I've been hearing and reading all the Patriot-hate after they beat they pre-anointed Chargers last week.  It seems like folks  -- not just Charger fans -- are actually angry at the Patriots for eliminating the team that was supposed to win the Super Bowl.  This was their year.  L.T.'s a God.  Rivers is sharp.  Their 'roided up D is a force of nature. Marty's... well, Marty's still Marty, but they just hope he doesn't screw it up for them again this year.  Which he promptly did.  And still they hate the Patriots.

The blogosphere & talk shows call them "boring".  They say "here we go again", the Patriots beating someone they're not supposed to beat, with less talent and no flash.  They get lucky.  They get all the calls.  They have no "stars".  Their coach doesn't rant and rave and bitch-slap unsuspecting podiums (OK, maybe photographers) or throw coolers onto the field, and he hates talking to the media.  In fact, he mumbles when he talks, says nothing of substance, and gives us no information about his team or gameplans.

Boooo-ring.   Right?  Wrong.

What's boring to me is watching players act like they just won the Super Bowl after they catch a 5 yard pass, on 2rd & 8, in the 7th game of the season, while playing for a 1-5 team.  It's intolerably boring to listen to a 3rd-string wide receiver thank his hands for "being so great", or to hear a premier future Hall Of Famer tell his teammates how he "loves me some me!"  Freaking SNORE.  A coach losing his marbles at a press conference and chirping "playoffs?!" a hundred times, or flinging office supplies at cameramen is fun for a second, but it's all been done before.  Ad infinitum.  Players and coaches acting like 6-year-olds, living like movie stars, and playing the game with "flash" and "style" isn't entertaining any more.  It's old and it's played out.  It's been done.  For 40 years now.  Move on.

That's why I call the New England Patriots the most entertaining team in the NFL, not the least.  What I get the biggest kick out of is watching Bill Belichick torture the relentless, parasitic media -- and in turn the ravenous, lobotomized fans -- by giving press conferences full of mutterings, grunts, and talking for 5 minutes while saying absolutely nothing.  I want a coach like Belichick who is a mad scientist, who barely remembers to put on pants to coach the game, much less a nice shirt, and is obsessed with winning to the point that it becomes OCD, instead of slick motivational-speaker coaches like Jon Gruden or Brian Billick.  Belichick says nothing to the media because 1) he hates them, and 2) he knows that giving away one single iota of information about his team gives his opponents -- present and future -- a slight edge on his team.  Information is like gold in the coaching world, hence the endless scouting reports, stat breakdowns, and film analysis.  What gives a team a winning edge is knowing more stuff about them than they know about you. So he wears his hoodies and says nothing.  And I am entertained.

Watching 84-year-old, 170-pounds-soaking-wet Troy Brown running around on both sides of the ball, year after year, always seeming to be in the middle of the action when a big play is needed, is far more entertaining to me than watching Michael Strahan heft his aching old bones into a 16-inch vertical leap and mimic a jump shot that would have been swatted into the 3rd row of a real basketball game, or seeing Ray Lewis wrack his body into epileptic spasms, when they do nothing but hit a guy real hard.  Wow, congratulations, you made a good defensive football play.  Now go throw a smart block on special teams like Troy Brown, or catch a touchdown pass like Mike Vrabel, and we'll talk about entertainment.  Celebrations and trash talk don't entertain me anymore, good football does.

Don't get me wrong, I used to love players with style, flash, 'zazz, quick tempers and self-aggrandizing arrogance -- when I was 15.  But now, can we please move beyond this adolescent, WWF mentality that pervades professional sports?  This tedious repetition of juvenile, bush-league antics is just plain tiresome, and the longer it goes on, the more childish it gets.  When a high school football player makes a big play, he stands up, pumps his first, hi-fives his teammates, and gets back in the huddle for the next play.  When an NFL player makes a big play, he screams, points at the overhead camera, stomps off away from his teammates, does his patented celebration dance, hand-flashes his endorsement deal, and frantically thumps on his chest, both physically and metaphorically.  You tell me, who's more juvenile, the 16-year-old high schooler or the world-class "grown-up" millionaire?

"Flash" is no longer flashy to me.  Things that have flash or style are things that are different from the norm, and there is no edge, style, or flash anymore in outrageous athletes.  It's old, it's tired, and overall BORING.  Watching players and coaches drive the media and fans insane by saying nothing is just damned hilarious. Watching them topple Super Bowl favorite after Super Bowl favorite for the last six years, while having virtually no "stars", has been invigorating and inspiring.  The New England Patriots' blue-collar, no-nonsense, team-first, win-at-any-cost attitude is what real style is.  It's different, it's edgy, it's infuriating, it's brutal, and because of it the Patriots are the most entertaining team in the NFL.