Super Bowl
Well, that sucked. There are few more painful experiences for a sports fan than watching your beloved team lose a championship game. Far, far better to not reach the penultimate than to get there and fall short.
I've been watching my teams lose for decades. My first really popped balloon was a double shot in 1986. The New England Patriots went on an improbable run to the Super Bowl which included their first win in Miami in over 20 years. They were then dismantled by the obnoxious front-running Bears. The same year, the Red Sox managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in the World Series. I was introduced to the great deep bitter bile of sports disappointment.
After a long lay-off, the Patriots made a comeback of sorts by playing in the 1996 Super Bowl. Coached by Bill Parcelles - who was 2-0 in the big game - we thought we had a winner. Instead, we had the spectacle of watching the coach refuse to coach on the biggest stage. Parcelles was negotiating his new job with the Jets while he should have been game-planning a beatable Packers team.
The Belichick era has been kinder, to an extent. We provided three Super Bowl victories from 2001-2004, the best run ever for the best team ever. Thanks, Bill.
But the near-perfect season on 2007 was soul destroying. There has never been a greater blow to fans than that Super Bowl loss. I will never get over it, and now the pain has been redoubled.
I would much rather have lost to the Ravens in the AFC Championship Game than lost last night. How they got that far with that roster is a mystery. And like last time, the suspect defense is not the culprit. They played over their heads and performed better than needed to win. Somehow, Tom Brady has stopped being a big-game QB. We saw it in the Ravens game, where he (using his own word) "Sucked." He sucked again last night.
In the glorious 2001-04 years, the team built a great defense, arguably the best ever. In the years since, the defense has declined to a next-to-last ranking, barely good enough to backstop a record-breaking offense. The turning point was probably the 2006 AFC Championship Game, where the terrible WR play (led by the immortal Reche Caldwell) lost the game. After that, Brady was given the weapons he needed to compete, and the undefeated 2007 (regular) season was the result.
The Patriots need to start playing defense again. Not just to win close games, but to change the offensive philosophy. A great defense will change the way we play offense, so we no longer rely on clutch performances from a QB who lost his mojo.
Or else just blow the whole thing up and just go 8-8 every year and leave us fans in peace.
I've been watching my teams lose for decades. My first really popped balloon was a double shot in 1986. The New England Patriots went on an improbable run to the Super Bowl which included their first win in Miami in over 20 years. They were then dismantled by the obnoxious front-running Bears. The same year, the Red Sox managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in the World Series. I was introduced to the great deep bitter bile of sports disappointment.
After a long lay-off, the Patriots made a comeback of sorts by playing in the 1996 Super Bowl. Coached by Bill Parcelles - who was 2-0 in the big game - we thought we had a winner. Instead, we had the spectacle of watching the coach refuse to coach on the biggest stage. Parcelles was negotiating his new job with the Jets while he should have been game-planning a beatable Packers team.
The Belichick era has been kinder, to an extent. We provided three Super Bowl victories from 2001-2004, the best run ever for the best team ever. Thanks, Bill.
But the near-perfect season on 2007 was soul destroying. There has never been a greater blow to fans than that Super Bowl loss. I will never get over it, and now the pain has been redoubled.
I would much rather have lost to the Ravens in the AFC Championship Game than lost last night. How they got that far with that roster is a mystery. And like last time, the suspect defense is not the culprit. They played over their heads and performed better than needed to win. Somehow, Tom Brady has stopped being a big-game QB. We saw it in the Ravens game, where he (using his own word) "Sucked." He sucked again last night.
In the glorious 2001-04 years, the team built a great defense, arguably the best ever. In the years since, the defense has declined to a next-to-last ranking, barely good enough to backstop a record-breaking offense. The turning point was probably the 2006 AFC Championship Game, where the terrible WR play (led by the immortal Reche Caldwell) lost the game. After that, Brady was given the weapons he needed to compete, and the undefeated 2007 (regular) season was the result.
The Patriots need to start playing defense again. Not just to win close games, but to change the offensive philosophy. A great defense will change the way we play offense, so we no longer rely on clutch performances from a QB who lost his mojo.
Or else just blow the whole thing up and just go 8-8 every year and leave us fans in peace.
posted by fiduciary at 12:40 PM
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