COUNTERPOINT – Patriots: Classy- Courageous- and Champions

By Ryan McGowan

In part one of this two-part series, I examined the question as to which team is tops in Boston, the Red Sox or the Patriots, and explored the issue from the point of view of the Sox.  Today, the Patriots have their turn in the sun for rebuttal.THE CASE FOR THE PATRIOTS

On Thursday, we were given three words in a rather specious argument as to who is number one in Boston: "red," "sox", and "nation."  While I am not sure exactly what that phrase means (as it is perplexing to imagine the psyche of a sports fan that roots passionately for an organization which is basically synonymous with the word "loser"), I give three words of my own in rebuttal:

Super.  Bowl.  XXXVI.

And if that doesn’t convince you, here’s three more:

Super.  Bowl.  XXXVIII.

OK, so its debatable as to whether you are allowed to count Roman numerals as one word.  Either way, I think you got my point.  The NFL has undoubtedly replaced archaic Major League Baseball as the premier sports league not only in the United States, but throughout the world.  And the Patriots, as the darlings of the League, the defending champions who are still riding high on a 15-game winning streak, and the model franchise to which all other organizations aspire, are Number One.

That’s Number One with capital N and O.  That’s Number One as in, not just in Boston, but in all of the world.  The Patriots have gone far beyond "Patriots Nation."  We are the center of "Patriots Universe."

Red Sox Nation has its collective head in the sand if it thinks that baseball is still the undisputed king of American sports; but then again, Red Sox Fan is the kind of irrational creature who lives permanently in the past, wrapped up in such buzzwords and creepy historical reminders like "1918," "Ted Williams" "1967", "Carlton Fisk", "Bucky Dent", "Bill Buckner," "Aaron Boone."  Ouch.  Hurts, doesn’t it, Sox fan?  It hurts just to look at the past.  Too bad.  You can’t change the past, and from the looks of things, you will be moaning and wailing about the Yankees long after you hear the words, "Alex Rodriguez, eight-time MVP infielder who led the New York Yankees to seven more World Series today, was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame today."  The Curse is painful, isn’t it, Sox fan?

It’s the 21st century, and Patriots Universe isn’t about the past.  History is SO twentieth-century.  We like to think of history as that soporific class you were forced to take back in the confining prison that was your high school years, where you sat listening to some 90-year-old geek named Mr. Smoot drone on and on about such fascinating topics as the Council of Trent and the Hundred Years War, and all you could concentrate on was how hot that blond cheerleader looked in her skirt and how disgusting it was for a grown man to have his left nipple fully visible through his stained white dress shirt.  (Patriots Universe, as you can see, isn’t big on education.  We generally view education the way most college football players do, as a necessary evil to trudge through during the day while you think about practice that afternoon, the game on Saturday, and the party with the Alpha Gamma Delta sorority girls on Saturday night.)  But I digress.

Patriots Universe is all about the present (well, the present and the RECENT past).  Right now, in 2004, the Patriots are Caesar, Augustus, Napoleon, and Elvis all rolled into one.  They are the most dominant presence in any one field since Elizabeth Berkley (as Jessie Spano) dominated the "Good Looking Girl With A Nice Body That You Probably Would Hook Up With In a Vacuum But Were Totally Turned Off By Her Bitchy Personality So Could Never Date Her" genre in the late 80’s and early 90’s.

Patriots Universe is not cocky, but nor do we suffer any lack of confidence.  Our philosophy comes straight from the top, but by the "top" we don’t really mean the owner (Bob Kraft) but rather the head coach.  Mr. Kraft is a great guy who is probably the number one reason why a Patriots franchise even still exists in New England and not in St. Louis (but that’s history, and like I said earlier, we don’t do history in Patriots Universe), and he entertains the affections of the fans in a staid, almost grandfatherly way.  But while Mr. Kraft signs the paychecks and pays for the championship rings, the real Yoda to our collective Jedi worship is best known to us as His Eminence Bill Belichick.  

