No Respect?

Continuing in the 'sideshow' theme of his last column, Shank now plays the Rodney Dangerfield card:

Hall of Fame snubs, Tom Brady’s indifference: The Patriots are feeling plenty disrespected before the Super Bowl

SAN FRANCISCO — Game day is almost upon us and New England’s Disrespect Card gets heavier by the hour.

This is the Patriots’ 10th trip to the Super Bowl this century and by now we know the drill: Your Pats can’t be in a Super Bowl without equal helpings of “they hate us cuz they ain’t us” and “nobody thought we could do it.”

New England’s season presented as warm and fuzzy for four months, right through the AFC Championship game. Football America seemed freshly receptive to the fresh-faced Drake Maye-Mike Vrabel Patriots. Everybody loves a humble team short on star power. After five post-Brady seasons of finger-pointing and losing, the coming-out-of-nowhere Patriots were kind of lovable.

Frankly, it felt a little unnatural, traveling with a team that suddenly has fans across the land.

But events since snowy Denver have rekindled anti-Patriot themes that followed your favorite franchise during two dynasty decades at the beginning of this century. It started when we learned that Bill Belichick and Bob Kraft were snubbed in Pro Football Hall of Fame voting.