The anticipation grows

It's shortly after 1:15 on Sunday afternoon, and Gillette Stadium as empty, save for the crew that'll be charged with maintaining law and order during the AFC championship game between the Patriots and San Diego Chargers.

By 3 p.m. the stands will be filled and there will be an air of frenzied electricity.

The Patriots take the field knowing that everyone outside of New England wants them to lose. Their national reputation is that they're joyless, robotic, bullies, and -- perhaps worst of all -- cheaters. If there is a taint to this so-far perfect season, it's that a) the Patriots somewhat compromised their usual lofty ideals when it comes to player personnel (especially with the latest hoo-hah surrounding Randy Moss); b) they blatantly went out and bought this team with as much ruthlessness as anything George Steinbrenner could have pulled off; and c) you can't be sure what's real accomplishment and what's been derived by violating NFL rules.

Ordinarly, that wouldn't matter much. If this were Al Davis, and we were talking about the Oakland Raiders, no one would care. Al's motto was "just win, baby," and tacit in that exhortation is that he didn't care what kind of miscreants his players were. In fact, the Raiders always rounded up the castoffs and turned them into winners. That's as much a part of their legacy as Ken Stabler and John Madden.

But we're talking about Bob Kraft, whose wife practically forced him to rescind a draft choice a decade ago because of his history of violence toward woman. The Patriots set lofty goals with regards to player personnel, and that leaves them open to all kinds of criticism when they fall short of these standards.

Since Bill Belichick took over the football operation, the Patriots have always been seen -- and emulated -- as a team that paid prudent attention to how it valued players ... and one that never overpaid. Be it Lawyer Milloy, or Deoin Branch, or David Givens, or Willie McGinest or Adam Vinatieri, the Patriots always drew the line and never crossed it. The only exception to that, maybe, was Tom Brady and, well, what do you do when your quarterback continues to make that line move? He is the one indispensable player on that team.

Then they lost to the Indianapolis Colts in the final minute of last year's AFC championship game. If you want to go by what happened on the field, the defense -- which is aging -- couldn't stop Peyton Manning and the Colts in the final two quarters.

But it goes deeper than that. Brady had no first-class weapons to work with. Belichick played hardball with both his receivers -- Givens and Branch -- and as a result, the Patriots had neither. They made do with Reche Caldwell and Jabbar Gaffney, along with Troy Brown, but nowhere was there a guy like Branch, who could stretch the field.

The Patriots won 12 games on the back of a solid defensive line and an all-pro season by Ty Warren, combined with an easier-than-expected schedule. But against Indy, things broke down badly. It couldn't have been lost on Belichick that of all the gaffes in that game, the biggest one, on offense anyway, was Caldwell dropping an easy pass that clearly would have resulted in a touchdown. When he came back to the huddle, his eyes were as wide as the UFO in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

After addressing a huge problem at linebacker (by signing Adalius Thomas), Belichick retooled his receiving corps by signing, or acquiring, Moss, Donte Stallworth and -- for money -- the most valuable addition to the team, Wesley Welker.

I've always like Welker -- and hated him. When he was on the Miami Dolphins he was a pest. On third down, he was unstoppable, and I'd just explode at the TV when I saw this teeny-weeny little guy catching passes and running all over the field.

Well, now he's OUR teeny-weeny little guy and he's been so valuable to the Pats. He gives them a tremendous weapon on third-and-crucial plays. Even when he doesn't catch the ball ... even when it's not thrown to him ... he's a weapon. Go back to that final regular season game in New York, when Brady and Moss hooked up on that spectacular touchdown pass that put the Patriots ahead for good, and it happened because of Wesley Welker.

It was a third-down play, and the Giants double-teamed Welker because they were sure he was going to get the ball.

Surprise.

Brady went up top to Moss and that was the ballgame.

If the Patriots are guilty of having spent themselves into this position, they can at least be secure in the knowledge that they spent wisely.

This brings us to point No. 3: Spygate.

It goes without saying that Belichick got caught exhibiting a generous dose of both arrogance and hubris. With this offense, he didn't have to cheat. He may be right by saying all NFL teams resort of some kind of skullduggery. But the NFL told teams specifically NOT to film the other team from the sidelines. So no matter what Belichick says, he shouldn't have authorized this.

While this doesn't negate everything the Patriots have done, it does add to the ambivalence much of the country has displayed toward them. It adds to the litany of reasons people have to despise them.

