Wednesday, February 8, 2012

XLVI

It's been three days. I can talk about it now.
THE PATS loss in Super Bowl XLVI crushed me. I have watched them play seven Super Bowl games in my lifetime. Lost four, won three. For regular season stats, those odds are horrible. For Super Bowl stats, three championships is magnificent. Football royalty. No matter what.
This loss hurt the most. Got home around eleven, sat in my recliner until midnight sipping whiskey in disbelief and watching the news coverage on the idiot box. I was hurting, I was depressed, I was deflated, I was empty.
Watched the game with the inner circle of family magnificence minus one. JT will be there next time. But it was warm and crazy and the game was exciting until........................
I honestly had no doubt THE PATS would win. Losing out on the perfect season was a blow predicated on a freak catch, but I swallowed it after mourning it for a while. Having faith in Tom Brady and Bill Belichick I KNEW they would never lose twice to the same team. Especially the team that robbed them of 19 and 0. I knew they would make adjustments, have an amazing game plan, keep the giants off balance and that if it came down to it, they would win it for Myra. For Mr. Kraft. I knew this in my soul.
You can talk about the defense that could not tackle, that continually gave up first downs on broken tackles instead of forcing third and long or fourth down pressure. You can talk about a porous pass defense. You can talk about a broken Gronk.
What disturbed me was an imperfect Brady. An imperfect Belichick.
The long attempt after escaping a sack early in the fourth quarter, trying to hit Gronkowski that ended up being intercepted, never should have been thrown. Very Un-Brady-like. Saw a similar play against the Ravens that almost cost them the game. The pass to Welker could have been better, although I realize he was trying to avoid the guy coming across the middle. Pass to Branch could have been better. Tom Brady looked vulnerable and I do not like the feeling.
Belichick throwing the red flag on Manningham's catch. Cost us a timeout, which was huge in the last minute of the game. Very Un-Belichick-like judgment. By the way, that was a superb catch and it was also a superb throw.
I feel like the magic is gone. I believed in up up to the game because THE PATS made it to the Super Bowl with a defense everybody laughed at. That is PATS magic. But it wasn't there when they needed it and I feel empty because of that. I am not giving up on THE PATS, never will. They will keep finding ways to excel. But it will be a grind without the voodoo, without the magic, without the mystique.
I need that magic. That magic has brought me happiness, contentment, pride; it has allowed me to live outside of my tiny life in sweet magnificence. That "they will always find a way to win" feeling, that "you criticize or mock these guys at your own peril" feeling. I do not want to know THE PATS are human like me. That they can lose.
My life being what it is, I have to know there is magic out there, I have to know success can happen against those who preach defeat. I may never get what I want out of life, and if the rest of my life unfolds that way I NEED something larger than me to believe in, something that inspires and excites me. At the moment I choose football over god, but that could change in a heartbeat as I continue to march towards the inevitable.
As long as Robert Kraft and hopefully the Kraft family (not sure about Jonathan, he looks kind of shady to me) are associated with the team, they will do all right. The Red Sox collapsed in a sit com of stupidity, pettiness and drama and I hate them for that. I don't ever see that happening to THE PATS with the Krafts in charge.
But I'm looking for the magic to be revived. I don't know if you can get it back once its gone. Magic is ethereal, it is spiritual and it has its own agenda. I don't know if any human knows what to feed it to sustain it or revive it.
I only know that I need it. The narrow confines of my life dictate absolutely that I need it.
I am still counting on THE PATS to come through. Until then, I'll lose myself in The Allman Brothers Band. Music to soothe the savage, empty, beat down, almost hopeless soul.

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