This was an e-mail written to a friend following the Patriots 17-14 loss in Super Bowl XLII. I'm posting this by request from my brother. It's a pretty tough thing to revisit because I'm still not okay with the idea of the Patriots losing that game. The piece itself is somber - actually miserable - in tone, but enjoy.
My wife of fifty years could leave me and I wouldn’t feel worse than I do right now. The Patriots lost. The Patriots lost to a team they would have beaten nineteen out of twenty times. But none of that matters. History is tarnished. The only game of the season that the Patriots lost was the only game that matters. As a sports fan, we’ve reached the pinnacle of letdown. The worst-case scenario was realized, then blown up and exaggerated a hundred thousand times.
The 2007-2008 New England Patriots will go down in history as the biggest choke artists of all time. In 2004 when the Boston Red Sox overcame a 3-0 deficit to defeat the New York Yankees, the Bronx Bombers were crowned the kings of choking. For the last three years, when ESPN would run their Top Ten segment on teams that choked or blew leads, the Yankees were there at the top. Now? There’s a new number one. They’ve moved past the 2004 Yankees, past the 1980 Russian hockey team, and past Mike Tyson getting knocked out by a 49 to 1 underdog Buster Douglas.
In the two weeks leading up to the Super Bowl, pundits were talking about history. They were talking about the historical impact there Patriots had on the NFL. They would talk about what a victory would do for the legacy of Tom Brady. They placed him on par with Joe Montana, Terry Bradshaw, and Troy Aikman. What of that now? I don’t claim to be an expert on much, but this much I do know. Montana, Bradshaw, Aikman and the like would have never played as poorly as Brady did in Super Bowl XLII. Those guys would have never lost a game with such historical implications. This paragraph sucked to write. Unfortunately, the honesty and accuracy behind it is absolutely true. The best quarterbacks of all time would not have let that slip through their hands. I hope he enjoys his MVP trophy and has the NFL record books hanging on his refrigerator. Those mean nothing.
I may be writing this in haste or anger, which is partially true, though I am remaining incredibly composed through this terrible ordeal (though, as of 8:15 this morning, the sun hasn’t peaked through the dreary Boston clouds – I’m actually convincing myself that the sun doesn’t even want to come up today. I don’t want it too). Brady, at the tender age of 30 still has some great years in front of him, but I’ve never seen him perform at such a low level.
I’ve never seen a Bill Belichick game plan go awry the way I did tonight. This is the biggest choke job in the history of sports. Did I say that yet? When the Patriots lost to the Broncos a couple years ago, it could be blamed on some controversial calls from the referees. With the loss to the Colts in the AFC Championship last year, it was heartbreaking blowing a very comfortable lead. With the loss, however, we could take solace in the idea that Indianapolis was the better team. This is not the case this year.
There are a number of reasons why the Patriots losing the Super Bowl after going undefeated throughout the entire season is heartbreaking. First, of course, is where this places us in history. It doesn’t matter how well they do next year. Even if they win a Super Bowl next year, we will always be known as the team that blew it’s chance at history, the team that couldn’t come through in the only game that matters.
With regards to SpyGate, it almost reaffirms everything the rest of the country assumes. I could defend the idea that the Patriots were a little shady with their research tactics with the idea that the game still needed to be played. Preparation can take a team only so far, and execution is the most important part of the game. Now? I’m looking at this through the lens that maybe the Patriots could have had a leg up illegally. Since all these allegations came to light, maybe the Patriots only won because of the illegal advantaged they’ve had. It’s a tough concept to grasp, but not such an unbelievable idea now.
I’ve said before that the worst thing a person can be is a sports fan. Collectively, we put an insane amount of pride into the teams we watch. We root through the thick and the thin. We invest too much emotionally for a contingent of athletes that represent us that we refuse to acknowledge that our paychecks aren’t getting any bigger or smaller based on the teams performance. We spend an inordinate amount of money buying merchandise and going to games; we spent too much time analyzing every coaching or personnel decision, every snap and every drive; we lose our voices to scream at crucial moments, and it’s never of matter of “them” or “us” as a separate entity. As a sports fan, it’s collectively “we.” “We’re going to the Super Bowl,” “We’re playing like shit.”
If I eventually have children who want to become sports fans, I’m going to point to Super Bowl XLII as evidence that being a fan rips at your heart for a very small chance at realizing the highest pinnacle. I want to beg and plead with my next of kin to choose something else. Collect stamps, study historical documents.
This isn’t about X’s and O’s. I’m not going to drone on about what the Patriots did wrong. I won’t lament missed opportunities or point out three or four times when we had a chance to put the dagger in the heart of the Giants. This is about me. I don't want to read the papers, I don't want to turn on ESPN, and I'm losing about 60% of what I do on the Internet because my main avenue of browsing through cyberspace prominently involves espn.com, patriots.com, nfl.com, and cbssporstline.com. I'm thinking of writing a note for the mailman when he walks towards my door on Wednesday to deliver my Sports Illustrated. I'm pretty sure the note would read like this,
"Dear Mailman-
Please do not deliver this week's Sports Illustrated to me. I don't want it. I don't want to acknowledge that it exists. I will be very upset if, upon my return from work, there is a Sports Illustrated in my mailbox. Again, delivering this is against my wishes. There will be a fresh pile of shit waiting for you on Thursday if you leave that piece of shit magazine in my mail.
Thanks,
Matt Osgood"
This feeling is not going to leave me very soon. Is there a word for depressed, shocked, and angry combined? I don't know if any of this is making sense, nor do I know whether or not I could come off like a complete baby. Frankly, I don't care. The Patriots could win the Super Bowl next year and we still wouldn't be able to make sense of the fact that they lost the most important game in NFL history. Enjoy the champagne Mercury Morris. (That's the most depressing sentence I've ever written.)
Lastly, remember the scene towards the end of Wedding Crashers, where Owen Wilson's character is all depressed, and his voicemail says, "Hey, this is John ..... (sigh) ......whatever." ? That sums up how I feel completely.
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