the public support behind the NFL again they needed to pick a target that was largely hated among football fans. While I agree that the NFL was trying to reassert its authority, there is no other team in the league that the NFL could attack and have it be a pr win.

It is not largely imagined, the hate is real. In fact, the hate for the Patriots is what made this a viable PR strategy to begin with. Other teams have been fined for cheating but the Patriots are the only team that consistently gets tabbed as cheaters by the general public.

I don't think this is true -- you could have picked any massively successful franchise and done something similar: Seattle would be the most obvious example -- but I do think that the Pats history of rule-skirting did them no favors in this instance.

If in the last 4 years the Patriots had 7 players disciplined for PED do you think people would be talking about it? That is the case with the Seahawks and yet we hear nothing about it.
http://yourteamcheats.com/SEA

I'm sure all the teams in Seattle's division hate the Seahawks, but there is no way the hate for the Seahawks comes close to the hate for the Patriots.

Turn on any tv station there is and you will see players who have been beaten by the Patriots taking every opportunity to speak ill of them, this simply isn't true of other teams.

I think that you, as a Patriots fan, are much more inclined to seek out comments pertaining to the Patriots than the Seahawks -- who have received a mountain of criticism (usually of the call in radio show variety) about their various PED suspensions.

Did the Seahawk stuff lead the network news when it happened?  What happened in the past 9 months or so is on a whole different level, IMO.

Sure, some of this is obviously paranoia coming from Pats fans and the regionally instilled from birth mentality of "us against the world" but let's not kid ourselves that the Patriots are the NFL team with the biggest target on their back at the moment.

And if social media/24 hours news cycle existed back then, the same thing would've been happening to the Steelers or the '70s or the Niners of the '80s.  The Cowboys certainly were garnering much of the attention in the 1990s (although much of that was self-inflicted).

[knuckleballer]

NFL should have never targeted Brady with so little evidence of involvement. If Goodell would have looked at things independently letting all statements and testimony be viewed in a fairly manner he would have dropped the suspension himself in the apeal. Clearly Goodell had sided with the bad investigation and didn't give Brady's legal team a fair chance to prove innocence or doubt. It's one thing to let owners gang up on another owner on little proof because all they had to state is balls were under and your staff took balls where they weren't supposed to, gas law or not you are punished. They have no proof of actual wrong doing by Brady himself except a failure to provide phone texts which proves nothing in terms on involvement.

The punishment was almost certainly born out of Brady's alleged failure to cooperate, rather than his wrongdoing.

Which is why from the beginning Brady could have made this whole thing go away if he had said something like

"It is true that I prefer the footballs to be less inflated, but I have never directed anyone to have the footballs at any level that is not within the legal confines.  If the footballs were lower than the legal limit, it was not my intent and I apologize if my preference for lower (but legal) inflated balls in any way contributed to the footballs being below the legal limits in the Colts game.  I will cooperate fully with any NFL investigation into this issue."

You know and then he actually need to cooperate fully.

Goes away with a fine.  The problem is the that is not the Patriot way.

I would agree with this. On the other hand, I really like the Circle Jerks and I'm kind of partial to their song Deny Everything, so I'm torn.

Yes, I've noticed you are trolling Patriots fans for your own enjoyment.

[EDITED]No need for that

Edit: I didn't mean it as an insult.  I was just kidding with him.

I'm not trolling anyone? I take bemused satisfaction in the way that personal fandom affects the interpretation of sports events. 

Uh huh.  Sorry if my post came across as a shot.  I didn't mean it that way.  The picture of a troll at a keyboard was pretty funny though.

[knuckleballer]

I just got through reading Berman's decision.  He eviscerates the NFL.  While he wasn't ruling on evidence, he made his opinion on the evidence clear by putting words like independent, allegedly, and integrity in quotation marks which was completely unnecessary.  Even a few of the footnotes were shots at the NFL about evidence and pointed out Brady's second half performance in the Indy game.  Awesome.

[Evantime34]

However I have no doubt that the Patriots fans will store this as yet another arrow in their largely-imagined "everyone in the NFL hates us because we're sooooooo goooooood" quiver. That is a certainty.

