I have spent many wishes in my life with the hopes that my team would one day achieve the success I have gotten to enjoy as of late. Perhaps I could have parceled out my wishes for more righteous causes. However, the timing of this dynasty could not have come at a better time, selfishly.
Having been held hostage in the AFC to Tom Brady’s Patriots for 20 years and once more in Super Bowl LV, I haven’t forgotten the feeling of being on the other side of heart wrenching defeat. Throughout his reign of football supremacy, I held tightly to any and all notes of discreditation. I wasn’t following football when the “Tuck Rule” game happened, yet still, I clung. Tom Brady wasn’t evenTom Brady in 2001. He was an NFL darling akin to how Brock Purdy would have been viewed had San Fransisco beaten the Chiefs in Super Bowl XVIII. The Patriots would beat the St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI, effectively ending the Greatest Show On Turf. Huh, defense really does win championships.
The Patriots started off as the team of the decade, beloved. Not to mention the feel good-hearted wholesome American symbolism of a team called the Patriots helping to bring the country together post 9/11. Like the Packers of the 60’s, the Steelers of the 70’s, 49ers of the 80’s, the 90’s Cowboys. All great shining examples of the working class American values. I honestly don’t know if the Cowboys were that beloved during their dynasty in the 90’s. Legendary head coach, Tom Landry, was fired in February of 1989. Landry had coached the Cowboys since their first season in 1960. This was the first year of new ownership by the restaurateur, Jerry Jones of the Shakey’s Pizza Parlor chain. Jerruh was quick to show Landry who the new hot topping atop the ‘za was. I wonder if Jerry Jones ever said to his newly hired head coach, Jimmy Johnson, “Hey! ‘Jerry Jones Jimmy Johnson. JJJJ.’ That’s pretty glory hole.”
New England would soon become the dynasty of ought; winning the Super Bowl in 2001, 2003, and 2004. At this point, many regarded Brady as a smart, turnover averse game-manager who was propped up by Belichick’s defenses. It was not until the 2007 season that Brady became looked at as the bonafide challenger to Joe Montana’s “GOATQB” title. In 2007, the Patriots added wide receivers, Wes Welker and Randy Moss. That season, Welker would lead the league in receptions (112) whilst Moss lead the league in receiving touchdowns (23). Brady becomes the first quarterback to throw for 50 touchdowns in a season and the Patriots finish the regular season 16-0 and make it to the Super Bowl. However, the Patriots would lose their only game of the season in a nail-biter to Danny O’Shea’s Little Giants. Giants defensive coordinator, Steve Spagnolo proves yet again that defense wins championships.
Week One of the 2008 season, Tom Brady would suffer a torn ACL less than eight minutes into the first quarter when Chiefs safety, Bernard Pollard’s helmet collided with Brady’s knee. 2008 would be only the second and last time the Patriots did not win the AFC East/ make the playoffs during Brady’s tenure. Backup quarterback Matt Cassel stepped in and played well enough to secure starting offers from multiple NFL teams the following off-season, eventually being traded to the Kansas City Chiefs along with linebacker, Mike Vrabel for a second round pick. He was not great at quarterbacking, but seems like a stand up guy. He made $62 million and had a K-SWISS commercial with Kenny Powers. Not too bad. However, justice for Thigpen.
Future restaurateur and Cowboys owner, Jerry Jones just being curious. Arkansas, 1957.
Tom Brady would be 32 years old at the start of the 2009 season. Historically, the physicality of the NFL (Not For Long) tends to take a toll on a player’s ability by this age. With Tom Brady coming off an injury and being “old”, many fans and “experts” believed the best of Brady had past. The Patriots would lose Super Bowl XLVI of the 2011 season. Again to Junior and Icebox.
The Patriots would not win a Super Bowl from 2006 until 2014. Tom Brady was 37 at the start of the 2014 season. At this time, the oldest quarterbacks to win a Super Bowl were Johnny Unitas (37 in 1970) and John Elway (37, 38 in 1997, 1998) and they looked old as hell. The tired debate of “Greatest of All Time” was still being argued between Joe Montana or Tom Brady. Peyton Manning even snuck into a few arguments. New England loses their first game of the 2014 season to the Joe Philbin coached Miami Dolphins. Then Week 4 of the 2014 season, on Monday Night Football, the Patriots were trounced 41-14 by the Kansas City Chiefs. The next morning, all of the sports talk shows were dancing on Brady’s grave.
