Mike Vrabel is in place at Patriot Place and disapproving fans, who wielded proverbial pitchforks for a team and a coach (Jerod Mayo) they vociferously denounced, have fallen right back in line. They’re buying in and believing in the Patriots again.
Give the Krafts credit for the franchise’s unwaning popularity post-Tom Brady/Bill Belichick. They have found a way to remain not only relevant but to still reign atop the New England professional sports power rankings when it comes to interest, a nebulous yet undeniably visceral construct. The Patriots have staying power that holds despite back-to-back 4-13, last-place finishes, being a collective 19 games below .500 since 2020, and posting one winning season and zero playoff wins this decade. They are getting impressive mileage out of the last vapors of the patina of excellence.
The Patriots are not winning games, but they are winning the battle for the hearts and minds of the sporting public. The Patriots get grace. The Red Sox get told to get a clue.
That must have the Red Sox wondering if they can get some of the Kool-Aid the Krafts have fans drinking from those half-full glasses, because the popularity paths of the two franchises who spent most of this century jockeying for top billing on the Boston sports marquee have diverged in a Robert Frost manner. That is the case despite more performance parallels than differences.
Red Sox vs. Patriots in a battle for airwaves, eyeballs, emotions, and discretionary dollars is one of the great Boston sports rivalries. It has been that way since John Henry (who also owns the Globe) took over Sox ownership in 2002. They are franchise frenemies.
But as both have gone full Life Alert pendant — they’ve fallen, and they can’t get up — the Patriots remain a hot topic while the Sox have become background noise.
What gives? There’s a clear crossover between the two fan bases. There are more similarities than differences in their falling off their high horses. Yet, folks fall back in line in Foxborough but line up to vent at Fenway Park.
Let’s state the obvious: part of it has to do with their respective sports. Football is the ironclad warship of the American sports landscape, unsinkable. Baseball isn’t dead, but it’s a geriatric relative to the Almighty NFL.
There’s a built-in disadvantage for a baseball team.
Also, people ask what type of sports town is Boston?
The answer is a winners town. Every team has had its turn as the marquee attraction from the Bobby Orr Bruins to the Larry Bird Celtics to the Brady-Belichick Patriots.
But the Sox used to be the constant.
From 1967 on, this was a baseball town in spirit through thick and thin. Once rulers of the emotional investment roost, the Sox draw indifference, skepticism, and derision. Remember last year’s ill-fated “full-throttle’’ declaration?
This offseason, the Sox sent a frisson of excitement through fans when they broke from recent prospect-clutching precedent and traded coveted prospect catcher Kyle Teel to acquire young, hard-throwing White Sox ace Garrett Crochet.
But since then the Sox have acted with temperance, more of the same old, same old. The Crochet deal looks like the only needle-mover of the offseason, although the one-year, $21.05 million deal for World Series hero Walker Buehler could turn out to be a shrewd addition to the rotation.
It’s fair to say the Red Sox, coming off an 81-81 season that was only their third non-losing campaign since winning the World Series in 2018, have yet to convince folks they can live up to the lofty words of team president/CEO Sam Kennedy in November.
“Our priority is 90 to 95 wins, and winning the American League East, and winning the division for multiple years,’’ Kennedy said.
The pessimism is understandable, but the Sox appear closer to being a playoff team than the Patriots, even with the popular Vrabel-Drake Maye, coach-quarterback ticket.
Vrabel is a capable coach, but the Patriots returning to playoff contention is more about who is being coached than who is coaching. The roster is more underwhelming than a hotel breakfast buffet and just as stale.
Think about the parallels between these two proud franchises who led the duck boat parade that transformed this Massachusetts Mudville into Titletown, combining for 10 of our Lucky 13 championships this century in the so-called big four sports leagues.
Both teams have one winning season this decade, 2021. Both teams registered back-to-back last-place finishes; the Sox in 2022 and ’23, the Patriots in ’23 and ’24.
Both teams last won championships in the 2018 season. Both teams had their lone playoff berth this decade in 2021. The Red Sox actually won two rounds and advanced to the American League Championship Series. The Patriots were obliterated in the wild-card round by the Bills in the largest playoff loss of Belichick’s career.
Both let franchise figureheads walk out the door in unforgivable fashion following the 2019 season.
The Sox blew it by trading Mookie Betts to the Dodgers for an underwhelming package, using his MVP talent to unload David Price’s salary.
The Patriots blew it by choosing Belichick, who was fired last January and still has his football fingerprints on New England’s disastrous roster, over Brady. The difference is that Brady was 42. Mookie was 27 and in his prime.
Moving on from Mookie, who has gone on to win two World Series with the Dodgers, was the point of no return for many members of the Fenway Flock. They have chosen apostasy.
Alex Cora, identified as a central figure in the Astros’ trash-can banging, sign-stealing scandal, is the Belichick of baseball. He was suspended for the 2020 season for his role in Houston’s scheme.
Cora is a popular manager and arguably the face of the Sox franchise. (Slugger Rafael Devers is the human iPhone incognito mode of alleged franchise frontmen.) Still, Cora doesn’t move the needle or inspire the blind faith and rabid defenses that Belichick did.
The Sox do not inspire the blind faith and rabid excuses, uh, rationalizations the Patriots do.
It has been said many times, in many ways, in many campaigns: the one thing you can’t change about your candidate is their core likeability. The Sox must win to win back fan interest.
The Sox have lost games and their place in the Hub’s sports hierarchy. Meanwhile, the Patriots remain the real Interest Kings.
Christopher L. Gasper is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at christopher.gasper@globe.com. Follow him @cgasper and on Instagram @cgaspersports.