(Nostalgic comment more so than an ask) I’ve been a pats fan my whole life, but 2010 is when I became absolutely infatuated. I remember McCourty being a rookie and watching the great season he had. So it was awesome when the Pats signed him to (a deserved) extension to keep him around for the foreseeable future.

My moment was the 2005 AFCDG loss to the Broncos. Like you, I was a Pats fan my whole life, going back to the first Super Bowl loss, then the horribleness of the late-80′s and early-90′s. But when they lost that game in Denver I realized BB/TB had a finite shelf life and they were going to have to build a whole new defense in the process. That’s when I allowed myself to fully invest not only in understanding the personnel and schemes of the team, but to being a fan and allowing myself to actually feel something based on every win and loss.