The offseason before the Eagles won the superbowl, former Patriots Blount and Long left the Patriots to play for the Eagles. An Eagle's lineman then came out and said nobody wants to play for the Patriots. He had to get that from somewhere, where does anyone think he got that from? The former Patriots on his team when he made the comments.
Cole Beasley chose the Buffalo Bills over the Patriots because Tom Brady was too old. Former Patriots's linebacker Marsh said he didn't want to play for the Patriots because he didn't have fun. OBJ chose the Rams over the Patriots in 2021, saying it would've been different if Brady was still with them. Tom Brady chose to go to Tampa and lastly, Rob Gronkowski retired and then unretired to go play in Tampa. Five players we know who chose to play elsewhere instead of in New England.
Then there are players like Kendrick Bourne and Jabrill Peppers who wanted to play for the Patriots. Everytime one of the near 1700 players in the NFL signs with the Patriots, Patriots nation starts talking, joking about how nobody wants to play for the Patriots. At most the Patriots can have on their roster is 90 players but they have to lower it to 53 men. They never have more than 3.15% of the players on under contract.
Granted some players salaries cost to much to be able to sign with the team but I really do have to say that just because there are some players who come out after signing and say that they wanted to play for the Patriots, that we're to believe there isn't an anti Patriots base among the players union? There are a lot of players who think the Patriots are too strick, or too dirty to want to play for them. New England has a bad reputation over the Belichick era.
However that doesn't mean I think nobody wants to play for the Patriots. Also players want to get paid, we know that. A player is going to not only sign with the highest bidder normally but with whom's offering. NFL salaries a better then most careers. We are almost never going to hear a player who just signed a contract with a team say, "I didn't want to sign here, I didn't want to play here." And the reason why we're not likely to hear that is because it's a quick way to never see the field or to get cut.
When players came out in support of Cam Newton or Jarrett Stidham in 2020, what was said by the fanbase? "Well, what else were they going to say?" It's no different when a player says they wanted to play for the Patriots after they signed. There will always be speculation on if comments are legit. And with how often contracts are manipulated to sign players, there will always be speculation that any player that signs elsewhere didn't want to play for the Patriots.
We need to accept that there are players that don't want to play for the Patriots and that's okay. The only time we need as a fanbase to throw it back in people's faces is when there are people in our faces saying nobody wants to play for our team. Otherwise all we're doing is giving ourselves and the team a bad name.
Our fanbase has such a bad reputation and it's warranted enough that we cannot stand ourselves, no wonder other fans can't. And the team doesn't need us doing anymore damage to it's reputation. So rise above the haters instead of lowering yourself because when you lower yourself, you lower all of us.
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