As if the rest of the football-loving population needed another reason to despise the Patriots.

The defending Super Bowl champs have sent out season tickets to their fans -- with one notable bonus: tickets to the AFC Championship Game, which, according to the Pats, will take place in Foxborough on January 21, 2018.

To be fair, other teams, including the Ravens and Raiders, have pulled off a similar stunt, but there's just something so arrogant about New England sending this out that should make some people's skin crawl.

If, say, the Jaguars did this, you could laugh it off, but the reality is that there's a good chance the Patriots will not only be playing in this game, but hosting it. Heck, there's a chance the Pats could steamroll everyone and go undefeated. The fact that the team acknowledges its greatness is what irritates so many -- the franchise is by no means humble in its assessment of just how good it is. And that's what makes the team such a villainous presence.

The Patriots play in the weak AFC East, where none of the other three teams have presented much of a threat over the last 17 years, so you can't really blame them for looking past those rivals. The Bills, Jets and Dolphins are also-rans who just so happen to be shacking up in a division populated by an efficient, unstoppable machine known as the Patriots who already have their eyes set on a sixth Vince Lombardi Trophy. Making it to the conference championship game is merely a formality in their eyes.

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