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Robert Kraft had found a relatively uncrowded corner amid the cacophony of the media kickoff event known as Super Bowl Opening Night, back when a sixth Super Bowl title for his Patriots didn’t just feel possible but probable, when it seemed all those late-season conversations about the imminent eruption of Mount New England were exaggerated, when everything felt right in Kraft’s football world.

His team was a heavy favorite over the upstart Eagles, safe in the confidence a second straight title and sixth overall would silence critics better than any public denial of strife ever could, secure in its role as American’s long-running football villain ready to give fans anywhere but New England one more reason to root against him.

“I understand it,” Kraft said that night, musing on the notion he owns the most hated team in the NFL, even quoting a study he’d seen that outside of his home area, only residents of North Dakota were pulling for the Patriots. “I wouldn’t use the word hatred, but look, everyone wants to root for the underdog, so I understand that. I hope we can just keep feeling that way for many more years.

“And you know what? If we weren’t in the position we’re in, I would feel it towards whomever was on top. That’s just being competitive. You can feel it and not have it be negative. You feel it and it pushes you to be better.”

Generations of Patriots fans know no other way, gearing up for so many seasons with the same owner, coach, and quarterback, watching them all get the best of the league over and over again, contending year in and year out for a championship, rarely (if ever) taking a dip. And generations of Patriots haters stand by and watch, their odd mix of admiration and envy, of respect and disgust, leaving them to ask a simple question. “Is it ever going to end?”

“We wouldn’t say anything like that, but I know a lot of other people do it. I know I got a lot of family members who say that all the time,” receiver Phillip Dorsett said inside the Patriots’ locker room on Thursday, the season inching ever closer to its official start Sunday afternoon against the Texans. “When you’re here, you don’t worry about that. You just worry about what you have to do on the field. We work really hard; it’s second to none.”

Fear not, Patriots fans — it’s not going to happen this year. Not with the ageless Tom Brady under center, not with the peerless (if charmless) Bill Belichick on the sideline, not with the witless AFC East perpetually unable to offer a viable contender. But change any one of those variables across the next couple of seasons and just wait for the sound — it’ll be a sigh (of relief) heard ’round the football world. Only then will the Patriots feel like football mortals, resemble something similar to so many of the league’s other teams caught in their cycles of perpetual change. While others flounder, the Patriots just keep chugging, leaving those like the former Colt Dorsett, on the outside looking in, wondering what it was like on the inside.

“My impression was just what I thought when I got here, Bill, he holds you to a high standard, that’s how it always is,” Dorsett said. “You’re paid to perform and do a job. As long as you get your job done the success will come. That’s what I always thought. I’d always been a fan, and I knew that’s how it worked, but now that I got here it just confirmed it.

“You have to buy in. It’s not hard. I’m trying to use the right word. It’s not hard, it’s just something you know you’ve got to do to be successful. I would say it’s demanding. Because at the end of the day if you don’t get your job done you won’t be here. It’s demanding. It puts a lot of pressure on you. But it’s good pressure.”

“I would say everybody has to earn everything here,” said another newer Patriot, cornerback Stephon Gilmore, who left Buffalo to sign as a free agent before last season. “Wherever I was at, you kind of just, you know, went through stuff. But here you have to earn everything and everyone is depending on each other. That’s one thing I respect about being here.”

It’s one thing the rest of the football world respects too, even if that admission is offered begrudgingly. They say the opposite of love isn’t hate anyway, it’s indifference. And you’d be hard-pressed to find any NFL fan indifferent about the Patriots. They push the conversation, from controversial story lines like the tuck rule to Deflategate, or indisputable qualities like Brady’s brilliance to Belichick’s genius.

When Kraft made his way to Minneapolis last year for the Super Bowl, he arrived at the event formerly known as Media Day after an appearance at the Grammy Awards. A mere mention of his football team brought out the boo birds. He heard them.

“We got a little shout-out and they gave a Bronx cheer,” Kraft said. “They cheered, but there was some booing too. In a way it’s sort of a compliment. Boston, New York, we understand it. I’d rather be on the receiving end than feeling it. Remember, for 34 years I used to sit in the stands and it was a different experience.”

Back then, it was Patriots fans wondering in frustration, “Will this ever end?” The arrival of Kraft, Belichick, and Brady answered their prayers. Now, it’s the rest of the league’s turn to watch and wonder if an end to this excellence will ever be in sight.