In Belichick’s four years as head coach and chief guru of the New England Patriots, he has produced three winning seasons and two (aforementioned) Super Bowl championships.  His team in 2001 pulled off possibly the greatest upset in the history of the Super Bowl, with a 20-17 shocker over the disbelieving St. Louis Rams in what was thought afterwards to be the greatest Super Bowl ever played, ending on a heroic drive engineered by wunderkind quarterback Tom Brady and culminating in a last-second desperation field goal by Adam Vinatieri.  At the time, it was the greatest moment in Patriots history; many still think it is.

But do you know what the amazing part is?  The Patriots did the same thing, again.  Two years later.  In the final minutes in Houston in 2004, we saw almost a carbon copy of the magical day in the Superdome in 2002.

Ricky Proehl (with the Rams in New Orleans, catching passes for the Panthers in Houston) catches a touchdown pass to tie the game with just over a minute remaining.  Brady brazenly leads a last-minute two-minute drill, featuring several great plays by Troy Brown and other Patriots receivers, into field goal range.  Vinatieri boots the ball through the uprights.  Game over.  Your New England Patriots are world champions.

The Red Sox can speculate all they want about what a parade would be like in downtown Boston if they ever win the World Series.  Good for them; speculation is fun.  It keeps people hopeful.  It is kind of like the way Karl Marx saw religion; Marx believed that religion was a tool of oppressors to keep the oppressed in line.  They were promised a better life in exchange for keeping their mouths shut and doing what they are told, always being fed these impossible fantasies of redemption and deliverance to ease their suffering and make them more manageable.  The dream of a Red Sox World Series victory is like an opium for the masses of Red Sox Nation; it might make their suffering situation more tolerable, but in the end it cannot erase the pathos that awaits anyone who declares Sox fandom.

Speculation, on the other hand, isn’t a problem with the Patriots.  We have had TWO of those majestic parades within the past two and a half years.  We watched a freaking MILLION people turn out for the processions, both held on bone-chillingly cold February days in Boston, which is not the best time of year to visit that great city.  We felt what it was like to watch our heroes proudly hoist the Vince Lombardi Trophy high in the air, cheered by millions of adoring fans for accomplishing what we set out to do – bring a championship to the die-hard fans of New England.  They loved us for the same reason anyone cares about sports; as their heroes, we did for them what they could never do for themselves.  We gave those fans a taste of feeling like a champion, and we made them believe in themselves.  

After we beat the Rams, you could almost feel a palpable change in the air in Boston.  Pessimism became a thing of the past, right there with the Council of Trent and Mr. Smoot’s left nipple.  Even the Red Sox franchise caught a bit of that optimism, that "Cowboy Up" feeling that victory was inevitable, the utter confidence that comes from being a champion.  The only problem was that the Red Sox weren’t/aren’t champions.  They are losers.  Their time is over.  They had their chances to captivate Boston, and they failed.  Fortunately, we were able to step right in and show the fans what they’d been missing all those years since Larry, Kevin, and Robert last hung a championship banner in Boston.

We don’t even have to talk about TV ratings, or about the tens of thousands of people who show up at Gillette Stadium just to watch our most un-Iverson-esque practices.  We don’t have to mention the brand-new stadium, with the luxury boxes, infrastructure improvements, great sightlines, and comfortable seats.  We don’t have to mention that Bridget Moynihan is ten times hotter than any of the Red Sox players’ wives or girlfriends.  All we have to do is point to two contrasting banners, one which hangs on Yawkey Way in Boston, the other which is seen best from Route One in Foxboro.

The one in Boston says, "BOSTON RED SOX: 1918 WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS."

The one in Foxboro says, "NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS: 2001 SUPER BOWL CHAMPIONS."

We have one more on the way that will be unveiled this fall.

It’s a new century.  Baseball is dead.  The Red Sox are finished.  The Patriots are kings.  "Long live the king."

(I think I heard that quote in history class one day, way back when.  Thank God for Mr. Smoot.)