Inherently Different

equilibrium

Eli Manning Wins the Big One“Karma,” a wise man once said, “is a bitch!” Clearly this pundit was a fan of football as this past season has clearly illustrated. In case you were oblivious, this past season saw one team come within a hair’s breadth of finishing the season without a win as well as one team come even closer to running the table with a 19-0 record.

My last post showed how much I love one team… If I had it in me, I would have followed up that post with a long explanation about how the New England Patriots are possibly the worst representation of sports excellence. In that non-existent post, I would have explained how the organization puts such an emphasis on winning, that they have gone to great lengths to insure an advantage… going so far as taping opposing teams practices before games. For those keeping score at home, thats called cheating if you are a fan of any of the other 31 teams in the NFL.

As the Patriots won each game, one had to wonder if they were still cheating… if their desire to achieve football immortality by running the table on an entire football season had somehow blinded them to winning with both class and dignity. As each game unfolded, the entire sports world saw not a team firing on all cylinders, but one that did anything to win and humiliate opponents as completely as possible. Of course, their fans loved it and they began to attack opposing team’s websites with an aggressive flavor of smack talking that just begged for some kind of cosmic retaliation.

When San Diego lost to the New England Patriots, I realized one thing. Sometimes everything works the way it does for very specific reasons. The loss to the Patriots set up possibly one of the most lop sided super bowl lines ever and with that, the god’s of football restored my faith in fate.

With the Giants, 12 point underdogs, beating the Patriots, the cosmos is once again in balance. Equilibrium has been reached at last. To real football fans, it is akin to Darth Vader getting his come-uppance in Return of the Jedi… it is like Rocky beating Apollo Creed in Rocky II… like Billy Jean King beating Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes Tennis match… something that for all intent and purpose shouldn’t happen… but it does.

New England was once that underdog, but through a series of poor judgments by their coaching staff, and by the outright douchery of their fanbase, became one of the most reviled sports franchises in the modern era. The team EVERYONE loves to hate, taking that particular label away from the New York Yankees.

I think the Patriots are a talented team. They probably didn’t need to cheat to win 18 games this season, but the fact that they did lessens their accomplishment in my opinion. The fact that they lost when it mattered most, in the super bowl, lessens their accomplishment even more. But for me, the one thing that completely destroys any sense of value from what they have accomplished is the ass-hattery displayed by the Patriot fans who showed the world how to be classless while enjoying a special season.

The Patriots lost one of the biggest games of the decade… and worst, lost to a team that was discounted as an also ran all season and deemed unworthy to face the mighty Patriots in the big game. The loss is humiliating to the team I am sure, but it is probably even more painful for the Patriot faithful… and it couldn’t happen to a more deserving collection of sports fans.

Thank you New York… we have reached equilibrium.

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