Largely imagined?  That went out the window around midnight after the AFC championship game, when the league, three rival teams and a law firm paid 5 million dollars engaged in a witch hunt, sting operation to stain the reputation of the greatest QB of all time and the best franchise of the current millennium.

Largely imagined. The entire deflategate debacle had/has much less to do with anything to do with The Patriots (although, as Donoghus has said throughout, the fact that they're a very well known franchise certainly escalated it) and much more to do with the national front office reeling from a series of PR blunders and circling in on an opportunity for the commissioner to reassert his authority on something that a child couldn't screw up.

The fact that he screwed it up is, of course, a whole lot of fun.

In order to get the public support behind the NFL again they needed to pick a target that was largely hated among football fans. While I agree that the NFL was trying to reassert its authority, there is no other team in the league that the NFL could attack and have it be a pr win.

It is not largely imagined, the hate is real. In fact, the hate for the Patriots is what made this a viable PR strategy to begin with. Other teams have been fined for cheating but the Patriots are the only team that consistently gets tabbed as cheaters by the general public.

I don't think this is true -- you could have picked any massively successful franchise and done something similar: Seattle would be the most obvious example -- but I do think that the Pats history of rule-skirting did them no favors in this instance.

If in the last 4 years the Patriots had 7 players disciplined for PED do you think people would be talking about it? That is the case with the Seahawks and yet we hear nothing about it.
http://yourteamcheats.com/SEA

I'm sure all the teams in Seattle's division hate the Seahawks, but there is no way the hate for the Seahawks comes close to the hate for the Patriots.

Turn on any tv station there is and you will see players who have been beaten by the Patriots taking every opportunity to speak ill of them, this simply isn't true of other teams.

I think that you, as a Patriots fan, are much more inclined to seek out comments pertaining to the Patriots than the Seahawks -- who have received a mountain of criticism (usually of the call in radio show variety) about their various PED suspensions.

Not sure I am inclined to seek it out but I sure am more cognizant of people saying negative things about the Patriots than other teams. That however, doesn't mean that the Patriots aren't the most hated team in the league (if it's not the Pats then I'm not sure who is).

My opinion that there are a lot of anti Patriots sentiment really stems from going to BC, where about half the people are from out of state and pretty much all those people rooted against the Pats. It didn't matter what team those BC students were a fan of, they all hated the Patriots and weren't shy about letting me know it.

Now that is all just my opinion. It is a fact that anytime there is a negative story about the Pats, the people you see on TV discussing it are ex players, coaches and gms that lost to the Patriots. You simply do not see the same unanimous hate from former NFL people for other teams.

[D.o.s.]

NFL should have never targeted Brady with so little evidence of involvement. If Goodell would have looked at things independently letting all statements and testimony be viewed in a fairly manner he would have dropped the suspension himself in the apeal. Clearly Goodell had sided with the bad investigation and didn't give Brady's legal team a fair chance to prove innocence or doubt. It's one thing to let owners gang up on another owner on little proof because all they had to state is balls were under and your staff took balls where they weren't supposed to, gas law or not you are punished. They have no proof of actual wrong doing by Brady himself except a failure to provide phone texts which proves nothing in terms on involvement.

The punishment was almost certainly born out of Brady's alleged failure to cooperate, rather than his wrongdoing.

Which is why from the beginning Brady could have made this whole thing go away if he had said something like

"It is true that I prefer the footballs to be less inflated, but I have never directed anyone to have the footballs at any level that is not within the legal confines.  If the footballs were lower than the legal limit, it was not my intent and I apologize if my preference for lower (but legal) inflated balls in any way contributed to the footballs being below the legal limits in the Colts game.  I will cooperate fully with any NFL investigation into this issue."

You know and then he actually need to cooperate fully.

Goes away with a fine.  The problem is the that is not the Patriot way.

I would agree with this. On the other hand, I really like the Circle Jerks and I'm kind of partial to their song Deny Everything, so I'm torn.

Yes, I've noticed you are trolling Patriots fans for your own enjoyment.

[EDITED]No need for that

Edit: I didn't mean it as an insult.  I was just kidding with him.

I'm not trolling anyone? I take bemused satisfaction in the way that personal fandom affects the interpretation of sports events. 

Uh huh.  Sorry if my post came across as a shot.  I didn't mean it that way.  The picture of a troll at a keyboard was pretty funny though.

