National Football League

Boston columnist: Most of U.S. wants Patriots to beat hated Ravens

Published Jan. 6, 2015 12:14 a.m. ET

foxsports

Here's the line on Saturday's Patriots-Ravens game: 98-2.

What kind of line is that? That's the percentage, according to Boston.com columnist Eric Wilbur, of fans across of the country who want the Pats to beat the Ravens.

Wilbur calls Baltimore "the most deplorable organization in American professional sports," based on the team's handling of its former running back Ray Rice after his videotaped-in-an-elevator assault on his then-fiancee, now-wife. The Ravens are "a despicable, blind-eye machine in the wake of the Rice scandal that rocked the NFL," he says.

Therefore, with the Ravens being "the most hated team in the NFL. Ninety-eight percent of the country will be rooting for the Patriots on Saturday, and mind you this is a nation that still likes to accuse Bill Belichick of somehow attaining all his success because of Memorex."

Of course, that talk of having the country on the Patriots' side may well be a way to combat the real worry in New England about facing a team that has won twice in three playoff games in Foxboro from the 2009 to 2012 seasons -- and only lost that one game because of the combined efforts of Lee Evans (dropping a potential game-winning touchdown pass) and Billy Cundiff (missing a chip-shot field-goal try that would have tied the game at the end of regulation).

So, as noted football pundit Taylor Swift would put it, haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.