New England Patriots: Does America Win When the NFL's Mighty Team Loses?

The New England Patriots lost their first game of this season to the now-3-0 Buffalo Bills, 34-31, and much of America rejoiced.

The word is "schadenfreude," which means the satisfaction one feels from witnessing the failures of another. It is a literal combination of the German words for "harm" and "joy," which is quite lovely if you ask me.

Indeed, this is the perfect word to describe what many across the country are feeling after watching the mighty Patriots fall to the surging Bills.

The game generated a ridiculous amount of discussion going into this Sunday, and for good reason.

Both teams were undefeated, with the Patriots looking invincible yet again, and the Bills perhaps pretenders to a throne most often occupied by New England and their quarterback Tom Brady (though as of late also by the New York Jets).

But the Bills had momentum on their side. A 2-0 start is nothing new to the Brady-led Patriots, and back-to-back big performances by Brady, while never quite as dominant as they were in the first two weeks of this season, are an expectation.

When the Patriots are dominant, they somehow impress and bore at the same time. They just don't engender the same kind of excitement as the Bills have through three games.

Buffalo leads the league in scoring and rushing through Week 3, and proved today that they have the kind of defense that can take even the best quarterbacks down a notch.

Year after year, NFL fans have been subjected to a nonstop barrage of how the Patriots are the de facto team to beat, completely discounting the efforts of all other more dominant teams in the league.

Questionable play calls by head coach Bill Belichick are praised by members of the media who would excoriate practically any other coach who would attempt them.

So that's why it's so enjoyable to see a team so praised, a team so mighty, fall to a divisional rival that just a year ago finished their season 4-12 and spent most of the 2000s as the butt of many a joke.

The Patriots aren't infallible, and we all knew that; yet we were all told that the Patriots were, even though they've had just one undefeated regular season of the Belichick-Brady era (and we all know how that ended, with schadenfreude to spare).

Now, the Patriots have lost in a grand fashion to a team that has generated all kinds of warranted buzz among the NFL media and fans alike.

They cannot hide from the loss, and it cannot be discussed away. Brady made a number of mistakes. Wide receiver Chad Ochocinco dropped a sure-thing touchdown pass. And the Patriots defense, an emerging Achilles heel over the previous two weeks, proved that without talent on both sides of the ball, all the passing yards in the world don't count.

Watching a losing team lose again contains within itself no inherently satisfying thread; watching a perennial winner give away a win against a team with so much to prove—well, that's what makes the NFL so compelling to begin with.

For once, the foregone conclusion has become a question mark. For once, Goliath is felled, and it's not an anomaly. For once, the Patriots were beaten at their own game. And for once, the Buffalo Bills become America's Team, even if for just one week.