This 24/7 news-cycle we live in has fucked the integrity of journalism. Opinions are not news. Manufactured hot-takes are not news. You gotta really love sports to be watching this shit because you are getting played. And I’m not just talking about sports media… Ya’ll Peyton Manning was declining, the Steelers were floundering, the underachieving Colts underachieving. The Patriots were still the team to beat. Brady is great because he hears it all. It felt like an ominous shift; untrusting of good fortune.
Did Joe Montana have to deal with with this bullshit throughout the 49ers dynasty?
“Would Montana be total ass without Dwight Clark bailing him out?”
“Montana got lucky in ‘82. If it weren’t for Rice, he’d be trash.”
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Trent Dilfer, a sports “analyst”, often regarded as “the worst quarterback to win a super bowl” chimed in to declare the Patriots were no longer good following the loss to the Chiefs. There is no wait and see with sports. A declaration must be made one way or the other. The Patriots would end the season 12-4 and in possession of first seed throughout the playoffs where they would advance to defeat the defending Super Bowl champions, the Seattle Seahawks. In a reversal of fate, the 2014 Chiefs would be the only Chiefs team under Andy Reid to miss the playoffs. Kansas City beat both representatives of that year’s Super Bowl.
You cannot win them all. The thing that makes the NFL so special is having fewer games, thus making each game carry importance. By week 4, analyst and fans alike have made up their mind about how the rest of season will shake out. There are always a few teams who over perform that are championed as the team to beat that piss down their leg the second the playoffs begin. A visiting team in Foxborough quickly goes from competent to incontinent. The Patriots would wind up beating the Baltimore Ravens 35-31 in the Divisional Round. The following week, the Patriots wallop the Indianapolis Colts 45-7 and advance to the Super Bowl. This began the discourse surrounding the size and weight of Brady’s balls.
Oh how we oogled and oggled over Brady’s balls. Oh so deflated. I don’t care much to get into all the schmutz about Deflategate. Tom Brady won three more Super Bowls after 2014 and appeared in a fourth. Mounting a comeback down 28-3 against the 2016 Atlanta Falcons, winning in overtime.
The next year losing a shootout 41-33 to the Nick Foles and Doug Pederson led Philadelphia Eagles. Brady would, for the second year in a row, set the record for most passing yards in a Super Bowl. Both times removing Kurt Warner from one of my favorite NFL fun facts of having the top 3 passing performances in the Super Bowl.
Want another Kurt Warner fun fact!? Each season he started all 16 games, his team would play in the Super Bowl. Give God the gloryhole! Eat shit, Mike Martz!
THE VERY FUCKING NEXT YEAR, the Patriots defeated the Kansas City Chiefs in the 2018 AFC Championship at Arrowhead to go to their third straight Super Bowl! A pitiful13-3 victory over the Los Angeles Rams. Oh we’ll come back to this.
Super Bowl LIII would be Brady’s 6th and final Super Bowl with the Patriots before moving to the Buccaneers for the 2020 season. So the Patriots represent the AFC in the Super Bowl 2011, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018. Being a fan of any of the other 31 teams, you had three choices:
A.) Accept it. Brady owns you.
B.) Be pissy every year.
C.) SPYGATE! DEFLATEGATE!
I chose option C. Like, there is verifiable evidence of the Patriots recording opposing teams practices. Deflategate quickly grew quite tiring for me personally. Quick! We need a distraction! There is too much talk of CTE! Now I have the same jackasses whose opinions I already don’t take seriously now debating the PSI of footballs congruent to the rule book. Yet many years after the Spygate and Deflategate scandals, Tom Brady still arrived. Year after year of circling C you become a B. Acceptance is the final step of grief. I was free.
Tom Brady was 42 when he left to join the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. People memory-wiped themselves of their disdain for him. There was no way he could win another Super Bowl at 43 with an entirely new team and coach. We could all rest and enjoy the twilight of his career with admiration for all he had accomplished. His first season with the Buccaneers coincided with the Covid-19 pandemic. Shit, if the league is rigged, it would make sense for the team hosting the Super Bowl to make it during a pandemic. Just so happened to be in Tampa Bay… and the next year being the Rams in Los Angeles— I’m just saying. I can be a real pain in the ass.
By the time Tom Brady had retired from the league he had won more Super Bowls than any NFL franchise with seven. He had appeared in 13 AFC Championship games, winning nine of them, with eight appearances in a row from 2012-2018, and an NFC Championship win. Appearing in 10 fucking Super Bowls, winning seven of them. His final one being a demolishing of my effing team?
I am not sorry.
