You may not like the Patriots.

You may be jealous of their extraordinary, enduring success. You may be sick of their organizational arrogance. You may be tired of Bill Belichick’s dismissive act with the media. You may be put off by Tom Brady smugness.

All understandable emotions, warranted or not.

But one Patriot you cannot dislike is Matthew Slater.

If you don’t respect Slater, the Patriots’ veteran special teams maven, then you have difficulty respecting any player in the NFL.

And if you’re a true football fan, you cannot help but feel good about what happened to Slater in last Sunday’s 16-10 win at Buffalo: He scored his first career NFL touchdown when he returned a blocked punt 11 yards to give New England a 13-0 lead at the time.

It marked Slater’s 216th game in his 12 seasons in the league. He’s played 1,834 special teams snaps in his career and 183 snaps on offense — where he’s listed on the roster as a receiver but has one career reception, a 46-yarder in 2011.

So, when Slater scooped up the Corey Bojorquez punt that was blocked by Patriots teammate J.C. Jackson, sprinted in the end zone and knelt on the turn in celebration, it could not have happened to a nicer, classier player.

Slater, the son of Hall of Fame offensive lineman Jackie Slater and a fifth-round draft pick out of UCLA in 2008, was named to seven consecutive Pro Bowls from 2011-17 as a special teams player and was selected as a first team All-Pro in 2016 and a second team All-Pro in 2017.

If the Hall of Fame voters are properly on their game when Slater is eligible for entry to Canton, he’ll join his father with a bust there, because he’s helped revolutionize special teams in the league.

And Slater, too, always has been a mature, intellectual voice of reason, class, availability and cooperation inside a Patriots locker room that in many years has lacked some of those elements.

“You play this game a long time and I think everyone dreams of scoring a touchdown at some point,” Slater told reporters after the Buffalo game. “After 12 years, I was dreaming about scoring touchdowns less and less than I was early on. I’m just thankful to be in the right place at the right time, and I thank God for that opportunity. It was an awesome experience. You dream as a kid of being able to score, and even though I’m 34 years old, I’m still a kid so I can dream.’’

Brady, a former sixth-round pick, has an appreciation for Slater and was as happy as anyone to see his teammate finally get into the end zone.

“I was hoping to throw him one at some point,’’ Brady told reporters.

Slater had not scored a touchdown since Nov. 10, 2007, when he was at UCLA, and he scored on an 89-yard kickoff return.

Belichick, in his patented monotone delivery, told reporters, “It’s always good when you score a touchdown and I don’t care who scores,” but then he added, “Nobody works harder than Matt at his craft. I was ecstatic that we scored.”

As someone who’s worked that New England locker room countless times after games for the past 25 or so years and always have had an appreciation for Slater, I was ecstatic that he scored.