[NT!]

i agree with others that 'running up the score' is a dumb concept in pro sports. fans pay a lot of money to watch the NFL, how happy do you think pats fans would be if brady started sitting out midway through the 3rd quarter?

i always picked on manning for throwing so many touchdowns from the 2 when he was going after the record. not because it's running up the score, but because it emphasizes personal achievement over team success. the same way that the defense in indy sucked for so long, because payton had to have every offensive weapon they could muster. eventually they realized that formula wasn't going to work, and they tried to balance things a bit. they won a super bowl and good for them.

i can't say whether pats fans are any different than yankees fans were in terms of being irritating. the difference to me - and this may be bias speaking - is that, due to the organizational approach of the patriots, their fans have more appreciation for the way the game is played, strategies involved, etc. i can't tell you how many yankees fans i STILL talk to who tell me without blinking that joba is a hall-of-famer but phil hughes is 'okay.' there are irritating yambags in every city. maybe it's just the circle of people that i watch football with, who knows.

new york sports has ALWAYS been more about media and glitz and hype than anywhere else. boston sports have more hype than most places, too, but to me each city has a different character. boston is a major market that has learned from some of the small-market teams and other forward thinking ideas in different pro sports - baseball, football, etc. the pats wrote the book on organizational philosophy, whether their fans are annoying now or not. the red sox remain one of the teams on the cutting edge of SABR and other progressive ideas about baseball - they aren't as driven by it as oakland or cleveland are forced to be due to their markets, but they are a hell of a lot more savvy than comparable big-market teams like the yankees, cubs, dodgers or mets (although the yankees are finally starting to catch up with some of their young talent).

what pissed me off about yankees fans circa 03-04 was their sense of entitlement, as if the yankees were born great and always would be. the pats have recently done the same things the yankees did to become great in the late 90's - bring up young talent and mix it with solid, sometimes overlooked veterans. pats fans know that our success is built on drafting well, scouting well, and organizing well. they understand we're lucky to have a good system, they don't think it just grows on trees or can be bought on the free agency market. the yankees got away from that as an organization and so did their fans.