Super Bowl XLII was the first NFL game I watched with legitimate investment. I was 14 years old and stuck at a Super Bowl party of family friends. I knew the circumstances of the game. The Patriots were undefeated going against a less than impressive 9-7 New York Giants. The Giants and Patriots played the final week of the regular season. New England would win 38-35. Few teams played the Patriots as closely as the the Giants did. I hoped to see chaos.
“When we were kids. We used to race our bikes down Cherry Hill every day after school. We raced every day and he always beat me, but one time, one time I beat him.”
—Coach O’Shea
I still felt New England had it in the bag. From opening kick-off till the end of the game, my interest in the game grew and grew. When David Tyree came down with the ball pinned to his helmet, draped by Rodney Harrison, the NFL became my ultimate cinema. 18-1. Hilarious. I imagine there will be some kid watching Super Bowl LIX this Sunday with desire to see the Chiefs fail their attempt at a three-peat. To them I’d say careful what you wish for. Tom Brady never got to cross “PERFECT SEASON” off his list. But if the Patriots perfect season meant three less rings, football could have been a lot more enjoyable. Though in this butterfly effect, the undefeated season means I probably don’t give a shit about football now.
Remember that ominous shift, untrusting of good fortune when the Chiefs pummeled the Patriots national television in 2014? These days feel like that but on a far more consequentual scale. I still haven’t processed winning Super Bowl LIV in February of 2020. Kansas City would gather for the parade, unbeknownst that a month later a gathering that size would be irresponsible. I remember sports all together taking a 100+ day hiatus. Talk if the NFL would cancel their season. AND LOSE OUT ON THE ADVERTISING MONEY?!?! IMBECILE! The Super Bowl winning Kansas City Chiefs would be raising their flag in front of 15,895 fans in a stadium that holds 76,416.
The 2020 Chiefs would cruise through the season 14-2. What a gift to have as a distraction during such a brain-knottingly difficult period. Dealing with losing multiple jobs due to COVID-19 and continuing school online at Wichita State, GO SHOCKERS!, it was nice to enjoy winning football. Beyond football, I knew I was very blessed. I think about it all the time, there were Jets fans dealing with the same personal/world problems. How lucky I am.
Trump loses the 2020 Presidential Election. Things are looking up. The anti-christ is out of the White House and my team rips. The calendar resets. January 6, 2021, I’m watching CNN’s (fuck CNN) live feed of the insurrection. I remember how weird it felt. Like, this is significant yes? Beer Hall Putsch? A failed coup attempt in 1923 by Adolf Hitler. But even then 15 Nazi’s died and Hitler was arrested. But this isn’t like that? This is okay?
Biden is sworn in as President. Checks and balances are back, correct? We can recognize sedition, yes? Following American political theater for the past five years has felt like watching Patrick Mahomes in Super Bowl LV Super Bowl LIX. A collapsing pocket, scrambling for someone to make a play, only for all of your players to drop the ball in a blow out.
THE FOLLOWING WAS WRITTEN POST SUPER BOWL LIX
The morning after. Life is moves forward. Many people all over America are waking up happier, brighter. “HA! The Chiefs lost. They can’t win without the refs helping them out. The game ended in my favor. The NFL that I have always known and loved is back. No longer rigged. Hey, you wana see my mock draft? I have BYU FS, Glyndyn Glyss-Pudd, sliding late second/early third. Oh and I have Louisiana-Monroe QB, General Axel Booty, (I did not make that name up.) going to the Browns with the 67th pick! I’M GONNA BUST!!”
As an objective observer and fan of NFL lore, I had a blast. Super Bowl MVP, Jalen Hurts played out of his gourd. 17-22 for 221 and two tuds. Saquon Barkley’s greatness is fulfilled. Watching his career wither away in New York, you wish he’d find a way off the Giants and become the missing piece to some team that can let him be great…
Damn, Daniel.
Philly’s paw curls a middle-finger.
Now other players can get some time in the spotlight. They get to experience the fun stuff. Cooper DeJean gets a pick-six on his birthday!
Once again my team got me through another really challenging year. They won a bunch of games in very unconventional, sloppy, gob-smacking, silly, chaotically cheeky ways.
Week 1- Chiefs v. Ravens- You know what they say about big feet? Out of bounds. 27-20
Week 2- Chiefs v. Bengals- What do you tell a Bungholes fan when they start complaining about the refs? Scoreboard. 26-25
Week 10- Chiefs v. Broncos- The Bonkos line up to kick the go ahead game winning 35 yard field goal with the clock stopped at 0:01 in the 4th quarter. Leo Chenal blocks the kick. 16-14
Week 13- Chiefs v. Raiders- Raiders are driving down the field late in the game with a chance to set up for a game winning field goal. Raiders botch the snap on the Chiefs 31 yard line. Kansas City recovers. 19-17
I had received many blessed Sundays in which it felt, as though through divine intervention, God shone down his light and said, “I’m really glad I’m choosing to focus on this right now. Do you see wtf is going on?” So I hope that this Super Bowl loss means God has begun prioritizing other matters. Matters of more importance to the grand scheme of it all. I choose to remain hopeful.