But wherever you want to put "cheating" on the list of grevious offenses, the bottom line is that the Patriots are hated more because of the robotic way they win than anything else. Some teams win a lot, and you just can't bring yourself to hate them. For example, I always like watching the San Francisco 49ers win because -- to me -- they weren't obnoxious about it. Joe Montana didn't talk a whole lot, but he went out there and won.

I loved the old Oakland Athletics teams of the mid-70s, but for a different reason. They may have been Team Turmoil, but when they weren't fighting, the A's had fun. They played like they had fun, too.

I look back and it seems to me that most of the time, I hated show-off teams like the A's. But watching Reggie Jackson was always fun to me ... even when he played for the Yankees ... because you never knew what was coming. He was worth the price of admission even when he was striking out.

On the other hand, I hated ... HATED the Dallas Cowboys. There was never anything about them to like. Tom Landry, the coach, was just like Bill Belichick ... a dour, humorless man who just couldn't seem to connect with people on any kind of a level. And whether it was Don Meredith or Roger Staubach (both obviously at opposite end of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes extreme), I hated them both. I especially hated Staubach, who, to me, epitomized the goody-two-shoed, holier-than-thou athlete who always droned that God was on HIS team.

I loved it when the Cowboys lost. God must have been a Green Bay Packers fan because whenever the Cowboys got into big game against the Packers, Green Bay won.

The Cowboys, of course, cemented their place in the coldest regions of my heart when the junked Landry in favor of America's favorite tonsorial specimin, Jimmy Johnson.

Johnson won two Super Bowls with the Pokes (I rooted against him both times) and his hair never got mussed up until one of his players poured water all over it and mussed it up on national TV.

And if hiring Johnson wasn't bad enough, we won't even get into Barry Switzer.

I put Belichick in the Landry category with one glaring exception: Landry, as bland and robotic as he was, was not a churl. Belichick is ... at least that's his public personna. I've read stories about what a wonderfully funny guy he is when he's with his friends, but I just don't see it. You watch him on TV, or on the sidelines, and he looks like he's going to growl and snarl at you. There doesn't seem to be a happy bone in his body.

This is why -- if you talk to anyone whose parochial emotional investment isn't tied up with the Patriots -- everyone would just love San Diego to win this game. The Chargers are the white knight; the Pats wear the black hat.

The Chargers are Luke Skywalker; the Patriots are Darth Vader. The Chargers are George Bailey; the Patriots are Mr. Potter.

So if it seems today as if the network boys are silently (or maybe even not-so-silently) rooting for the Chargers, it's probably because they are.

As Wilt Chamberlain once observed, "nobody roots for Goliath."

Hello, everyone

My name is Steve K, and this blog is about anything and everything ... but I think mainly you'll find it's about politics and sports.

For my first official blog entry, I will make the bold, go-out-on-a-limb prediction that the Patriots will win Sunday ... and go one to win their fourth Super Bowl this decade.

It's uncanny how this team doesn't blink. As a New Englander, it's weird to finally -- after all the years I've been alive -- to have a team (other than the Celtics) that wins relentlessly. Usually, whether it was the New York Yankees, Miami Dolphins, Montreal Canadiens, and even the Chicago Bulls ... we'd have to watch from a far as cities won title after title. I'd be sitting there in my den, rooting like MAD for the other team ... just to break things up ... but these teams were just too good.

I believe that Patriots are just too good. Nobody outside of New England likes them, and I suppose if I were from anywhere else but here I wouldn't either. They're not very likeable on the outside. Their coach is a churl (not to mention a bit fo a sneak) and their players have this air of superiority about them ... as if they're too good, and too mature, to get down and dirty and play the trash talk game with other teams.

Now ... about the trash talk game. It's fun. If you have to wait a week between games, the only thing that makes it bearable is the trash talking, because at least it's different. Otherwise, there's precious little NEWS that happens between one game and the next ... and all you see and hear are the TV talking heads going over stuff that couldn't POSSIBLY matter, except to them.

Here's all you have to know: The Patriots are better than any team in the National Football League, and at some point Sunday, whether it's early or late, they're going to leave San Diego in their dust. This doesn't mean the Chargers are going to lay down. It just means that even if the Chargers punch and claw for 60 minutes, whatever the Patriots punch and claw WITH is better.

Patriots 28, Chargers 14.