Illustration by Tim Walker

FOXBOROUGH, MA -- There are 68,000 people at Gillette Stadium tonight. We are not among them.

We're not far from the stadium. Less than two miles, in fact. But that's still not quite the 50-yard line. We're sitting in a bar on Route 1 called the End Zone. And most of us are not happy about it.

We are the dispossessed, disappointed, and disgruntled. Some of us are greedy (or perhaps opportunistic; or greedy and opportunistic). Most of us are drunk or well on our way to it. And nearly everyone in the place is largely out of luck. The simple fact is that most of the people here would rather be in the stadium.

In fact, my guess is that my friend Kyle and I are the only people here who are exactly where we set out to be. Kyle and I have been sitting at the corner of the End Zone's bar since 7:30 p.m. or so, happy as can be about never having hit traffic on the way to Foxborough, drinking ale and eating ziti covered in something red but with a flavor far too smoky to qualify as marinara sauce. (Barbecue sauce, maybe; we're not sure.)

It's climbing up on 9 p.m., and over the past few minutes the End Zone has gone from mostly empty to fairly full. That's because the New England Patriots-Pittsburgh Steelers Monday-night football game is about to begin. And the End Zone is where you go when you've made it all the way to Foxborough only to find yourself without a ticket -- for whatever reason.

Kelly's ticket was stolen. (Note: names have been changed to protect the inebriated.) She was hopping tailgate parties when it happened. Someone just went into her RV and lifted her ticket. Kelly certainly never expected to find herself at the End Zone moments before kickoff. She still doesn't quite believe she's here, but she's taking it fairly well. "The End Zone? I'm in the Twilight Zone right now," she slurs to her friend (who also had her ticket swiped). Her friend doesn't laugh.

Chet, who's been jawing with Kyle for a little bit, had a pair of tickets but sold them, mostly out of spite. Chet's been a Patriots season-ticket holder for 14 years. He had some quality seats at the old stadium. But in the new stadium's design, his former assignment is part of the ultra-expensive section, which he couldn't afford. What the club offered him as an alternative were some relatively expensive seats in the upper reaches of Gillette.

"I had to pay double to get worse seats," Chet says. "And what did I gain? Six inches of knee room and a fuckin' cup holder."

So what did Chet do for the first-ever game in the offending new structure? He drove out to Foxborough and sold his seats -- added knee room, cup holder, and all -- to a couple of Steelers fans. He manages to gloat and grouse about it all in one breath. "I got 400 bucks for two tickets," he says. "I hope they choke on them."

Doug and Maura wish they'd met Chet earlier, when they were still looking for tickets. Maura's a Pennsylvania native and a huge Steelers fan. Doug, her husband, is mostly along for the ride. They drove down from Manchester, New Hampshire, and did everything they could to find a scalper they could afford -- they were willing to go $200 a pop -- but only got one ticket. Maura didn't want to go into the stadium without Doug, so they resold their ticket for $300. They're pleasant. And they actually seem fairly content to have tried and (sort of) failed. The way they're looking at it, at least they're drinking on someone else's dime.

There's Louis, a dyed-in-the-wool Pats fan who tried to get a scalped ticket, too, but just couldn't afford it. There's the guy we'll end up calling Mr. Stats (we'll all hate him), who only came out to tailgate with his friends. He found the tailgating disappointingly tame. "The worst in the NFL," he says. Mr. Stats likes to rank things. There's the grinning, drunken homophobe, who gave up his effort to bag a scalped ticket when he was pushing his way through a crowd and "some homo grabbed my ass." (I'm certain no one has ever grabbed this guy's ass. Not ever.)

And there's an increasingly full bar of others, including (if a quick count of game jerseys means anything), two Antowain Smiths, a Sam Gash, a Tedy Bruschi, three Ty Laws, two Drew Bledsoes, and a single Tom Brady. There's not one Adam Vinatieri in the place.

AS FAR AS I can tell (I don't dare ask), there are exactly four of us here who aren't expecting to see the Patriots stomp the Steelers in this season-opening game.

Doug and Maura are certainly figuring on a Steelers win.

Mr. Stats is intent on telling anyone who'll listen that the Patriots are the 17th-best team in the NFL. They were the 17th-best team in the NFL last year, too, he says. How does he account for the Super Bowl victory in February? "Miracles happen." He's got no stats to back up his miracle theory, but then again he doesn't seem to have any actual stats to back up any of his claims. He assures us his assessment of the Pats is based on mathematics; he just doesn't happen to have the numbers handy. The same goes for his claim that the Steelers are the league's fourth-best team. (Any urge to ask him which are the top three is overridden by the dread of prolonging one's exposure to him.)

