DOUGLAS — Everything is familiar. Not all of it is miserable.

Soft, steady rain on a day too warm for October is entirely familiar. It’s not the glorious autumn weather everyone craves, but it’s anything but miserable. In fact, the rain makes a game of two-hand touch seem more ... I’m not sure. Authentic, maybe. Or perhaps just less frivolous. Football is supposed to be a little muddy, even back-yard football, even when you’re probably just slightly too old for such things. A little rain and a wet yard make it feel like you must be playing for some reason, something more serious than just that someone brought a ball.

This house and this yard have become familiar by now. I’ve spent at least a dozen game days here since my buddy, Tom, bought the house two years ago. The big side yard has been the field for enough Wiffle-ball games that I don’t need to look anymore to see how close I am to the steep slope down to the street. I’ve already got a good idea of where I’ll sit in the narrow living room that always makes me wonder why so many of the big, new homes you see these days have such awkward, little living rooms.

These guys are certainly familiar. Of the half-dozen friends I’m hanging out with today, there’s only one, Whitey, whom I’ve known for less than 22 years. I’ve known Tom, the host, for 31, second only to my brother, Chris, whom I’ve known for his entire 33. Hell, even Whitey, a guy I might see twice a year, I’ve known for a good 15.

Of course, there’s Riley. I’ve only known him for two. But that’s 14 in dog years. Plus, Riley gets special status, because he plays a mean all-around defender, rushing the line like an end then dropping back into pass coverage as soon as the ball is thrown, the four-legged linebacker of the future.

I’m perfectly familiar with the ways in which all these guys approach pro football. They’re like me, mostly just fans of the game. Most of us can watch any football game, any time, and be happy. They’re also Patriots fans. But they’re Pats fans the way I’ve always known Pats fans, the way I’ve always been a Pats fan. That is, we’re half-hearted about the Patriots.

Half of us have another team we root for before the Pats. Tom’s a Broncos fan. Bob’s showing his loyalty to his team today by wearing his Vikings shirt and hat (it’s not a good season to be a Vikings fan). It’s always been Oakland for me. Dave and John don’t root for anyone but the Pats, but they don’t talk about football much, and they don’t wear the colors. Chris roots for himself. That is, his loyalty goes as far as what teams he’s picked in my office pool. Whitey’s out of his office’s elimination pool, but he’s rooting against the people who are still in. ("Spite!" Chris yells jubilantly on learning this detail. "God bless ya, man.")

We play touch from the trees by the shed to the birdhouse in the front yard, just short of where it slopes down. We run as hard as we can and throw as far as we can for an hour before the game. We get wet. Some of us get muddy. Then we head inside just in time for kickoff. And it’s no time — not even long enough to shake off the damp — before the Patriots start to look familiar. It’s a kind of familiarity that predates last season. It’s a kind of familiarity that is nothing short of miserable.

By a third of the way through the second quarter, we’ve all expressed our distaste for Cris Collinsworth. Even my brother, who has the Packers in this game and is actually feeling good about the way the Pats have been playing, has grown weary of the Fox-TV analyst’s constant harping on the home team.

We all agree that Collinsworth is generally a good deal too self-satisfied. "He knows football," Whitey concedes, "but he’s such an asshole." We agree that Inside the NFL isn’t as good with Collinsworth and Bob Costas as hosts instead of Len Dawson and Nick Buoniconti (even though we all know it’s actually better). We don’t like Collinsworth’s stupid haircut. And we’re tired of him being down on the Patriots, even though we’re all pretty down on the Patriots today. That’s because our negativity arises from frustration; his is objective, and it’s paired with objective praise for Green Bay. And together, at least for us in our state of mind, those two elements combine to make the way he’s deriding the Pats seem joyful.

It would be hard for most of us to find any kind of joy in the current game. Even with the Pats up 3-0 with less than four minutes left to play in the first half, we can see where this game is going. The Patriots offense can’t move the ball. Tom Brady is making mistakes no one would ever have tolerated from Drew Bledsoe, throwing the ball at defensive backs like he’s shopping for interceptions, missing his receivers left and right. The defense isn’t doing much better. And the team is committing too many penalties on both sides of the ball.

When the Packers slice up the Pats defense on a 76-yard drive to go up 7-3 toward the end of the first half, we all have a feeling it’s the beginning of the end.

