From the reinforcing stereotypes department comes this e-mailed observation from reader “Juice” about how New England fans have fallen madly in love with TRUE PAY-TREE-UT John Lynch, despite the fact that he never played a regular season game for the team. Hmmm. Wonder why.

Last week I was up in Boston for the Pats/Jets game (I’m a Pats fan – insert joke here). Needless to say I missed several days’ worth of KSK entries during my trip. Today I decided to go scrolling back through the archives to see what I missed when I stumbled upon the picture of the Pats fan in the Lynch jersey per your entry.

Well I’m writing you today to tell you this – New England fans LOVE John Lynch. I saw no less than 15 John Lynch jerseys at the game vs. the Jets I attended. Pretty impressive for a guy whose Patriots career totaled 12 total tackles over the course of three pre-season games.

Probably the most telling part of NE’s love of Lynch was in the pro shop. Inside, they have two racks of replica jerseys for probably sixteen different players in all. These jerseys ran seventy-five dollars apiece. They also had a rack of jerseys of players who are no longer with the Pats, and these were marked down to twenty-five dollars a piece. On this discount rack there were such jerseys as Eugene Wilson, a decent safety for the Pats over his five year career, and Chad Jackson, receiver out of Florida who ended up being a massive bust.

The most telling part came when I noticed that of the sixteen jerseys being sold at $75 a pop, fifteen were active players on the Patriots. Only one wasn’t (throwbacks none withstanding). That, of course, was the jersey of Mr. John Lynch, now retired. So not only is there a market for John Lynch Patriot jerseys, celebrating his three-game preseason career as a Pat, but there still bringing in $75 a pop.