And then there's me.

It's not like I don't want the Patriots to beat the Steelers. I very much want the Pats to win. In fact, I almost always want the Pats to win (except when they play my team, the Oakland Raiders). It's just that even after their stunning Super Bowl win, I can't bring myself to believe in this team.

I grew up with this team, or at least it was a team with the same name as this one. I've been watching them and silently, mostly hopelessly, rooting for something wonderful to happen with them for as long as I can remember. But I've never been able to invest my deepest fan emotions in them. I couldn't bear the heartache.

That's why I became a Raiders fan while growing up less than 20 miles from the building that would end it's life with the name Foxboro Stadium. I needed to feel like I could follow a professional football team and have at least an outside chance of ending the season with my heart in one piece. The Patriots never offered that until last year. And much as I'd like to, I can't bring myself to believe anything has really changed. I know what happened in New Orleans last winter wasn't a miracle, but an actual victory by an actual Super Bowl championship team, a team that earned almost everything it got, horrible calls in blizzard conditions notwithstanding. (And, really, how much fun would football be if a team didn't occasionally win a game on the strength of an official's error?) But I can't help but feel like there's something fragile, something apt to crack at any moment, about these defending champions.

I figure the oddsmakers have tagged the Steelers as three-point favorites in a big away game for a reason. I figure that reason is probably their defense and maybe their running back, Jerome Bettis. And I simply have more faith in the oddsmakers and a solid running back than I do in the Pats.

I'm here for a reason, though. I'm here because I've decided it's time I figured out what makes a Patriots fan. I want to know how to believe in the home team. I want to know what keeps these people hanging on. And so, I'm going to spend this season watching them, trying to learn their secrets.

Tonight, it's not so hard to see what makes these fans tick. In spite of my reservations and in stark contrast to the immovable Mr. Stats's assertions, I can see how a person can believe in the Patriots. These Pats look like they quite possibly could be the best team in the NFL once again.

We don't get far into the game before it becomes clear that it's gonna be a long night for the Steelers, who are a damned good football team in their own right. After Pittsburgh quarterback Kordell Stewart throws his second interception of the night, even Chet stops grumbling. He's still angry at Bob Kraft, but he's showing his fan colors more and more openly. He laughs as ABC offers a shot of Steelers coach Bill Cowher shaking his head after his team has committed penalties on two straight plays. "Hey, Cowher," he yells, "take a bite of my ass!"

Kelly, who clearly made it to a frat party or two back in her day (she may well have been a "little sister" somewhere), has her drink perpetually raised above her head. And every time the Patriots offense moves the ball more than half a yard, her voice rings out across the bar: "Social!"

Louis spends much of the first half loudly voicing his disdain for "nonbelievers." When the Pats go up 17-7 early in the third quarter, he bounds off his barstool, high-fiving anyone within reach and hooting, "You nonbelievers, fuck you all!"

He zeroes in on me. "Are you a nonbeliever? Are you a nonbeliever?" And even though I'm slowly starting to think maybe I could believe, I can't lie to the man. I'm not there yet.

"I guess I'm a nonbeliever," I offer contritely.

"Asshole," he taunts. It's mostly good-natured, but I'm inclined nonetheless to keep an eye on Louis for the rest of the night, especially since Mr. Stats, who might have served as a nifty lightning rod, has disappeared.

As the third quarter wraps up with New England ahead 27-7, Maura is absorbing a good bit of ribbing. She takes it well, as does Doug. Their halftime question about the quickest way back to New Hampshire comes back at them. "Get on 495 South," Chet tells Doug. "When you get to the ocean, let her off."

Maura and Doug laugh because they have no choice and, I think, because they're genuinely nice people and exceedingly good sports. The rest of us laugh because we're swimming in the energy of the moment. You just can't help it.

At the two-minute warning, with the Pats up 30-7, the End Zone starts to empty out. It's quiet, but there's an energy lingering in the bar. Even the dispossessed are possessed.

Louis leaves without asking me if I'm still a nonbeliever. And I'm relieved. At the moment, I'm not sure how I'd answer.

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

Issue Date: September 13 - 19, 2002