When I was a kid I used to detest the Cowboys. Simply because they kept winning. I was sick of it. I was always rooting for some other teams to make it deep into the playoffs other than the usual suspects.

I wasn’t alone.

I’m still not alone.

People don’t like to see the same teams win year after year. The league doesn’t like it either. That’s why winning teams pick late in the draft – it gives them a worse talent selection at an attempt to make the teams more even. This is also why the NFL instituted a salary cap – to help level the playing field. (See what I did there? Because it’s football and…nevermind.)

But what happens when teams still perform at championship levels year after year even when the steps have been taken to make it more even?

People hate them.

You hate the Patriots because they are good. A dynasty, in fact. Ultimately, that’s the reason. All other reasons just stem from this reason.

“No. It’s because I hate Tom Brady.” Then you make a crack about Gisele or Tom’s Uggs and whatever else you can conjure up which really amounts to the fact that he beats your team year after year and it frustrates you.

“No. It’s because they’re cheaters.”

But that’s really not the reason.

Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying.

You hate the Patriots because they are good. Not because you think they’re cheaters.

You don’t care when bad teams cheat. Hell, you don’t care when any other team besides the Patriots is accused of cheating. You care more about the Patriots being accused of cheating than other teams actually cheating. It has gotten to that point and it’s out of hand. The lengths that you will go to justify the Patriots dominance over the last 15 years is laughable.

The Patriots - the team that beats your team on a consistent basis for so long and it just pisses your shit off.

You’re frustrated.

I get it.

You can’t come out and say, “I hate the Patriots because they’re good.” That would make you look ridiculous. But that shouldn’t mean you let your intellectual honesty go flying out the window. Instead, you look for information that confirms your bias against the Patriots – it’s human nature. You cling onto any desperate reason that makes you feel justified in hating them.

Imagine - if you would - a punt return where an opposing gunner is on a full tilt sprint down the field. He is pushed out of bounds by one of the coverage men – which is usual. While running up the sideline, coming back in the field of play, Bill Belichick sticks his leg out to intentionally trip the gunner to give his return team a better chance of a return with one less gunner.

Cheating right?

Crazy.

Blatant.

Cheating.

The internet lynch mobs would be relentlessly attacking “Belicheat”.

Of course, that wasn’t Belichick. That was Jets conditioning coach, Sal Alosi, in 2010, tripping up Nolan Carroll as he ran down the sidelines.