No worries, didn't take it as one. Didn't get to see the troll although I'm sure it was nothing but flattering.

[D.o.s.]

However I have no doubt that the Patriots fans will store this as yet another arrow in their largely-imagined "everyone in the NFL hates us because we're sooooooo goooooood" quiver. That is a certainty.

Largely imagined?  That went out the window around midnight after the AFC championship game, when the league, three rival teams and a law firm paid 5 million dollars engaged in a witch hunt, sting operation to stain the reputation of the greatest QB of all time and the best franchise of the current millennium.

Largely imagined. The entire deflategate debacle had/has much less to do with anything to do with The Patriots (although, as Donoghus has said throughout, the fact that they're a very well known franchise certainly escalated it) and much more to do with the national front office reeling from a series of PR blunders and circling in on an opportunity for the commissioner to reassert his authority on something that a child couldn't screw up.

The fact that he screwed it up is, of course, a whole lot of fun.

In order to get the public support behind the NFL again they needed to pick a target that was largely hated among football fans. While I agree that the NFL was trying to reassert its authority, there is no other team in the league that the NFL could attack and have it be a pr win.

It is not largely imagined, the hate is real. In fact, the hate for the Patriots is what made this a viable PR strategy to begin with. Other teams have been fined for cheating but the Patriots are the only team that consistently gets tabbed as cheaters by the general public.

I don't think this is true -- you could have picked any massively successful franchise and done something similar: Seattle would be the most obvious example -- but I do think that the Pats history of rule-skirting did them no favors in this instance.

If in the last 4 years the Patriots had 7 players disciplined for PED do you think people would be talking about it? That is the case with the Seahawks and yet we hear nothing about it.
http://yourteamcheats.com/SEA

I'm sure all the teams in Seattle's division hate the Seahawks, but there is no way the hate for the Seahawks comes close to the hate for the Patriots.

Turn on any tv station there is and you will see players who have been beaten by the Patriots taking every opportunity to speak ill of them, this simply isn't true of other teams.

I think that you, as a Patriots fan, are much more inclined to seek out comments pertaining to the Patriots than the Seahawks -- who have received a mountain of criticism (usually of the call in radio show variety) about their various PED suspensions.

Did the Seahawk stuff lead the network news when it happened?  What happened in the past 9 months or so is on a whole different level, IMO.

Sure, some of this is obviously paranoia coming from Pats fans and the regionally instilled from birth mentality of "us against the world" but let's not kid ourselves that the Patriots are the NFL team with the biggest target on their back at the moment.

And if social media/24 hours news cycle existed back then, the same thing would've been happening to the Steelers or the '70s or the Niners of the '80s.  The Cowboys certainly were garnering much of the attention in the 1990s (although much of that was self-inflicted).

The Seahawks stuff definitely made national news when it happened. I agree that the last 9 months have been totally absurd, but I also think that it would have been the same sort of circus had it been, say, Seattle or San Fran or Denver, assuming the same actions by the team and the league.

[D.o.s.]

However I have no doubt that the Patriots fans will store this as yet another arrow in their largely-imagined "everyone in the NFL hates us because we're sooooooo goooooood" quiver. That is a certainty.

Largely imagined?  That went out the window around midnight after the AFC championship game, when the league, three rival teams and a law firm paid 5 million dollars engaged in a witch hunt, sting operation to stain the reputation of the greatest QB of all time and the best franchise of the current millennium.

Largely imagined. The entire deflategate debacle had/has much less to do with anything to do with The Patriots (although, as Donoghus has said throughout, the fact that they're a very well known franchise certainly escalated it) and much more to do with the national front office reeling from a series of PR blunders and circling in on an opportunity for the commissioner to reassert his authority on something that a child couldn't screw up.

The fact that he screwed it up is, of course, a whole lot of fun.

In order to get the public support behind the NFL again they needed to pick a target that was largely hated among football fans. While I agree that the NFL was trying to reassert its authority, there is no other team in the league that the NFL could attack and have it be a pr win.

It is not largely imagined, the hate is real. In fact, the hate for the Patriots is what made this a viable PR strategy to begin with. Other teams have been fined for cheating but the Patriots are the only team that consistently gets tabbed as cheaters by the general public.

