Super Bowl

The chance was there, the chance was missed, and it is very unlikely the chance will ever come around again.
Super Bowl XLI will be remembered, more than any other, for the loser and not the winner. The New England Patriots had their shot at perfection; a 19-0 record and a fourth championship in seven years. But it was the underdog New York Giants who spoiled their party. Like the past three winners, the Giants were team that started the season slow, got hot in late November, was a wild card team and went all the way. Many times it’s not the best team who wins but the team who is playing the best at the end and that was certainly the case this time around. The Patriots were by far a better team but they couldn’t keep up their high level of play all year and the Giants started playing at their best when it really mattered.
New York had a great game plan and executed it to perfection. They made it a low scoring game to avoid getting in a shoot out, they ran the ball well and they put pressure on the quarterback. It was brilliant in every possible way, guerrilla warfare for football.
But enough about the G-Man, the real story here is what didn’t happen. Only once have we seen perfection and our best opportunity to see it again went begging. The NFL is not set up to see a team go 19-0. With the salary cap, free agency, the draft and coaches moving everywhere the league wants parity; they want everyone to be 8-8. Combine that with the war of attrition that football is and its amazing that teams win more than 12 games a year with the injuries and the hard knocks.
But we all know the Patriots are different. They play as team, sign the right players and cut the wrong ones. They are brutally efficient at what they do. They were really the only team that had the infrastructure to even come close to having a perfect record.
Unfortunately, as great as this team has been, this one loss will taint everything they did. People will not first think about the three championships, they will think about the one they didn’t win. They took a gamble, winning Sunday would have made them the greatest dynasty in NFL history, no questions asked. But the loss will cause them to be remembered for falling short in the face of immortality. It is very likely that this defeat will wreck the franchise. The hit to the psyche might be so hard, they may never recover.
Bill Belichick’s brilliant ruthless methodical approach to the game has won him no friends and allegations of cheating raise difficult questions. No one now seems to be fans of the team and they don’t seem to be fans of anyone else outside of Boston.
This was a painful ending to an incredible season. We had our chance to see absolute greatness. We should have wanted to see it; every true sports fan should have been rooting for New England regardless of past affiliations. It is why we play and watch; to see the incredible. This loss should hurt. It was our chance to experience to greatness and we may never have the chance again.