The first football game that I watched with any rooting interest was SB 20. I was watching it at the Blue Ridge Rehabilitation Center where my father was getting treatment for his alcoholism. I can still remember how excited everyone was when NE kicked the FG to go up early in the game.
At the time, my oldest brother was a big Patriots fan and my dad was a convert (for the postseason) from Giants fandom. I really knew nothing about the game, just that I wanted the guys in red to win. Since I was in my football infancy I wasn't crushed by the loss, but there was a palpable disappointment.
From then on, I started to pay attention to the game a little more, but it was still slow going. It was probably another year or two before I even understood what "first and 10" meant. For some reason Mosi Tatupu was my favorite, but I really had no idea why. Frankly, my understanding was so infantile that if I hadn't learned that he was a FB since then, I wouldn't even know what position he played. I just remembered him being a tough, almost superhero type guy.
My fandom went to another level once Bledsoe came in. There was an excitement about the team that just wasn't there at the time. It was during the Bledsoe years that I actually began to understand what the difference between a defensive LINEman and a LINEbacker was. The only positions I really understood before then were QB, RB and WR, mostly because those are the ones that I played in the backyard.
I must admit that I took another leap into the Patriots during this recent run. Prior to the middle of the 2001 season, I had no need to go to places like this. The games and newspapers were more than enough. I can still recall a conversation with a good friend of mine after the Saints game in 2001, though. We agreed that, no matter how that season ended, it was just nice to watch a team that didn't get pushed around and that made adjustments. It was from that point on that I began checking online sports pages. Fan sites and MBs were the next progression after the 2001 SB as I needed an outlet for my joy and most of my friends were burnt out on talking about football.
In my family, I am the remaining carrier of the Patriots torch as my two brothers stopped caring a long time ago. My Dad and I have had numerous times since the Bears shelacked NE where football was the only subject that we were comfortable talking to each other about, but much of that has passed and now we use football as part of a (comparably) healthy relationship.
Alright, is ther anything else you want to know?
