For Patriots fans, there’s always room for one more title

When you win everything in sight, the problems of maintaining a dynasty really start to mount. We should all have such problems.

The executive director of the Patriots Hall of Fame is guiding a visitor though the many chapters of New England glory one chill afternoon. It’s a quite extensive collection, located just beyond the north end zone of Gillette Stadium. You must have made some serious history to be worthy of a building like this.

WARNING: IF YOU ARE FROM ATLANTA DO NOT GO DOWN THE HALLWAY DEDICATED TO SUPER BOWL VICTORIES. A NIGHTMARE AWAITS AT THE END, AS THESE PEOPLE TREAT A COMEBACK FROM A 28-3 DEFICIT LIKE WASHINGTON’S VICTORY AT YORKTOWN RATHER THAN THE CATACLYSM IT WAS.

Anyway, back to lower case and the tour. There’s Tom Brady’s script from a “Saturday Night Live” appearance. There’s the actual snowplow from the 1982 “Snowplow Game” against Miami. There’s the Lego artwork that is a portrait of Bill Belichick when seen from one angle, and Brady when viewed from another – what manner of voodoo is this? There’s kicker Adam Vinatieri’s custom Patriots’ design chopper motorcycle. No underinflated footballs from “Deflategate,” however.

Stopping at the area dedicated to the team’s conference championships, Bryan Morry addressed the display already packed to capacity with the trophies and tchotchkes of 10 previous titles. Wherever are they going to put No. 11, the one just concluded in Kansas City?

“This entire case needs to be redesigned,” Morry said. “I’m out of room.”

» Read: AJC's complete coverage of the Super Bowl in Atlanta

Winning on a Patriots scale does create a peculiar kind of happy inconvenience.

“You know what’s been a real pain?” asked George Pantos, pouring a beer at his Jimmy’s Pub in Mansfield, nodding toward the big mirror behind him featuring the Patriots 5X Champion decal. “Trying to find a razor blade to scrape that off when they win No. 6.”

Such are the problems of the one percenters of the sporting class. Boston in general has been awash in victory, the major teams combining for 11 championships since 2000, between the Pats five, the Red Sox four, and one each for the Celtics and Bruins.

For the Patriots people specifically — looking at a third consecutive Super Bowl appearance, a fourth in five years, a 10th in the past 22 — this has been almost embarrassing. Almost.

Does anyone really need to say it? Well, a burly construction worker named Tim Hernon will, between sips of Guinness at the bar at Jimmy’s.

“Oh, my God, it’s unbelievable, all these sports teams and what’s happened the last 15 years. It’s ridiculous,” he said.

Rick Grossman, a Patriots season-ticket holder for more than 40 years will say it, too, with perspective. He’s a Connecticut guy who runs one of the team’s many fan groups, this one called the P-10 Patriot Nuts. “It’s been an amazing run. For so many years they were pathetic, a laughingstock. You didn’t tailgate because there was no one to tailgate with. Now we get there five hours early to get started.”

Credit: Maddie Meyer

Credit: Maddie Meyer

“The last 15 years, every Sunday is a party. Our kids are in their 20s, and that’s all they know,” said Christine Campbell, another patron at Jimmy’s, which as you may suspect, is a Patriots bar.

There is just so much fun to be had when a team wins like this.

After the overtime win in Kansas City last week, somebody went into Wikipedia and monkeyed around with entry for “AFC Championship.” It briefly read: “The AFC Championship Game is the annual championship game of the American Football Conference (AFC) where one team gets to play the New England Patriots for a chance to play in the Super Bowl.”

And even now, two years after the Patriots' fifth Super Bowl win, they find new ways to exploit the most painful chapter in Atlanta sports, the comeback from 28-3 to beat the Falcons in Super Bowl LI. After the conference championship in K.C., JetBlue sent out a tweet: "Hey New England – we just added a few more flights to Atlanta for the big game. More than 3. Fewer than 28."

Back at Jimmy’s, Campbell, a hair stylist by trade, was relating another story linked to football superiority. One of her customers the other day, a second-grade teacher, was talking about when she asked her kids if they knew what the Super Bowl was. “It’s the time when the Patriots play their last game of the year,” one answered.

What kind of fan base is this, where an entire generation grows up knowing only big games at the end? Football seasons don’t just peter out around here, not even this season that began with two losses in New England’s first three games, and another 2-3 stretch from weeks 10-15.

“Some of us went to the game in Nashville and got absolutely slammed (a 34-10 loss to the Titans on Nov. 11),” Grossman said. “We looked at each other and said, you know what, the bloom may be off this rose.” But, no, new petals are always just a Brady completion in overtime away.

It’s only natural, all this winning creates resentment throughout the rest of football. Patriots fans are under no delusion that they are lovable. In fact, they have been known to embrace the enmity.

“Fans have the same attitude the team has – go ahead, bring it on,” Grossman said, addressing the jealous ones.

“We all laugh about it,” he added. “After the last game we went on Facebook and said, ‘OK, haters, get ready.’ Everybody hates a winner.”

So, why don’t they let somebody else win once in a while?

From behind his bar, the one he’s run for 39 years, Pantos said, “We give everybody the opportunity, they just don’t know how to take it.”

The secret to being a good and true Patriots fan lies in not taking any of it for granted, in always staying hungry for one more. In their eyes, Brady needs yet another ring before his day is done. A sixth Super Bowl would tie the Pats with Pittsburgh for the most ever won. There are always new goals to meet within Patriot Country.

For eventually it has to end, right? Brady is 41 and surely must succumb to the laws of nature. “On the day Tom Brady retires, I’ll do anything to get to the stadium for his last game,” said Chuck Morse, another Pats fan group leader who moved from Massachusetts to Florida. “I will cry like a baby.”

And Belichick can’t coach forever. One day he is bound to give it up and just walk the earth.

Then what is the Patriots Hall of Fame to do?

“We’ve been talking about changing the exhibit space, expanding it out,” Morry said. “Tom Brady will be worthy of his own exhibit.

“He and Bill both.”