Well, not exactly. But given the way the Patriots came out of the gate on Sunday, it looked as though the Ravens may win 100-0. An 83-yard run, a strip-sack on the 17-yard line and an inexplicable interception on the 25-yard line sent the Patriots into a hole that they could never escape.
So with the Ravens showing the Foxborough crowd what a playoff team looks like and the Patriots looking more like they were at a Wednesday morning practice, the fans let them know how they felt. It could be summed up in three simple letters: b-o-o.
It was something that Vince Wilfork didn't really appreciate.
"It felt like we were playing an away game," Wilfork said, according to WEEI.com. "That's what it felt like. I'm telling you, for so much this team has done in the past … I don’t understand it. [The fans] pay their money. they want to see a good show, they want to see blowouts all the time, they want to have the big plays. But it [doesn’t] happen like that all the time."
Despite Wilfork's disapproval, it is his own reasoning that explains why the fans were so upset. For everything the Patriots have done in the past, they did none of it on Sunday. The Pats showed no hunger while the Ravens all seemed to be moving at 110 percent. When the fans heard the announcement during the coin toss that the Patriots elected to defer to the second half, nobody knew that the team was about to take that decision to the extreme.
Even Tom Brady understood the fans' displeasure.
"I’d have been booing us too, the way we played," Brady said. "That’s their right."
Ben Watson, who couldn't haul in a Brady pass that ended up being intercepted, also had no objection.
"When you go out there and you don’t put a good product on the field, those who bought tickets to come are upset," the tight end said after the game. "Rightly so."
The fact is, a trip to Gillette Stadium — in the playoffs, no less — isn't exactly an inexpensive day. With travel, parking, tickets, food and drink, a day in Foxborough can cost as much as a mini-vacation for many fans. And while any realistic Pats booster acknowledged that the team had a very real chance of losing on Sunday, there was no anticipating the first-quarter meltdown of a team that prides itself on attention to detail.
Now, when the fans boo, it's not say that they don't appreciate everything that Bob Kraft, Bill Belichick and Brady have done for football in New England; it simply means those same people aren't living up to the high standards that they've already established. The fans simply expect better from Tom Brady.
So when the crowd sees the Patriots looking more like the Browns, it's a bit shocking. While everyone responds to shock in different ways, it seemed the majority of the 68,756 in attendance decided to let loose some booing. To do so is not a right — it's a reaction — and given the events that were taking place on the field, it was the only reaction possible.
