Dear Tom Brady:
I would probably love you if you were on my team, and while I know it wasn’t really your fault, I will never forgive you for being involved in this travesty.
I forgot all about that. Just watched the video and I’m still confused: how was that not a fumble, again?
Dear AskthePizzaGuy,
Thanks for all the kind words. I’ve always given 100% on the field, and I appreciate that you recognize that. But remember, while I’m quite good at what I do, football is a team sport. Feel free to write to Bill, Deion, Teddy, Jerod, Vince, Sterling, and the rest of the team.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go buy a small island in the Pacific, go out for a 6 course dinner at the Four Seasons, and fuck my supermodel wife.
Sincerely,
Tom
Good lord, I didn’t think anyone here even remembered the near-perfect season again. I’d mention how you’re the first person ever who bothered to remind us that it happened in a regular season that’s two games longer than it was in the disco era, but that’s really just an aside to my main point, which was that hardly anyone ever discussed this. AT ALL. The sports community collectively agreed to their lame prepackaged angle (“Still only one perfect team! Hahahahaha divine karma for Skygate! Suck it! Still only one perfect team!” or some crap like that), and then proceeded to have ABSOLUTELY NO FRICKIN’ ARGUMENT AT ALL EVER. Hell, the only other place I saw this mentioned was a goddam crackpot reality show thread on Television Without Pity. Yeah, ESPN did their Perfectville bit, but they’ve always been jerks like that.
I mean, just look at the kind of debates we could have had. How impressive an accomplishment is finishing the regular season unbeaten? How much does it matter that the season was longer? Is an 18-win streak intrinsically worth more than a 17-win streak? If only the championship matters (I think someone actually argued this on CNNSI), does this mean that the whole argument over “perfect” is just a bit of weirdo trivia, like Antonio Cromartie having a record that can never be broken? If someone eventually does break through, what exactly does this change? I mean, the 2004 Red Sox breaking The Curse, the single most bizarrely omnipotent force in baseball not named Bud Selig, was huge. Barry Bonds having the all-time home run record is huge. But see, they care about records in baseball. Who the hell went nuclear when OJ Simpson’s single season rushing record was broken? Or Jason Elam tied the record for longest field goal? What would the first 19-0 record actually, y’know, do?
I’ve said it before: If something like this happened in college football, we would never hear the end of it. Look how fired up they get over trivial stuff like Notre Dame not being in a conference. In the NFL, it’s like, hahahahaha, owned owned owned…okay, we had our fun, when’s the draft?
Hell, if anyone should be rubbing it in, it’s the Dolphins fans, but I haven’t heard of anything. Either they’re too fixated on how today’s team is doing today right now, or they’re as sick of hearing about Mercury Morris as I am. (Yeah, I understand that’s pretty much just an ESPN thing, but it’s a pretty big network.) Either way, they seem the least interesting in sparking a discussion.
And could everyone please just goddam get over going for it on 4th down? Look, even if running up the score was evil and wrong and unsportsmanlike in the NFL (which it isn’t, of course), it was a one-time thing. In fact, we seem to find the most ludicrously minor things to elevate to “grounds for seppuku” status. It’s like football equivalent “getting dunked on”. Yeah, maybe it’s a little embarrassing, but you’re telling me that it happens one goddam time and he’s disgraced forever and ever? I’m not exaggerating, either…don’t forget that flap over Nike suppressing a tape Lebron James being kinda-sorta dunked on. In a bleedin’ practice session, no less. And of course, as has already been pointed out, had they kicked a field goal, that would’ve been “rubbing it in” even more.
Anyway, the thing is, you can preach all you want about high expectations and star treatment, but at the end of the day, it’s tough to differentiate between “setting a higher standard” and plain ‘ol snitty jerkishness. Yeah, what the Patriots have done is a helluva lot better than quite a few NFL teams, and just because you think they should be held to a higher standard (never mind why the Patriots fans should care what the hell you think) doesn’t change this fact. And unfortunately, there isn’t some insanely successful team like UCLA that you have had jack-all to do with at any point in your life that you can shamelessly jump on the bandwagon of just so you can crow about how inferior the Pats are, and even if you are enough of a worthless slimeball rat to try such a thing with one of the league’s traditional powerhouses, chances are very good the actual fans of the team over here will not meekly go along with it, but rather smack you into the next county. Trust me, you do not want to get on Airman Doors’ bad side.
As for Tom Brady…eh, he’s a big boy, he can take care of himself.
…
What is this mysterious “point” you speak of? 