Some Patriots Fans ‘Relieved’ Not Having Their Team in Super Bowl

One thing stood out to me this weekend as I was scrolling through social media. I was laughing at the number of self-described New England Patriots fans that were expressing "relief" that the Patriots were not playing on Championship Sunday for the first time in a decade.

"I can finally just chill and watch the games without worrying if the Patriots are going to win," wrote one of my Facebook friends.

Even my kids expressed a similar sentiment that it will be nice to have a relaxed atmosphere at our neighborhood Super Bowl party. My wife agreed. "We can just have fun instead of having tension in the room for the whole game," she said.

This, my friends, is the epitome of a spoiled sports fan. Never in my life have I ever heard a sports fan relieved that their team was not in a championship game. You have to be a special kind of spoiled to have that feeling, but here we are New England, we're that bad. This is exactly why sports fans from other cities hate Patriots fans so much.

Geez, think of all that fuel we'll save now that the duck boats don't have to run in ANOTHER parade. Thank God we're not going to have to buy ANOTHER Super Bowl hat. They're all collecting dust in my closet.

I lived through the lean years of Patriots football and Red Sox baseball. My adolescence was full of sports heartache. If you had told 12-year-old Michael Rock that someday Patriots fans would be "enjoying a nice break" from watching New England in the Super Bowl, I'm pretty sure I would have thought I was living in another dimension, but that's exactly what's happening.

Welcome to the Twilight Zone.