Patriots bogey Super Bowl
Since this is the week of the AT
&
amp;T golf tournament and the Super Bowl is still fresh in our
minds, let me put things into perspective.
What the New England Patriots did on Sunday night was the
equivalent of a golfer coming to the 18th hole at Pebble Beach in
the final round of the U.S. Open needing only a par to shoot 59 and
win by four strokes, and instead taking a 12 to finish with an
unmemorable even-par 72 while losing the tournament by three
strokes in the process. Ouch!
Patriots bogey Super Bowl
Since this is the week of the AT&T golf tournament and the Super Bowl is still fresh in our minds, let me put things into perspective.
What the New England Patriots did on Sunday night was the equivalent of a golfer coming to the 18th hole at Pebble Beach in the final round of the U.S. Open needing only a par to shoot 59 and win by four strokes, and instead taking a 12 to finish with an unmemorable even-par 72 while losing the tournament by three strokes in the process. Ouch!
As the old golf saying goes “the greatest drive will go for naught, if thou screwest up thy second shot.”
The Patriots had a chance to make history last Sunday and screwed it up. Instead of going 19-0 and setting one record that could never be broken without the NFL voting to extend its game schedule the Patriots turned themselves into Charlie Browns while vaulting untested Giants quarterback Eli Manning into instant NFL Films folklore.
All those records are now meaningless: Brady’s touchdown tosses, Moss’s touchdown catches, all the points that were scored and the yardage gained. All of it, meaningless…
If the Patriots had won, they are debatably the best team in NFL history. Instead, they are now an infamous answer in a Trivial Pursuit game.
In fact, since three other New England teams have won the Super Bowl, the 2008 Patriots are not even the best Patriots team of all time let alone in league history.
I guess this is all proof that no one is perfect – not Bill Belichick, not Randy Moss and not even Tom Brady.
Yes, the Patriots 17-14 loss to the Giants of New York is about as David and Goliath of a story as it gets. The question is what’s the bigger story? The Giants winning or the Patriots losing? I really don’t know but I do know that this is one loss that will sting the Patriots organization for years to come.
Sure, New England is good enough to make the playoffs next year but football is a strange creature. Just as the “tuck rule” call against the Raiders on that snowy night six years ago in Foxboro literally was the genesis play that magically jump-started the Patriots rise to the top, that miraculous drive by Eli Manning that included a surreal scramble play and incomprehensible catch over the middle, could very well be the trip switch to the Patriots demise.
Randy Moss is a free agent next year, Seau will retire and Brady will probably have several more distracting relationships with supermodels… After that the Patriots also have to remain injury free, which involves quite a bit of good fortune to do so.
Think about it, the San Francisco 49ers started the season 2-0 and spent $50 million beefing up the roster for a playoff run and wound up looking like the worst team in the league.
The Giants started out 0-2 and it looked as though Tom Coughlin may not make it to Thanksgiving without getting fired. Now he’s picking out a Super Bowl ring.
The way the NFL is structured today teams need to capitalize when they have the chance before that team gets so good that it becomes dismantled through free agency and greed.
The Patriots had their chance and didn’t cash in on it – the Giants did. And what’s most impressive is the Giants won without a single Patriot interception or turnover. The Giants won with a pass rush the likes of which Tom Brady hasn’t seen in several seasons.
I guess this proves once again that defense wins championships. And it was defense that derailed history last Sunday night in Arizona…