Chris is the only one who’s happy about that. "Zip-a-dee-doo-dah," he shouts as Green Bay’s place kicker, Ryan Longwell, puts up the extra point. "That’s seven points for Green Bay."

No one gives him a hard time about it, mostly because we know it wouldn’t help anything.

It’s only 43 seconds of game time later when the Packers take advantage of a Pats turnover to score again. Chris and Bob, who are trying to remember the name of the old cartoon superheroes who included Tornado Man and Diaper Man (turns out they were on The Mighty Heroes), break away from their distraction only briefly to take note of the score.

The rest of us just grumble.

It’s 14-3, and not nearly that close. The Patriots get the ball back and go nowhere with it once again. We get up and put our shoes on as the last seconds of the half tick off the clock. No one mentions the game, not even once, during our quick halftime round of back-yard touch.

No one mentions the game much through most of the third quarter either. We all just sort of sit there and watch. None of us seriously believes the Pats will be able to come back and win the game. We all hope we’re wrong, but there’s no point in expecting anything. We’ve all had a lifetime to learn that lesson.

The Pats who started this season looking like they just might be able to repeat as Super Bowl champions have disappeared. The Pats we’re watching today are the Pats we’ve always known, clumsy and prone to error, talented, but unable to put their talent to anything approaching effective use.

Late in the third, as Tom Brady stands on the sideline looking bewildered, two interceptions to his credit, the usual cool confidence gone from his eyes, the Packers push the Pats defense down the field 92 yards in six plays, to set up on the Patriots two-yard line.

"What’s that, 21?" Chris taunts.

"It will be any second," I mutter.

And it is. Tight end Bubba Franks catches Brett Favre’s third touchdown pass of the day, and Longwell adds the extra point.

"Oh, boy, guys, what happened today?" Chris laughs as he heads to the fridge.

The third quarter is close to ending, and so is our patience.

"That soccer team is the best team playing in Gillette Stadium right now," Whitey says. In this crowd, there are few insults more powerful than the implication that we’d be better off watching soccer.

"They’ll never win now," Bob says. And even though Bob has always been quick to talk of doom, there’s no question today but that he’s right.

We don’t stop watching, though. We’re hurt, but we’re content to sit and press this bruise for a while. We don’t stop watching when Brady throws his third interception with two minutes remaining in the third, either.

We don’t even stop watching three minutes into the fourth when running back Ahman Green plunges in for a fourth Green Bay touchdown. Not entirely, anyhow. We leave the game on even as a second TV comes out and we set up Tom’s Nintendo for a game of Super Mario Cart.

By the time Brady and the Pats finally get it together and score their first touchdown (with six minutes left in the game), most of the guys who aren’t playing Nintendo have moved back out into the rain. Riley, who’s been left inside, is running back and forth between windows, barking mightily at a ball that’s too big for him to catch even if he could get to it.

I know Tom wants his dog inside and dry, but I’m worried that he’s going to trip over the Nintendo and ruin our game, so I get up to let him out, shrugging at John, who’s sitting on the couch, arms crossed, kind of zoning out.

Shouts of "Oh, no" go out as Riley bounds across the yard, eager to play some D.

I sit back down and watch the Pats sputter a little more before I go back into video-game land. The guys outside are laughing as their game turns into keep-away from Riley. They’re in good spirits in spite of a miserable day for the Pats. So am I. Oakland’s game is still coming up (though they’ll lose it). Tom’s still got Denver, too (they’ll also lose).

And we’ve all been to this place, through these kinds of games, with the Patriots before — a lot more often than not. Our ability to believe in this team, what little of it we’d acquired over the first three weeks of the season, is gone. Not lessened, but simply gone.

We’ll still be back to root for the Pats in two weeks. And we’ll hope the upcoming week off gives the team a chance to find its winning formula again. There’s little question but that this team has to win its first two games after the bye week — at home against Denver and in Buffalo — if it wants to have any real shot at bouncing back and turning this into a winning season.

We’ll continue to hope they’ll pull it off, even if we can’t be so sure anymore. In a way, we kind of like the uncertainty. It’s nothing if not familiar.

Sean Glennon is a freelance writer living in Northampton. He can be reached at sean@thispatsyear.com