I don't think this is true -- you could have picked any massively successful franchise and done something similar: Seattle would be the most obvious example -- but I do think that the Pats history of rule-skirting did them no favors in this instance.

If in the last 4 years the Patriots had 7 players disciplined for PED do you think people would be talking about it? That is the case with the Seahawks and yet we hear nothing about it.
http://yourteamcheats.com/SEA

I'm sure all the teams in Seattle's division hate the Seahawks, but there is no way the hate for the Seahawks comes close to the hate for the Patriots.

Turn on any tv station there is and you will see players who have been beaten by the Patriots taking every opportunity to speak ill of them, this simply isn't true of other teams.

I think that you, as a Patriots fan, are much more inclined to seek out comments pertaining to the Patriots than the Seahawks -- who have received a mountain of criticism (usually of the call in radio show variety) about their various PED suspensions.

Not sure I am inclined to seek it out but I sure am more cognizant of people saying negative things about the Patriots than other teams. That however, doesn't mean that the Patriots aren't the most hated team in the league (if it's not the Pats then I'm not sure who is).

My opinion that there are a lot of anti Patriots sentiment really stems from going to BC, where about half the people are from out of state and pretty much all those people rooted against the Pats. It didn't matter what team those BC students were a fan of, they all hated the Patriots and weren't shy about letting me know it.

Now that is all just my opinion. It is a fact that anytime there is a negative story about the Pats, the people you see on TV discussing it are ex players, coaches and gms that lost to the Patriots. You simply do not see the same unanimous hate from former NFL people for other teams.

As an aside: I'm not sure who I hated more when I lived in Boston -- BC fans or Red Sox fans. There's a special kind of hell that exists on the green line when the Sox are playing and the students are back in school. 

[Forza Juventus]

New England Patriots supporters seem to have a complex and are very defensive of criticism of their team. I sympathize with Patriots supporters because we Juve supporters are the same way. Patriots criticism seems to feel personal to their supporters in the same way criticism of Juve seems personal to us.

[Donoghus]

New England Patriots supporters seem to have a complex and are very defensive of criticism of their team. I sympathize with Patriots supporters because we Juve supporters are the same way. Patriots criticism seems to feel personal to their supporters in the same way criticism of Juve seems personal to us.

That's not just Pats fans.  That's Boston sports fans.  Maybe it's a Puritan thing.  Who knows.

[Evantime34]

However I have no doubt that the Patriots fans will store this as yet another arrow in their largely-imagined "everyone in the NFL hates us because we're sooooooo goooooood" quiver. That is a certainty.

Largely imagined?  That went out the window around midnight after the AFC championship game, when the league, three rival teams and a law firm paid 5 million dollars engaged in a witch hunt, sting operation to stain the reputation of the greatest QB of all time and the best franchise of the current millennium.

Largely imagined. The entire deflategate debacle had/has much less to do with anything to do with The Patriots (although, as Donoghus has said throughout, the fact that they're a very well known franchise certainly escalated it) and much more to do with the national front office reeling from a series of PR blunders and circling in on an opportunity for the commissioner to reassert his authority on something that a child couldn't screw up.

The fact that he screwed it up is, of course, a whole lot of fun.

In order to get the public support behind the NFL again they needed to pick a target that was largely hated among football fans. While I agree that the NFL was trying to reassert its authority, there is no other team in the league that the NFL could attack and have it be a pr win.

It is not largely imagined, the hate is real. In fact, the hate for the Patriots is what made this a viable PR strategy to begin with. Other teams have been fined for cheating but the Patriots are the only team that consistently gets tabbed as cheaters by the general public.

I don't think this is true -- you could have picked any massively successful franchise and done something similar: Seattle would be the most obvious example -- but I do think that the Pats history of rule-skirting did them no favors in this instance.

If in the last 4 years the Patriots had 7 players disciplined for PED do you think people would be talking about it? That is the case with the Seahawks and yet we hear nothing about it.
http://yourteamcheats.com/SEA

I'm sure all the teams in Seattle's division hate the Seahawks, but there is no way the hate for the Seahawks comes close to the hate for the Patriots.

