Super Bowl Fallout: First Boston Collapse in a Generation

It happened. For the first time in my lifetime while watching the New England Patriots, it happened.

Sure, when watching the Boston Red Sox in the postseason it’s never a game if it doesn’t happen. But last night during the Super Bowl, it happened.

Everything was fine. Tom Brady marched down the field and, while I did almost jump through the television when Brady overthrew Moss for a surefire touchdown, Brady connected with Moss two plays later for the go-ahead touchdown.

Then as I noticed 2:32 showed on the game clock, and it happened.

My hands went cold and my palms started sweating. Eli Manning and the Giants had the football down four points and needed a touchdown—not a field goal—to win the game. More importantly, plenty of time remained, and they had three time outs.

Why get nervous now? Adam Vinatieri needed to kick two game winning field goals as time expired to win two previous Super Bowls, and in my youthful ignorance and bliss I never doubted that he’d make them both. Last night, the Patriots had surrendered ten points through three quarters and surely the team of destiny would be able to make a stop now with the game on the line. They didn’t. The Pats lost. 18-1.

This is not like 2003. This was not Red Sox-Yankees ALCS. This really does not compare remotely to that loss. This was worse.

Baseball is my first love, although the NFL and college basketball are bridging the gap quickly. That being said, last night’s loss was still worse.

While the two Red Sox world championships since Aaron Boone’s walk off home run in the 2003 ALCS against the Yankees should have somehow softened the blow of that night, I can still remember the feeling I woke up with the next day. It was a feeling of disappointment, but not shame.

After all, we were the underdogs and put up a fight against the winningest team in professional sports history. In other words—had the Red Sox won in 2003, I feel today exactly what Yankees fans would have felt five years ago: unabashed shame and disappointment.

I am 18 years old (born in 1989) and from Massachusetts, and this is the first time in my serious-sports-watching-lifetime (circa 1997 especially since I did not have cable until 2001) that a local team has reached a championship game and failed to parade through the streets of Boston the following week to the delight of millions of locals.

Had the Patriots not won in 2001, it would have been expected. Had the Patriots not won in 2003 it would have been understandable. Had the Patriots not won in 2004 it would have been upsetting. They went three for three in those Super Bowls however, and in their wake, the Patriots created a winning culture in my generation that simply does not exist in other generations of Boston sports fans.

Last night, for the first time in my lifetime, a local sports team let me down.

Veteran Bostonians have seen triumphs in the Celtics unlike that which my generation has ever dreamed about. Teams who boasted big names on championship teams as Walton, Russell, McHale, Bird, Parrish, Havlicek and Cousy. The best Celtics team of my generation touted a roster with the likes of Pierce, Antoine, Battie, Delk, and Rodney Rogers and Kenny Anderson.

But veteran Bostonians have dealt with disappointment from following the Patriots and Red Sox that I could not begin to describe- until last night at least. They had to watch the ’85 Bears steamroll the Patriots 46-10, and watch a young Brett Favre and Desmond Howard knock off the upstart Patriots team of 1996.

They not only had to deal with Boone in 2003, but they had to deal with Buckner in ’86 and watch as The Impossible Dream Team of 1967 came up just short to the Cincinnati Reds in the World Series.

Last night, the Patriots entered as both the best, and most hated team in football. All season long they have had a target not placed, but tattooed squarely on their backs. They were hated because of Spygate I and now II, because their head coach doesn’t give sincere post-game handshakes, and because they run the score up on the opposition.

I loved this team though simply because they are the best and tried to win both regular season games against the over matched Buffalo Bills by as wide of a margin as possible. This loss hurts. It hurts more than last year’s AFC championship game, more than the Red Sox 2005 ALDS series against the White Sox, and only slightly more than the 2003 ALCS against the Yankees.

Unlike baseball where it’s next to impossible to not miss a single pitch of an entire season, football you can sit down and watch the entirety of your favorite team’s season: a sport where each game counts the same in the standings as ten regular season baseball games. After going an entire regular season and two playoff games of that without seeing your team get tripped up once, you cannot rationalize how any team will beat them until it happens.

It happened. The-team-that-could-not-lose lost, and I’m not sure where to turn for solace.

The sports-hangover I woke up with Monday morning is the first of its kind in my lifetime and I’m sure the first of many I will experience as long as I continue to eat, breathe, and live Boston sports.

As I got out of bed this morning bleary-eyed and simply not ready to face the world as we know it on February 4, 2008, my dad was at the breakfast table reading a paper and watching local news anchors (aggravatingly) tried to sugar-coat the enormity of the loss the Patriots just endured.

He, unlike I, was able to watch the news and muster a smile towards my mother who, through 26 years of marriage, has come to understand and accept the silence that resonates throughout our house the following morning after tough losses.

So there my father sits, a few more grey hairs, maybe a tiny wrinkle now exists where there was not one before—but overall, no worse for the wear. Protected by over forty years of letdown by his beloved teams, he is able to wake up this morning and draw upon many other mornings just like this one to get through the day ahead.

So here I sit, struggling to put my thoughts on paper, envious of my father’s ability to cope with losses like this, and unsure of how to deal with the day ahead and the many Giants fans who will surely not let me forget of the previous night’s events.

The only thing you can do in times like these, is try to be gracious towards any Giants fans who brag about their win and try to keep looking forward because there’s no sense dwelling on the past; as hard as that will be to achieve.

I need to find something, anything, to keep me going on a day like this.

Fortunately…

12 days until Red Sox pitchers and catchers report.