In response to a certain top 10 list that isn’t worth linking, from a source that isn’t worth reading, which covers a team that isn’t worth changing game plans for, I have decided to post my own top 10 listing. For the record, the link wasn’t worth clicking and was from a source that wasn’t worth reading about a team that isn’t worth my time, so I didn’t read it. I didn’t need to. I know what it said. I hear it ad nauseam whenever I travel west of Cincinnati. Still, I’m having a (few) margarita(s) while looking forward to the butt kicking I will watch this weekend, so I might as well make a list. The name is the title.

#10) You’re Ugly

I don’t twitt. I’m not making a hatch-tag. This is number ten. I’m not saying that Patriot fans are better looking than other fans, even though we probably are, and I’m not saying that our lineup of players consisting of Tom Brady, Julian Edelmen, Danny Amendola, Jimmy G, Devin McCourty’s chiseled cheeks or Rob Ninkovich’s luscious beard are better looking than your players, even though they definitely are; I’m saying you play ugly football. I grew up playing and watching soccer, and so long as you understand the sport and that a 0-0 tie can still be exciting as all hell, the game is truly beautiful to watch. It is like poetry in motion. The players all need to understand the flow of the game and how their positioning on the field affects the totality and fluidity of play. Football is different. It is 10 seconds of violent action followed by 40 seconds of resting and planning. But, it can be beautiful. Case in point, Patriot football. Watching Tom Brady connect his super smart brain and gorgeous release to his equally savvy receivers is a thing of beauty. Watching Bill Belichick scheme a defense to play differently against each opponent is also refreshingly satisfying. Watching the Steelers do the same thing on defense for ten years isn’t, but it surely makes beating you easier.

#9) You’re Stupid

There is an NFL rule book. There are a myriad of offensive and defensive schemes. Your coaches choose to use the limited schemes they know, or those schemes that are currently popular that everyone knows. You know rules that an average fan watching on television understands. Our coach uses schemes that he remembers from 40 years ago, designs new schemes every weak that play to his players’ strengths and/or exploits an opponent’s weakness, and understands the rule book better than the people who "wrote" it. You can try something you think is ‘new’, like the Cowboys tried this past weekend. Bill and the boys will have it figured out by halftime.

#8) Instead of Trying to Figure Things Out, You Just Try to Change Them

As a tie in to #9, when our exceptional staff uses the language in the rule book to try something relatively new and exciting and revolutionary that could legitimately make our game more entertaining and cerebral, you bitch and moan and say we are ‘exploiting’ the system. When it happens to us, for instance when the Dolphins handed it to us using the Wild Cat Offense in the NFL for the first time, you think it is clever. It’s smart football. When we do it, you run on the field and complain to the officials, whose job it is to know it is legal and therefore it absolutely is, and then use your pull in the Competition Committee to try and make sure we can’t do it again. Nobody wants smart football because, as #9 points out, we are smarter than you and that just gives us another advantage.

#7) First You Change It, Then You Use It

Of course, after we try something new and it works really well your teams all try to do some variation of the same thing and then conveniently forget where you learned it. When Bill uses something that another coach drew up, for instance those exact formations that Belichick said he first saw the Lions use, he gives the proper credit and historical context. Your coaches try something and it is "something you’ve been working on", certainly not something that kicked your butt and then you cleverly plagiarize and take credit for.

#6) Your Colors Aren’t ‘Murca

Red, white and blue, you commies. Red, white and freaking blue. We stand for what makes this country great. We stand for the men and women that stood up to tyranny and taxation without representation. You stand for a jungle cat, or a desert cat, or an African-style great plains cat, or another jungle cat, or a mountain goat with curly-type horns, or adult horses, or baby horses, or greedy jerks destroying mountains to find gold, or people that once actually had a purpose out west and are now "honored" by people wearing boots, wide-brimmed hats, gigantic belt buckles and spurs while working at a Chevy dealership. Of course one team represents the original ‘Americans’, and by represents I actually mean offends. ‘Murca.

#5) Your Ceiling is Our Floor

This is the year. This is the year you use that perennial top-10 draft pick to select that one player who will put you over the top and lead you the Promised Land, the playoffs. That drought, which has lasted so long that your starting quarterbacks and head coaches throughout the term combined couldn’t fit on a 53 man roster, will finally end. This is the year. The same year that the Patriots will once again pick in the last five slots (or not at all if it was taken away, like that matters) and still find a better player than you. We live in the upstairs apartment. That means two things: we live inside your head, and we stomp on your ceiling. We are winning our division. We are going to the playoffs. Will we see you there? Maybe.

#4) We Don’t Celebrate Participation

Our success is measured by championships. Every season that doesn’t end in a Super Bowl is a failure. You remind us of it. "You haven’t won a championship in TEN YEAAARSRRSRSR! LOLz!" You’re right. But we went to two, and went to the game before more times than any other team. And won our division every year save one. And yeah, we failed. That doesn’t say much about us. It says a lot about the straws you will grasp to try and demean us. And when we don’t achieve, barring we didn’t just complete the only 16-0 regular season on record, we don’t hang banners for it. We don’t hold press conferences to say we had a good year. We failed. Onto next season.

#3) Your "Integrity"

Every one of you cheers for a cheater. Every single one. Competition is about exploiting advantages. We do it, admittedly. So do you. The difference is when we do it you all flip out. When you do it, it is ‘gamesmanship’. We didn’t actively ignore the salary cap and pay players under the table to win championships. We didn’t have our linemen grease up before games so the opponent couldn’t get a hold on them. We didn’t have our receivers use a banned substance to catch balls easier. We probably have some players who use PEDs. You do too. No, we did something that is still completely legal from a position that might not be. Egregious. What’s more, there isn’t a team in the NFL that has to follow the rules more intensely than the New England Patriots. When physics does the things it has to do because, you know, physics, we get called cheaters. The League spends millions of dollars to appease your stupid faces because it makes you feel better. Then you sleep better at night because you called them the Cheatriots, and Bill Belicheat, and Tom Bracheat, and Julian Edelcheat, and Rob Cheatkowski, and Danny Amencheatla, and, oh you get it.

#2) We Don’t Click on Articles about Your Team

How many times did I click on an article about the Colts this past offseason? The Ravens? The Broncos? The Packers? The Saints? The Seahawks? Combined? Zero. We don’t care about your team. How many articles did you actively click on, read or probably skim or, even better, just read the parts you agree with and then jump to the comment section so you could spout your idiocy through your keystrokes and then chuckle before you went to sleep in your mom’s basement? Tons. Tons. Who are the Panthers going to take in the first round in this year’s draft? Who cares? I don’t. Which new coach is getting the most out of his team during OTAs? Snooze. How often did JJ Watt work out this offseason? Lame. But it’s something about the Patriots, so you’re going to click on it. Loser.

#1) I Can’t Think of Ten Things and I Don’t Care

Actually, I can think of hundreds of more things, but I repeat, I don’t care. I could talk about the "me, me, me" culture of America and how we love those athletes who say insane things to get attention while the Patriots say nothing and stay humble, but again, I don’t care. I could talk about the "stars" you hang onto for years after their prime while we move on from somebody whose value no longer deserves a spot on our roster so you overpay to get whatever piece of the Patriots you can get your hands on, but I don’t care. I don’t. I’m drunk. Goodnight.



