Well, turn out the lights. No more NFL for another seven months. It will take New England haters at least that long to get over their latest disappointment. I admit to not being a part of their weird cult, though I used to belong to an anti-Cowboys coven.
Growing up in Cleveland about the time Jim Brown hung it up, I know what a decades-long football depression is like, especially after the Darth Vader of Ohio stole the Browns to Baltimore where he called them Ravens. Obviously rooting for Ravens was impossible. so was embracing Cleveland’s traditional rival, Pittsburgh, or Cincinnati where Paul Brown had his second act. And the new “Browns” have always seemed ersatz to me, like New Coke.
Thus freed from any hometown loyalty, i have spent decades following whichever team seemed to me to be playing this complex, brutal, but beautiful game best at the moment. So, the Montana-Young-era Niners got my enthusiasm for a time, as did Green Bay, New Orleans, and Seattle. However, in the 21st Century it has been as obvious to me as to everyone else that the Belichick-Brady Patriots were something unprecedented.
When they are good, no one ever seems to have been as close to perfection in the precision of their execution, and when they aren’t on their game they still manage to win through grit, wile, persistence and adaptation. How many times have they seemed down for the count only to pop up at the last minute to kill again, like Michael Myers in “Halloween?”
It isn’t surprising that fans of other teams hate, loath and despise them. Old-fashioned blue-collar fans seem to find their pretty boy quarterback and his nearly clockwork execution especially annoying. But as columnist David von Drehle noted, the fact that “we working stiffs need our heroes doesn’t mean we have to like them.”
It is hard to gainsay the Belichick-Brady record: in 18 years nine trips to the Super Bowl, or a 50% rate of being in the top two, and six wins. This one must have been especially sweet for the team.
Their painful loss in last year’s Super Bowl to underdog Philadelphia made many conclude the dynasty was coming to an end, beset by age and left behind by an evolving game exemplified by razzle-dazzle offenses like those of Kansas City and the Rams. The rocky 7-3 start this season seemed to confirm the decline.
But they managed to finish 11-5 and get the second seed which meant no game in the wildcard week. They then beat the Chargers handily 41-28, ruining the Cinderella story of another aging quarterback, Philip Rivers.
Beating the Chiefs was more of a struggle, but they eked out a 37-30 overtime win to advance to the Super Bowl for the fourth time in five years. Again the Patriots got better late in the game as their foes tired. This is no accident since they pay particular attention to endurance training, designed to guard against faltering in the home stretch.
Near the end, a camera caught star receiver Julian Edelman on the sidelines screaming at Brady and his teammates “You’re too old.” That seemed a bit cheeky, when aimed at the GOAT, but it turns out it was part of a chant the team had adopted.
They got sick of being dismissed after the previous year’s loss, so amped themselves up by repeating the charges leveled at them in the press. “Too old! Too slow! No skill!” This is caled having the last laugh. They got mad, then got even.
Also vindicated is Ray Lewis, the Hall of Fame linebacker. All season he has been warning that the uncritical enthusiasm for the new breed of bombs-away offenses was premature. Using filmed highlights, he demonstrated week after week on “Inside the NFL” that the offense of Rams and Chiefs looked good because the defense of their opponents was bad. He predicted defenses would adapt and that the conventional wisdom that defense wins championships would be vindicated.
How right he was. Super Bowl LIII was the lowest scoring in history, tied at 3-3 at he end of the third quarter and with a final tally of 13-3. Fans who’d come expecting a final score of 48-51 thought it dull. Instead of bombs away, the Rams punted without scoring a point over and over, a pass in the end zone was batted away, and another in scoring position was intercepted. It added up to an exercise in futility.
But it was a tribute to the game plan and the execution by the Patriots whose motto is now famous. “Do your job.” In team enterprise, Belichick peaches, if every player trains to perform his role, the result will be victory. It is no accident his father coached at West Point. In an era of everyman for himself, rampant egomania, division and disorder, a fanatical devotion to cooperative excellence is worth celebrating. And even if low scoring, aesthetically pleasing, too.
As for the rest, the Super Bowl is a ridiculous over-hyped, over-commercialized abomination, as bloated as the fans after four of five hours of enormous platters of greasy junk food and flagons of beer. The commercials are rarely as clever as they are advertised to be, and the unlistenable half-time show drags on too long. A Zebra ought to throw a delay of game flag.
The patriotic folderol at the commencement seems peculiar since a sport is hardly an expression of our founding principles, It is especially odd since the NFL seems committed to making more lucre by exporting the sport to foreign climes. So every year, several teams have to play in front of clueless Brits and Mexicans instead of their hometown fans.
The apogee of absurdity comes when the Lombardi trophy, raised heavenward, is carried down a line of winning team members who kiss it as it goes by. It’s as if it were a relic, the thigh bone of a saint, for instance, whose touch would cure your scrofula or improve ratings or prevent the scourge of chronic brain injuries that may put the NFL out of business.
Still, despite the odd folkways, we will all tune in next year. Between now and then, deserts of vast eternity lie. How will we spend Sundays? Dan Jenkins, a witty man who covered football for “Sports Illustrated,” was asked once what he wrote about when the season ended. He hung his head in shame and despair and said, “nitwit golf.” Noooo!