Turn on any tv station there is and you will see players who have been beaten by the Patriots taking every opportunity to speak ill of them, this simply isn't true of other teams.

I think that you, as a Patriots fan, are much more inclined to seek out comments pertaining to the Patriots than the Seahawks -- who have received a mountain of criticism (usually of the call in radio show variety) about their various PED suspensions.

Not sure I am inclined to seek it out but I sure am more cognizant of people saying negative things about the Patriots than other teams. That however, doesn't mean that the Patriots aren't the most hated team in the league (if it's not the Pats then I'm not sure who is).

My opinion that there are a lot of anti Patriots sentiment really stems from going to BC, where about half the people are from out of state and pretty much all those people rooted against the Pats. It didn't matter what team those BC students were a fan of, they all hated the Patriots and weren't shy about letting me know it.

Now that is all just my opinion. It is a fact that anytime there is a negative story about the Pats, the people you see on TV discussing it are ex players, coaches and gms that lost to the Patriots. You simply do not see the same unanimous hate from former NFL people for other teams.

As an aside: I'm not sure who I hated more when I lived in Boston -- BC fans or Red Sox fans. There's a special kind of hell that exists on the green line when the Sox are playing and the students are back in school. 

If you are seeing BC students because you are taking the B line then it is your fault for taking the slowest of the green line routes.

I just moved to Beacon street and I am starting to hate the Red Sox fans that are slowing my commute.

[Donoghus]

However I have no doubt that the Patriots fans will store this as yet another arrow in their largely-imagined "everyone in the NFL hates us because we're sooooooo goooooood" quiver. That is a certainty.

Largely imagined?  That went out the window around midnight after the AFC championship game, when the league, three rival teams and a law firm paid 5 million dollars engaged in a witch hunt, sting operation to stain the reputation of the greatest QB of all time and the best franchise of the current millennium.

Largely imagined. The entire deflategate debacle had/has much less to do with anything to do with The Patriots (although, as Donoghus has said throughout, the fact that they're a very well known franchise certainly escalated it) and much more to do with the national front office reeling from a series of PR blunders and circling in on an opportunity for the commissioner to reassert his authority on something that a child couldn't screw up.

The fact that he screwed it up is, of course, a whole lot of fun.

In order to get the public support behind the NFL again they needed to pick a target that was largely hated among football fans. While I agree that the NFL was trying to reassert its authority, there is no other team in the league that the NFL could attack and have it be a pr win.

It is not largely imagined, the hate is real. In fact, the hate for the Patriots is what made this a viable PR strategy to begin with. Other teams have been fined for cheating but the Patriots are the only team that consistently gets tabbed as cheaters by the general public.

I don't think this is true -- you could have picked any massively successful franchise and done something similar: Seattle would be the most obvious example -- but I do think that the Pats history of rule-skirting did them no favors in this instance.

If in the last 4 years the Patriots had 7 players disciplined for PED do you think people would be talking about it? That is the case with the Seahawks and yet we hear nothing about it.
http://yourteamcheats.com/SEA

I'm sure all the teams in Seattle's division hate the Seahawks, but there is no way the hate for the Seahawks comes close to the hate for the Patriots.

Turn on any tv station there is and you will see players who have been beaten by the Patriots taking every opportunity to speak ill of them, this simply isn't true of other teams.

I think that you, as a Patriots fan, are much more inclined to seek out comments pertaining to the Patriots than the Seahawks -- who have received a mountain of criticism (usually of the call in radio show variety) about their various PED suspensions.

Not sure I am inclined to seek it out but I sure am more cognizant of people saying negative things about the Patriots than other teams. That however, doesn't mean that the Patriots aren't the most hated team in the league (if it's not the Pats then I'm not sure who is).

My opinion that there are a lot of anti Patriots sentiment really stems from going to BC, where about half the people are from out of state and pretty much all those people rooted against the Pats. It didn't matter what team those BC students were a fan of, they all hated the Patriots and weren't shy about letting me know it.

Now that is all just my opinion. It is a fact that anytime there is a negative story about the Pats, the people you see on TV discussing it are ex players, coaches and gms that lost to the Patriots. You simply do not see the same unanimous hate from former NFL people for other teams.

