I really get tired of the persecution complex and conspiracy theories in our fan base, I agree with most of this. I just don't think we would've beat the Pats in the SB last year. Our offense struggled so much after the Dallas game, NE would've known exactly how to shut down our only two weapons (MT and Kamara) and force us to watch yet another game of the offense struggling and punting. Every team in December and January was running a gameplan similar to what Dallas did to us, and the Pats had the personnel to run it effectively had we got to them. We've begun to sound like Vikings fans who are still mad over 2009, completely disregarding that the Colts most likely would've wiped the floor with them in that SB. (They turned the ball over 5 times against us, I'm sure they turn it over against the Colts too. Freeny and Mathis would've been all over Favre, and Manning would've feasted on their mediocre secondary).

In 2011, we had one of the 4 worst defenses in the league alongside the 15-1 Packers who were a similar story to us. We got to run up scores and pad offensive stats playing cupcakes most of the year, where we throttled teams at home but looked quite vulnerable on the road (nearly losing to the Jake Locker lead Titans, losing to the Rams and Bucs). Even in the wildcard round, Payton couldn't trust our defense after they gave up 4 TDs and decided to start going for it on 4th down to prevent Detroit from having the ball again.

We were out-coached pretty badly late in the game vs the 49ers. We practically got clowned when they ran the Tecmo Super Bowl bootleg QB run play for a score. I don't know how people blame the refs for that game when we had ZERO penalties (As the road team! That is EXTREMELY rare). If anything, we got off on what could've been some roughing the passer calls with late hits on Alex Smith. Refs didn't make us turn the ball over 3 times in the first quarter and immediately get stuck in a 17-0 hole. Refs didn't tell our defense to not bother covering Vernon Davis on the final drive after he had been ripping us up.

Even if we do get past the Niners and beat the Giants again, what about the Pats in that SB? Brady had a 5,000 yard passing season that year and we would've faced a healthy Gronk and Hernandez against our trash defense. We couldn't stop Vernon Davis in crunch time, I know damn well the Pats 2 TE set up that year would've been a nightmare for us.

Against Minnesota in 2017, all they had to do was stop one play, but it was on us to get stuck in a 17-0 hole early kinda like the 49ers playoff loss. Also wasn't smart of Payton to mock the Vikings with that SKOL chant right before the hail mary. If anything, that just motivated them more to knock us out.

Refs or no refs, we've been out-coached in the majority of these playoff losses and that includes last year with some head scratching moments. Had Alshon Jeffrey not dropped that pass and Philly beats us, everyone would be questioning why Payton went for that field goal way out of Lutz's range (and got stuck in a 14-0 hole early with an offense didn't want to run the ball while Brees struggled). For some reason I rarely ever see it talked about how vs the Rams, we didn't bother running the ball on that last drive with the non-call to try and force them to use up their timeouts. And in OT, it was like the Rams knew exactly what we were going to do cause our play calling was so predictable in the 4th quarter.

We can correct our wrongs this year and bring it home like we did in 2009. We can run the NFC this year, FootballOutsiders and FiveThirtyEight are high on us for a reason.