As Tom Brady said on The Herd with Colin Cowherd this week, Mike Vrabel will see every slight made against his New England Patriots, and use it to motivate his players ahead of Super Bowl LX.
Fortunately for Vrabel, he hasn’t had to work very hard to find bulletin board material. If anything, he’s going to need a bigger board.
New England opened as legitimate underdogs to the Seattle Seahawks following the NFC Championship Game, and the gap only seems to be widening in the eye of the national media. No one’s really giving the Patriots a shot at knocking off Seattle in Santa Clara, and NFL insider Dianna Russini revealed why on Radio Row on Wednesday.
In a sit-down interview with Zolak & Bertrand on 98.5 The Sports Hub, Russini offered a brutally honest response to a question on how the league views Vrabel’s Patriots ahead of the big game.
“That they had a light schedule, that they’re not that talented, and that they shouldn't be here. That is the sense I get,” Russini replied.
That hardly constitutes a bombshell report, as Patriots fans have been hearing it from all angles this season. Despite going 9-0 on the road and literally winning all but one of their games since Sept. 21, no one outside of the Foxboro Faithful are taking this team seriously.
It’s one thing, though, for that commentary to come from sensational talking heads like Stephen A. Smith and Cam Newton, or from Bills Mafia on social media. It’s another thing entirely to hear that the majority of the league is drinking that same (poorly mixed) Kool-Aid.
The NFL’s disrespect of the Patriots is about to meet a Super Bowl reality check
The goal posts have been moving all season long, and from a Patriots fan’s perspective, it’s been objectively hilarious.
Bills fans celebrated their Week 15 win in Foxboro like some sort of vindication, when in reality, their team needed an all-time comeback from Josh Allen from 21 points down just to squeak that one out, 35-31. Allen may feel like a Super Bowl trip was a shoo-in had the Bills survived Denver in the AFC divisional round, but that’s really just typical Buffalo Bills delusion.
It’s honestly not surprising to see folks mostly picking Seattle. The Seahawks are 4.5-point favorites, and that line doesn't appear to be moving closer to the key number of 3.
What’s surprising is the mass dismissiveness of a team that’s not only won 17 games this year, but is allowing just 8.7 points per game in the playoffs.
The Seahawks are a good football team, but they’re not so good that a subpar performance will beat this Patriots team, which is healthy, hungry, and good in all three phases.
If Seattle’s drinking the same Kool-Aid as everyone else seems to be this week, Super Bowl LX could end up being a rude awakening for a lot of people.