As an aside: I'm not sure who I hated more when I lived in Boston -- BC fans or Red Sox fans. There's a special kind of hell that exists on the green line when the Sox are playing and the students are back in school. 

If you are seeing BC students because you are taking the B line then it is your fault for taking the slowest of the green line routes.

I just moved to Beacon street and I am starting to hate the Red Sox fans that are slowing my commute.

Should've moved across the river to Somerville/Cambridge after graduating.   

(Not that the Red Line was much better)

[kozlodoev]

Should've moved across the river to Somerville/Cambridge after graduating.   

(Not that the Red Line was much better)

Nothing compares to the green line in rush hour. I'd rather walk.

[Celtics4ever]

NFL will appeal, I think they just should have taken their lumps, but they have a lot of money to throw around.   

[Evantime34]

However I have no doubt that the Patriots fans will store this as yet another arrow in their largely-imagined "everyone in the NFL hates us because we're sooooooo goooooood" quiver. That is a certainty.

Largely imagined?  That went out the window around midnight after the AFC championship game, when the league, three rival teams and a law firm paid 5 million dollars engaged in a witch hunt, sting operation to stain the reputation of the greatest QB of all time and the best franchise of the current millennium.

Largely imagined. The entire deflategate debacle had/has much less to do with anything to do with The Patriots (although, as Donoghus has said throughout, the fact that they're a very well known franchise certainly escalated it) and much more to do with the national front office reeling from a series of PR blunders and circling in on an opportunity for the commissioner to reassert his authority on something that a child couldn't screw up.

The fact that he screwed it up is, of course, a whole lot of fun.

In order to get the public support behind the NFL again they needed to pick a target that was largely hated among football fans. While I agree that the NFL was trying to reassert its authority, there is no other team in the league that the NFL could attack and have it be a pr win.

It is not largely imagined, the hate is real. In fact, the hate for the Patriots is what made this a viable PR strategy to begin with. Other teams have been fined for cheating but the Patriots are the only team that consistently gets tabbed as cheaters by the general public.

I don't think this is true -- you could have picked any massively successful franchise and done something similar: Seattle would be the most obvious example -- but I do think that the Pats history of rule-skirting did them no favors in this instance.

If in the last 4 years the Patriots had 7 players disciplined for PED do you think people would be talking about it? That is the case with the Seahawks and yet we hear nothing about it.
http://yourteamcheats.com/SEA

I'm sure all the teams in Seattle's division hate the Seahawks, but there is no way the hate for the Seahawks comes close to the hate for the Patriots.

Turn on any tv station there is and you will see players who have been beaten by the Patriots taking every opportunity to speak ill of them, this simply isn't true of other teams.

I think that you, as a Patriots fan, are much more inclined to seek out comments pertaining to the Patriots than the Seahawks -- who have received a mountain of criticism (usually of the call in radio show variety) about their various PED suspensions.

Not sure I am inclined to seek it out but I sure am more cognizant of people saying negative things about the Patriots than other teams. That however, doesn't mean that the Patriots aren't the most hated team in the league (if it's not the Pats then I'm not sure who is).

My opinion that there are a lot of anti Patriots sentiment really stems from going to BC, where about half the people are from out of state and pretty much all those people rooted against the Pats. It didn't matter what team those BC students were a fan of, they all hated the Patriots and weren't shy about letting me know it.

Now that is all just my opinion. It is a fact that anytime there is a negative story about the Pats, the people you see on TV discussing it are ex players, coaches and gms that lost to the Patriots. You simply do not see the same unanimous hate from former NFL people for other teams.

As an aside: I'm not sure who I hated more when I lived in Boston -- BC fans or Red Sox fans. There's a special kind of hell that exists on the green line when the Sox are playing and the students are back in school. 

If you are seeing BC students because you are taking the B line then it is your fault for taking the slowest of the green line routes.

I just moved to Beacon street and I am starting to hate the Red Sox fans that are slowing my commute.

Should've moved across the river to Somerville/Cambridge after graduating.   

(Not that the Red Line was much better)

I used to live in cambridge, but moved to Brookline because it was cheaper.

If you had told me when I was in high school in Arlington that Brookline would be cheaper than Cambridge and Somerville after I graduated college I would have thought you were crazy. Now it is the undisputed truth (at least for rentals)