E-Mail This Article to a Friend Patriots fans have every right to be a little bit greedy BY CHRISTOPHER YOUNG

Whatever your feelings about the music of the Irish rock band U2, they hold a special place in the hearts of New England Patriots fans. While U2 has always had a devoted following in the region, their appeal increased in significant ways when they played the halftime show of Super Bowl XXXVI in New Orleans, with their performance highlighted by their rendition of their Grammy-winning hit, "Beautiful Day." When the Pats held off the Rams in the second half of that game and ultimately won it on a last-second field goal, "Beautiful Day" became the team’s unofficial anthem, and local football fans’ ears perk up whenever they hear it, forever reminded of the wondrous events of that February 3, 2002 evening. In fact, when newly built Gillette Stadium was testing its multimillion-dollar sound system for the first time in 2002, that song was blasted through the speakers.

Two year later, Patriots fans again are hoping for post-season magic from their gridiron heroes, and a week before the big game in Houston, New England’s followers take no shame in proclaiming their desire for another championship for the franchise. Is that too much to ask?

Fans from outside the region may be saying, "Hey, these guys just won the thing two years ago. How dare they clamor for another? Let’s spread the hardware among the other deserving teams in the league."

Boston fans know all about that kind of thinking, in particular as it pertains to their hated baseball rivals to the south, the Yankees. Sox fans gnashed their teeth and cursed the heavens as the Bronx Bombers collected World Series titles in 1996, 1998, and 1999, and then again in 2000, giving fans of the Steinbrenner organization a sense of riches and entitlement that exists to this day. Even when the team finishes runner-up in the Fall Classic — as it did in 2001 and 2003 — the season is considered disappointing by New York fans, who conveniently forget that the Yanks endured a humbling 18-year stretch between 1978 and 1996 when the team was downright mediocre in spite of a well-established high payroll.

Sox fans were never able to understand how insatiable Yankee fans had become in their appetite for championships, a reaction most likely born of jealousy and perhaps of Boston’s perceived second-banana status to the Big Apple. Nevertheless, that feeling was real: how many championship parades did these New York bozos need before they were satisfied? Give someone else a chance!

Well, now Patriots fans are starting to get a rumbling in their own collective stomach when it comes to their team’s legacy, and despite the fact that their team won perhaps the most memorable Super Bowl ever two years ago, they want another one. Now!

Is there anything wrong with that?

Not necessarily. With the Baltimore Ravens’ championship of 2000 and the Anaheim Angels’ baseball title in 2002, the Patriots’ improbable Super Bowl win was lumped under the heading of "flukes," even though that Pats team had won six straight games to close the regular season, then won three more — including a tough road win in Pittsburgh — to claim the crown. Sure, the Patriots somehow beat the vaunted Rams that year, but hey, the critics said — New England didn’t even make the playoffs the following season, which supposedly confirmed the assessment that they were one-year wonders.

This season, though, has put to rest most doubts and has actually advanced the theory that the England Patriots are in it for the long haul. A 14-game win streak has catapulted the team into discussions about the greatest teams — or at least the greatest defenses — ever compiled, and mentioning the franchise no longer invites derision and cackling, but instead calls to mind Gillette Stadium (arguably the league’s top facility), coaching geniuses, insightful scouting/drafting/dealing, a hard-hitting defense, and most of all, the team concept, along with NFL excellence and dominance.

Patriots fans want another Super Bowl title so that once and for all it can be established that the team is a legitimate champion, not one that had one lucky game two years ago against a squad — albeit dubbed "The Greatest Show on Turf" for its offensive prowess — that simply had a bad day. "That was not a fluke," scream Pats fans, and they know that another championship will validate that.

Of course, Boston fans in the past have been known to become a bit spoiled and perhaps even a bit arrogant themselves, although certainly not in football. After all, no pro-basketball team has won more championships than the Boston Celtics, who have collected 16 banners in their illustrious history (although none in the past 18 seasons). Still, the period extending from the late ’50s and throughout the ’60s was an era completely dominated by the Boston hoopsters, with NBA titles won in 1957, 1959 through 1966, 1968, and 1969. That record-setting run merely set the table for the additional banners raised in 1974, 1976, 1981, 1984, and 1986. Granted, those early seasons were against a league made up of only nine or 10 teams, but the team still showed itself to be consistently head and shoulders above the rest of the NBA’s entrants. As a result of that period of round-ball glory, the Celtics not only came to represent excellence and success in the sport, but became one of the most hated franchises in sports history — at least outside of the six-state New England region. In many places, that continues to this day, especially in New York State and, of course, in Southern California. Many of the Green’s championship teams were easy to despise because of their perceived cockiness and superior attitudes, and Larry Bird and Danny Ainge came to personify that perception of haughtiness. The team’s struggles in recent years have humbled the organization a little bit, even though the team is still despised by legions of NBA fans, particularly when Antoine Walker strutted and wiggled his way around the FleetCenter parquet.

In contrast, it’s hard to dislike any of the Patriots, whose roster seems dominated by good citizens: Tom Brady, Tedy Bruschi, Ted Johnson, and Troy Brown, among many others. Their likeability and success in recent years has led the franchise to become — almost improbably given the team’s history of futility — CBS’s hallmark team, and the team most likely to receive the network’s top broadcast-team coverage. In reality, despite the Colts’ explosive offensive and Peyton Manning’s wizardry, the suits at CBS (the network which covers the AFC and will broadcast next week’s showdown in Houston) were delighted that the Patriots emerged from the scrum to take their rightful place in Super Bowl XXXVIII. The team has, by all accounts, become the latest incarnation of "America’s Team," and while many admire the Cinderella story unfolding in the Carolina Panthers’ drive to the NFC title, it will still be difficult for America’s Super Bowl viewers to root against Bill Belichick’s team.

With all that’s happened, New England fans can take great pride in their team, and should have no reservations about feeling greedy about the prospect of a second title for the Patriots’ in three years.

Perhaps fans nationwide will eventually turn against them if they become a dynasty of sorts, even though dynasties in the parity-laden, salary-cap-restricted NFL have become a distant memory — at least since the Cowboys’ teams of the mid ’90s (strangely, the previous "America’s Team," but also the most loathed team outside of Texas in league history because of their success and perceived arrogance). And it won’t assuage those who fear a Patriots’ dynasty to know that the team has two number-one picks and two number-two picks in this spring’s NFL draft, a situation not unlike the scenario when the 1986 Celtics team emerged with the Lawrence O’Brien trophy and still had the number-two pick overall in the draft to look forward to (based on prior trade with Seattle).

No matter what happens next Sunday, Patriots fans have a lot to look forward to, with linebacker Rosevelt Colvin — who many have forgotten was brought in to stabilize the Pats’ defense but suffered a season-ending injury in week two — expected to return, four draft picks in the first two draft rounds, and perhaps even a 15-game win streak and another Lombardi Trophy.

Being a Patriots fan for a long time meant considering wearing a bag over your head as a fashion statement and a disguise. Now it means overwhelming pride, and the prospect of many more beautiful days ahead.

Sporting Eye runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com, and Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com