Imperfektion

The Super Bowl is the quintessential American spectacle. It's Christmas and the World Series rolled into one. Instead of rushing home with gift-wrapped presents for loved ones, people rush home with nachos, salsa, pizza, and beer, and settle in front of the flatscreen to see a winner-take-all extravaganza. One game. One winner. One loser. The hype is beyond anything in American sports, probably even in global sports, save soccer's World Cup, which virtually no one in the United States cares about. The Super Bowl is our World Cup, and it's beyond huge. Even the multimillion dollar Super Bowl commercials attract oversized attention. It's said that some companies spend more money on Super Bowl ads than all their other ads combined during the course of the year. Wowza.

This year was no different. Except this year, the hype was even bigger, if that's possible. This year, one of the teams playing in the Super Bowl, the New England Patriots, came into the game with a perfect 18-0 record. They hadn't lost a single game all year. Not one. That incredibly difficult feat has only been accomplished one other time in the history of the National Football League, by the 1972 Miami Dolphins, who went 17-0 and, most importantly, won the Super Bowl that year. That's once in 42 years. The Patriots came into this game needing only one more win, a Super Bowl win, to make history. No team has ever gone 19-0.

But they couldn't do it. They came close. Verrrrry close. Incredibly close. But in the end, they couldn't get it done. Why? Lots of reasons, most of which have to do with the New York Giants defense. There was zero pressure on the Giants in this game. They were huge underdogs and weren't expected to win. All the pressure was on the Patriots to close the deal on a perfect season. So they not only had to contend with the Giants, who, notwithstanding all the prognostication, were formidable, having nearly beaten the Patriots six weeks ago, but they also had the pressure of history working against them. The pressure of trying to be perfect. The pressure of not losing. The pressure of virtually the entire country outside of New England and maybe Michigan, rooting against them. The unwashed masses hate perfection, don't they? Nobody likes a know-it-all. Somehow, by having won 3 Super Bowls in the last 5 years, the Patriots have become football's version of the New York Yankees in the minds of most people. Everybody hates them now. Myself, I think that's kind of funny, since when I was growing up, the Patriots were abysmal. I remember lots of 2-14 seasons and a colossal blowout loss to the Bears in the Pats' first Super Bowl in 1985. As previously related, they sucked so bad, I abandoned ship for the Oakland Raiders when I was only six years old. Now the Patriots are the Yankees? Brotha please!

In my mind, karma is the culprit behind tonight's Patriot debacle. First, in week 1 of this season, in a game against the New York Jets, the Patriots got in trouble with the league for videotaping the Jets' defensive coaches in the first quarter of the game. That's illegal (even though plenty of other teams probably do it). The Jets caught the videotaper in the first quarter and threw him out of the game, but the damage was done. The Patriots tarnished their reputation and embarrassed themselves. The NFL fined the coach $250,000, the team $500,000, and stripped them of a first round draft pick. And as they kept racking up victories, the jealous and the petty (i.e., New York fans) kept insisting on an "*" next to the Patriots' undefeated record, to footnote the fact that they cheated in that one quarter in their first game. (I wonder if the New York Post minds if we put an * next to all those World Series Championships the Yankees won with their steroid-infused players.) But the karmic capper for the Pats came a few days ago, just before the Super Bowl, when some idiot in the Patriots organization decided to trademark the phrase "Perfect Season." Now THAT is fucking stupid. Everyone knows you don't screw with the sports gods this way. You just don't.

And so, the Patriots lost tonight. They end the season an imperfect 18-1, the New Jersey, I mean the New YORK Giants are the Super Bowl Champions, and the 1972 Miami Dolphins are popping champagne corks.

But don't worry, Tom Brady, you've still got 3 Super Bowl rings, those GQ good looks, and slinky Gisele, who I am sure will, uh, dress your wounds tonight.