Bob Socci
Socci’s View: As Pats and Chiefs know, the sincerest form of flattery in the NFL comes with sustained success
One more. Still here. They were slogans printed on rally towels and titles to postseason hype videos. One of them, the first, was even heard on a few radio calls, shamelessly I'll admit, in January of 2018 as the Patriots advanced into February. Again. Those were the good old days. Back when the Pats were the bane of existence for the NFL’s other 31 teams. When they rallied in conference finals after an official’s whistle halted a potential fate-sealing fumble return and a defender’s misalignment negated a defeat-ensuring interception. When they completed an historic comeback to win their fourth Super Bowl, then topped it to win their fifth. And when they took a brilliant offensive mind (and future champ) to school while winning their sixth. They get all the breaks! Calls always go their way! Anybody but them! So it was said from South Florida to Western New York, from the swamps of Jersey to the so-called Heartland. While some rivals tried imitation, hiring away coaches and front office types from New England, the sincerest form of flattery for the local footballers was the contempt every other fan base held for the perennially-title-contending Patriots. They hate us ‘cause they ain’t us. Yet another catchphrase worn proudly on t-shirts that were prevalent in these parts at the height – or depth? – of the Pats unpopularity elsewhere. Though less in vogue today, they remain for sale online. But no longer are they found only in Patriots red, white and blue. Today and for the foreseeable future, they’re also available in red, white and yellow. Alas, the NFL has a new object of aversion. And like the Pats of the recent past, it is led by all-timers at quarterback and head coach, seizes almost every opening to close out its challengers and confidently embraces its role as the team others want to beat and love to hate. “It’s not easy to go through every week because you’re public enemy No. 1, and you’re getting a team’s best,” said Matt Nagy, who works with Patrick Mahomes and under Andy Reid as offensive coordinator for the Kansas City Chiefs. “So there’s that mindset of that mental callous, of being prepared every single week to know that you’re going to get the best.” Nagy was speaking to the media before his team’s Divisional playoff vs. Houston, wearing a white cap, with a red brim. To many outside K.C., he could just as well have been in a black hat. “The Chiefs are now firmly in the villainous heel spot, long occupied by the New England Patriots and their all-time great quarterback Tom Brady,” the headline of an NBC News social media post declared after a playoff win over Buffalo…last year! After their most recent, by a 32-29 final in last Sunday’s AFC Championship, The Athletic’s Mike Jones wrote: “The Chiefs have officially taken over as football’s Evil Empire.” During the Patriots’ 2001-19 reign as, I prefer to think, the NFL’s benevolent rulers, they were crowned champs in three of four years and, a decade later, three of five years. Their last title in January 2019 followed an eighth straight AFC Championship appearance. Here comes Kansas City, after reaching its seventh conference final in a row, bidding for an unprecedented third consecutive Super Bowl win and fourth in six seasons. The only team standing in the way of a three-peat for them is Philadelphia, the same franchise that kept the Pats from winning three straight titles, as a spoiler in Super Bowl LII between New England’s victories in LI and LIII. Those Eagles were underdogs, and proudly self-identified as such. This Philadelphia story, however, better resembles the ‘Broad Street Bullies’ than Rocky Balboa. Behind the best running back in football, Saquon Barkley, quarterback Jalen Hurts and a top-ranked defense, Philly has 'Brotherly Shoved' its way to a third Super Bowl in eight seasons and second against the Chiefs since February 2023. As we’ve reached this point with K.C. eking out one narrow win after another by any means necessary, I’ve heard it said by more than one neighbor that they can now appreciate how fans of other teams felt for 20 years. I know what they mean. I also know, like you, that should the Chiefs beat the Eagles, the simmering takes comparing dynasties, their quarterbacks and their coaches, already consuming air on this station and elsewhere, won’t take long to approach a boiling point. I can almost hear the sound bites from Steven A., Colin or Mad Dog coming out of commercial break. You know what else, given the depth and talent of their roster and unlikelihood of falling off anytime soon, if the Eagles prevail, we’ll probably be saying and thinking the same about them come this time next year. Maybe sooner. So, what’s a Pats partisan to do? This one plans to start by paying closer attention to this weekend’s Senior Bowl than next weekend’s Super Bowl. More relevant than how Xavier Worthy looks catching passes from Mahomes is how Xavier Restrepo or Tez Johnson might look running routes for Drake Maye. We’re on to the future, here. Besides, nothing that happens next Sunday in New Orleans will devalue any memories of those good old days not so long ago, when New England was home to the NFL’s Envied Empire. I don't care what the great debaters say. Not that I don't have interest in watching K.C. and Philly. I do, with utmost respect for both. They’ve earned it, just as the Patriots did for so long and hopefully will again, before long. When detractors used to point out odd bounces or borderline calls that went New England’s way as it piled up wins, I often thought they were missing the most important point of the Pats’ success. In the final accounting, they simply made more winning plays (and fewer losing plays) when games were on the line. Take the time Myles Jack was ruled down after collecting a Dion Lewis fumble with the Jaguars leading, 20-10, in the fourth quarter of the 2017 AFC Championship. Jacksonville still got the ball at its 33-yard line with a chance to burn some clock and put the game away. They ran three plays and punted. The door still ajar, Tom Brady hit Danny Amendola with two touchdown passes in a six-minute span for a 24-20 lead. Then Stephon Gilmore slammed that door shut by swatting away Blake Bortles’ pass in the final two minutes. And a year later, after Dee Ford’s offsides penalty nullified Charvarius Ward’s apparent interception to clinch the 2018 AFC Championship for Kansas City, Brady still had to convert a 3rd-and-5. He did it with a 25-yard strike to Rob Gronkowski, setting up a score with 42 seconds left. Then after, yes, winning the coin toss in overtime, Brady still had to convert 3rd-and-10…three times! Three plays after the third conversion, Rex Burkhead reached the end zone to put the Pats in Super Bowl LIII and proclaim to the rest of the football world – still here! Six years later, the Patriots are trying to get back there, to that space both vaunted and reviled, the one they occupied for years and has since become the Chiefs' domain. Where they again are the opponent every foe circles on its schedule and received as ‘public enemy No. 1’ in every road stadium. New head coach Mike Vrabel has lived that existence as a three-time Super Bowl champ, one of the Patriots' best known for his knack for making winning plays -- and forcing opponents into losing plays. At his introductory press conference on Jan. 13, Vrabel said the franchise’s six championship banners hanging in Gillette Stadium's South end zone were a “blueprint” for “the type of people that you have to have in the organization, the selflessness, the work and the sacrifice that you have to make” to someday raise a seventh. The aforementioned Senior Bowl is the first of many stops this offseason in search of the right type of people to make Vrabel's vision reality. If and when that happens, to the chagrin of 31 other teams, the Pats' slogan will practically write itself: We’re back. Bob Socci has been the play-by-play broadcaster for the Patriots Radio Network on 98.5 The Sports Hub since 2013. Follow him on Bluesky, X and Instagram.