There are the multiple allegations of cheating. There is the coach with the haughty public demeanor and the quarterback who constantly carps at game officials. And then the coach, the quarterback and the franchise owner publicly supported a polarizing new president.
It’s likely that those factors help to explain why the Patriots are loathed by a significant portion of football fans nation-wide.
But maybe people hate the Patriots just because they win so much.
“I don’t know,” Patriots left tackle Nate Solder said. “There have been championship teams that everyone loves, like the Warriors last year. Everyone loves the Warriors.”
Not everyone loves the NBA’s Warriors, but Solder has a point. The Warriors attracted new fans while playing an exciting brand of basketball on the way to two straight NBA finals. At the end of last season, the jerseys of four Warriors players rank among the NBA’s top 15 in sales.
As for the Patriots, they’ve been identified as the most disliked team in the NFL for two straight years in surveys by Public Policy Polling. The latest poll, released on Monday, found that 21 percent of fans identify the Patriots as the NFL team they dislike the most with 42 percent of fans viewing them negatively (and 43 percent positively).
Solder said he gets it. He used to be one of those people.
“I can totally understand because I grew up in Colorado and I probably looked at the Patriots in a very similar light at one point,” he said.
Patriots safety Devin McCourty said he understands, too.
"When I was in college, I didn't like the Patriots, either," said McCourty, a Patriots first-round draft pick in 2010 out of Rutgers. "I get it, man. When you've got a team that usually wins all the time, that means that they probably beat your favorite team. That probably means they beat your favorite team a lot, so you grow not to like them.
“Once you are on the other side of it, you enjoy it.”
McCourty said he was a Cowboys fan while growing up in New Jersey. The Cowboys had been the most hated team in the Public Policy Polling survey until the Patriots displaced them the past two seasons.
It’s probably no coincidence that the increased animus for the Patriots coincides with the Deflategate scandal.
The NFL’s investigation concluded that it was “more probable than not” that Brady played a role in deflating footballs below levels allowed by the rules. Commissioner Roger Goodell suspended Brady for four games and Brady lost an appeal in federal court.
Before Deflategate there was Spygate.
The NFL found that a Patriots assistant coach had illegally videotaped the defensive signals of Jets coaches during a 2007 game. Goodell fined Patriots coach Bill Belichick $500,000, fined the team $250,000 and docked them a first-round draft pick.
In the wake of Deflategate, ESPN reported that Goodell’s Spygate investigators found a room at the Patriots’ facility with “a library of scouting material containing videotapes of opponents’ signals, with detailed notes matching signals to plays for many teams going back seven seasons.” ESPN reported that Goodell ordered the materials destroyed before hastily wrapping up the investigation.
Those scandals fueled the perception that the Patriots owe some of their success to bending or breaking the rules. They attached a stigma to Belichick’s genius, Brady’s greatness and their four Super Bowl victories together.
“I do think it’s funny,” Solder said. “Somehow, everybody just wants us to be cheating somehow and (the winning) is not legitimate. I think what you will find is we’ve had a number of years with good teams, winning in different ways, always kind of working hard and preparing hard.”
As if the Patriots weren’t polarizing enough, they entered the realm of politics during Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
Franchise owner Robert Kraft, a life-long Democrat in deep blue Massachusetts, said he supports Trump as a friend. Brady displayed one of Trump’s signature “Make America Great Again” hats in his locker in September 2015 and later said “it would be great” if his friend became president.
On election night, Trump read what he said was a note from Belichick in which the coach congratulated Trump for persevering in spite of “unbelievable slanted and negative media” coverage. Belichick later acknowledged writing a note to Trump but said his comments were about his friendship with Trump and “not politically motivated.”
Trump took office as the least popular president-elect in at least 40 years, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll. A Gallup poll found that more Americans disapproved of Trump’s job performance than approved after just eight days, another record.
Now Kraft, Belichick and Brady have quickly tried to avoid the political arena during Super Bowl week.
Belichick and Kraft declined to talk about Trump. Brady was asked about the public demonstrations over Trump’s immigration order last weekend and said he wasn’t aware of what’s happening.
“I’m just a positive person,” Brady said. “I just want the best for everybody.”
For some, that dodge will only add to the list of reasons to dislike the Patriots. Some teams might use the animus as fuel. The history of sports is filled with successful teams that embraced the role of villain.
Linebacker Dont’a Hightower said the Patriots are aware of the hatred but not driven by it.
“We know,” he said. “But what do you want us to do about it? I would hate somebody who’s good. Maybe (it’s) because we are in New England. It doesn’t matter to us. It’s not a chip on our shoulder that we worry about when we go out and play.”
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