Filed under: New England Patriots
5 Turnovers.
I kept running this through my head. 5 turnovers. 5 silly turnovers became the gun that the Patriots used to shoot themselves in the foot and ultimately derail the dynasty train in Denver saturday night.
Yes the referees were bad. Yes they blew the pass interference call against Asante that resulted in a Broncos touchdown. But that was hardly the game. The game was not won by Denver. The Patriots simply beat themselves. Not only did they not bring their dominating playoff ‘A Game’ that I have come to expect but they made more mistakes with the football than MC Hammer with money. And for any other team and for any other fan this would be absolute justification to be furious. But I just couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t be mad at these guys. I couldn’t justify in my mind getting upset at a team and organization that has brought me so many smiles in the past few years. Even if they did blow a game that would have brought them back to Gillette for the AFC championship against a team they had previously beaten in the regular season. It didn’t matter. The Pats flat out beat themselves in that game and I still could not be mad at them.
So knowing that I would not or could not take it out on the Pats, for the first few moments of defeat I took it out of the refs. But I soon realized that was only one referee mistake in a game of numerous costly mistakes made by the Patriots. There really was no one person to blame. I couldn’t blame the refs, I certainly couldn’t blame Belichick or the coaching staff and I am a little to meticulous to simply admit “it just wasn’t meant to be”. Upon more reflection, I came to the conclusion that the team simply lost the game. They didn’t execute. If anyone watched the Belichick post-game they would realize that he knew the same thing. The turnovers cost us. If you take away the turnovers it could have very well been a 13-0 Pats win. And for a Bill Belichick team that had a few very un-Belichick moments this season(like the enormous amount of penalties this year) maybe this shouldn’t have been a surprise. But I still couldn’t get mad at the team for their bad play.
So this loss made for a tough reaction. Mostly because I am not used to this. I haven’t had to deal with a Patriots play-off loss in almost a decade. In all honesty, I didn’t know how to react. I was at first angry but then seemed to wake up Sunday more depressed. I watched most of Sunday’s games but it just wasn’t the same. I knew I couldn’t be mad but that still didn’t stop me from being upset at this loss. I had followed this team all season. I stuck it out through the injuries and the losses and the doubts and the eventual fall from grace that was the 2005-06 season. But I still believed. Which is what makes losses like these hurt more. So somehow I had to come up with a way to deal with this season’s pre-SuperBowl conclusion. Denial wasn’t going to work because I still want to watch the SuperBowl. And its hard to root for your team when they are not in it. And plus people who cheer for their team when they are irrelevent are just plain sad. Anger or blame wouldn’t work because of the previous success. Hope for next year is tough with a team that will make only small changes in a league that doesn’t tend to have blockbuster off seasons. And how could depression or sadness work with a dynasty that has only recently been un-crowned.
So…I did what any self-loathing fan would do to patch up a post-loss funk. I relived the high-lights of the Pats extraordinary run these past few years. After the Colts loss I felt a little relief and so took a nice Sunday afternoon excursion to my local Best Buy and picked up a copy of the Patriots Superbowl XXXVIII victory DVD. It was a cheap and effective way to cure my Pats-loss blues(Best Buy has these for $7 in the Sports DVD section…*ahem* Mr. CEO of Best Buy I will email you the account # to where my kick-backs can be sent). Mission accomplished. I sat back, had a few Sunday afternoon beers(which I have been accustomed to having the past few years during Sundays in January), and watched the recap of the Patriots 2003-04 Superbowl season. I would have felt like a sad mother looking back at baby-pictures of her son who just went off to college but fortunately for me much of the Pats team is still the same. So I lose the “sad sad fan desperately trying to relive the glory days” label for the “fan who just picked up his team’s Superbowl DVD because it was on sale and he is either too cheap or too broke to buy it when it first comes out” label. Now I am no social sports-fan pyramid expert, but I am pretty sure the latter is much more acceptable.
So rather than wallow in my own sorrows, I proactively cheered myself up by enjoying just one of the three incredibly successful world championship SuperBowl victory seasons that the Patriots have enjoyed in only the past four years. I became thankful for Mr. Kraft and Bill and Tom and Tedy and Deion and the whole gang. And as I sat and watched the recapitulation of that season the joy of watching my team win it all recaptured me. And although it was not this actual season, it was much of the same players, much of the same organization, and much of the same team. And I couldn’t help but to smile and think how lucky I am to be a Pats fan right now.
So I guess I can sit back, relax, and just watch professional football for the remaining two weeks without having to cheer for any team in particular. Or without the butterflies that always emerge before big games. And although deep down I’ll still be wishing that it were my team playing in the big game, I can still look back and be thankful for the 2005-06 Pats and the hard-work, excitement, and competetiveness that they brought me all season. Because its more than a lot of other fans can say. And if all else fails, I know that a Patriots SuperBowl victory is only a remote control button away.
theaveragefan@bostonprosports.com
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