It was the talk of football and the talk of New England.
When Seth Wickersham’s ESPN The Magazine piece chronicling the tension within the upper reaches of the Patriots came out last Wild Card weekend, just about everyone whose life draws anything from the team got exactly what they wanted.
For Patriot haters, it was obvious manna. For diehards, it was grist for the “hate us because they ain’t us” mill. Talk hosts got the green flag to parse every team communique until the LEDs burnt out in their phone banks, overloaded by calls beginning with “I’m a huge Patriots fan, but …”
As for the team?