Eat My Sports: 19 and NO!!!

The New England Patriots had a date with history. The time was set, they were supposed to show up at 6:30 on February 3, 2008 in Arizona. These two had been seeing each other for quite a while. Batting eyes, flirting, saving the “big night” for a special time and place. For 21 weeks the Patriots had been seeing history, and on that special night they were going to go all the way with history.

The funny thing about history is that she is a two-timing, saucy, little minx. See, history, who also goes by destiny, had been flirting with the New York Giants as a side thing. The Giants and Patriots had actually met each other face to face a few weeks ago, but the Patriots thought there was no way that history would leave them for the Giants. Well, on the night that New England had planned, the Giants grabbed history and rocked her all night long.

Let me start this whole column/rant by telling all you Patriot “fans” that the best team did win on Sunday. Apologies to McBournie, but you are not the greatest team in history if you don’t win the Super Bowl. The Pats aren’t the greatest team in NFL history, they weren’t even the best team on the field. Sure, the Pats went on a remarkable 18-0 run to get to the Super Bowl, but the thing is that unless you win the Super Bowl, you are not the best, period. See 1997 Packers, 1998 Vikings, 2001 Rams, 2004 Steelers and 2005 Colts.

The Giants’ game plan was to come in, exploit every Patriot weakness, and make Tom Brady very uncomfortable in his own skin. The Patriots, on the other hand, thought that all they had to do was show up for the trophy presentation.

Eli Manning out-Bradied Brady, Tom Coughlin out coached Bill Belichick. The Super Bowl “genius” couldn’t figure out that all he had to do was put an extra back in the backfield for protection in order to keep Brady off of his back. He also couldn’t figure out that going for it on 4th and 13 against a stout Giant defense was arguably one of the dumbest moves in his career. Belichick and the Pats insulted the Giants, and all the Giants did was punch them in the mouth and bowl them over in-route to one of the biggest sports’ upsets in history.

The debate all year was are the Patriots the all-time best team? Hate to bring up an old sports cliche, but regular season mean nothing. If you don’t show up in the playoffs, all it means was that you were a great regular season team. And let me remind all of you what division the Patriots play in, the AFC East. This is home to the Jets (4-12), the Dolphins (1-15) and the Bills (7-9). For those of you mathematically challenged, this is a combined 12-36 record. To put that in perspective, this was the lowest win total by any division (sans division winners of course) by a full four games.

But regular season aside, let’s look at the playoffs. New England’s record-setting offense averaged 36.8 points per game during the 2007 season. By the playoffs the Pats “let’s just show up attitude” cooled them off to a more humbling 22 PPG. Tom Brady and Randy Moss, who hooked up 98 times for 23 touchdowns in the regular season, were held to seven catches for 94 yards and one lone touchdown in three postseason games. While on the topic of Brady, Mr. Super Bowl had a pedestrian final two games after whopping up on the Jags. In his final two outings Brady managed to have a 1-1 touchdown to interception ratio after having over a 6-1 ratio in his march to REGULAR SEASON immortality. These reasons, coupled with the Giants’ ability to smack the Pats around made a date with history look like a joke.

The thing about it is, you always hear everyone talking about “the one that got away.” Well in the case of the Patriots, it’s the 18 and 1 that got away.

Top five things that annoy me in sports:
5. Tom Brady
You got what you deserved.
4. Bill Belichick
You got what you deserved, and if this whole incident with the Rams before your first Super Bowl “victory” holds up, you’re getting a lot more.
3. Troy Aikman
Someone take the mic away from him.
2. Super Bowl ads
The FedEx commercial was the only time I laughed, other than the cat getting set on fire in the Bud Light commercial. Seriously, more animals need to be set on fire in commercials, call it a little bit sick, I think it makes for good comedy.
1. New England Patriots
In the immortal words of Diffuser, “sometimes you get what you want, sometimes you get what you need, but you are always going to get what you deserve.”

11 thoughts on “Eat My Sports: 19 and NO!!!”

  1. For the record, I had no problem with the Patriots until Brady and Belichick came along. It’s not the Super Bowls I have a problem with, it’s the arrogant “we’re owed this” attitude they walk around with. They got everything they deserved on Sunday.

  2. “We’re only going to score 17 points? OK. Is Plax playing defense? I wish he had said 45-42 and gave us a little credit for scoring more points.”-Tom Brady

    Turns out they couldn’t even score that many.

  3. Hold on-was Brady’s comment instigated by a comment from a Giants’ player? Cuz, y’know…retorting to when someone talks junk about you is completely different than walking around and acting like an arrogant douche.

    Which is exactly how the Giants came across as in their post-Super Bowl press conference and interviews. I’m just saying, is all.

  4. Schools, you’ve hated the Patriots for years because they weren’t the underdogs anymore (much like the Red Sox). Admit the problem and we can move forward to fix you.

  5. Wrong. I started hating the Pats because they were too arrogant. There is a difference between being confident and being smug. And quit comparing the Pats to the Sox, two seperate forces my friend.

  6. Chugs – Brady’s comment was at a pre-Bowl press conference. I think USA Today had projected them at 17 points.

    They sucked, whatever, get over it.

    The Giants played a great game, I lost $30 and got a cold, the crazy world kept on spinning.

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