-Ass.Coach JW
stream of consciousness
1.13.25
Vikings @ Rams Monday Night Football, Wildcard Weekend. 6 minutes left to go in the third quarter. Vikings-3, Rams-20-freaking-7?! Goodness gracious. Meanwhile on Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, season 4, episode 16 Secrets Revealed. —Oh shit touchdown, T.J. Hockenson. Wow what a catch! I love having Real Housewives on in the background so I don’t have to listen to Joe Buck and Troy Aikman talk. Currently, the Vikings went for and failed a two point conversion Rams-27, Vikings-9. Commercial…
Heather is kicking the camera guys out of her room. She is speaking quite ominously in her talking head. It also looks cold as eff at this beach dinner. The producers couldn’t let them eat inside? This shit is scary. They have voodoo dolls? They keep saying dramatic. It is truly DRAMATIC! Damn, dramatic-15, Rams-27, Vikings-9.
Kyren Williams has a flat tire; putting his shoe back on. Rams TE, Hunter Long with a drop, Harrison Smith with the uncalled DPI. Fun fact! I used Harrison Smith on Immaculate Grid today!
I just looked up from the game in my lap and Monica looks like she’s freezing her ass off wearing a blanket as a niqab/chador? They are doing some flash back now to them standing on the beach. This is ridiculous. This was two hours prior to the dinner? What is this sepia filter? This music. It’s all so Biblical. Yo. What is this? Oh shit Vikings got the ball back. Didn’t miss shit. Addison with a 9 yard catch. 3 & 1. They got it.
Monica owes beauty lab a lot of money? Monica is wild. Very suspicious, but an absolute boots-on-the-ground unit. Also, scary. Heather tracked that shit when Monica said to her that she would do some shady shit like spreading rumors. Heather is a seer. Sam Darnold? More like Damn Daniel.
Dudes, if I were the cameraman during all of this, I’d be throwing up. Start of the 4th quarter. Monica was just caught as a social media gossip page runner, Reality Von Tease, that had infiltrated the Housewives. If I were her, I would say, “Bitch! WHO THE F*** IS DITA VON TEESE? DITA VON DEEZ?!” Monica is CAUGHT! The producers are running in the background, trying to get out the backdoor! Ha! HOLY SHIT MONICA! She’s an informant. Aaron Jones 4 yard run. Hockenson First down. Still 9-27. Commercial.
Back to the real game. Who tf is Tinesha? Darnold overthrow. Monica recording Jen. Love Monica shitting on Lisa. She’s gathering goss. Heather tho. This shit is so dramatic. Monica is a journalisssssstahhh. Lists. Receipts. Idomizedahh. Sick lil beat playing during their “where they are now?” slideshow. Lisa’s said something about “Jack off” idk I missed all of them. Clearly. 1st & 26 Rams with ball. 1st & 31. 2nd & 29. 3rd & 24. Insurance Commercial. Commercial for a movie about the Olympics. Commercial for dystopian heart monitor. Commercial with likely an annoying song. Ya’ll, there is 7 minutes left in this game. I don’t think Darnold can do this.
Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, season 4 Reunion Uncensored Part 1. Monica in the house! Less go. 1st down. Andy Cohen gotta open it up with boring salutations. Oh cool. Challenge of the spot of the ball. Heather saying, “she [Jen Shah] lied to my face up until she walked into the court room.” Like, no way Jen didn’t share that shit. She’s just too real. Darnold looks like Bo Nix out there. Lisa still sucks. Now I’m having flash backs to Monica sitting in therapy. Ya’ll do you remember the outfit she wore to therapy?
Ohhhhhhh give that one to Addison. NO. 4th and 11. Idgaf about anything Monica did to Lisa. Darnold wtf? Rams wrapped up this mid-ass Wildcard Weekend. Shout out to Baker and Daniels, you are spared from this grievance. Happy to see the Viking launching the ball. Sad to see them dropping the ball. 1:53 left in the 4th. Oy vey. Sean McVey! Drop. Drop. Hugs and kisses for friends and teammates on the Rams. Kicks and spits for former friends and former teammates on the Vikings. :00. I don’t care much for Meredith. Lisa is talking and I don’t care for her. Don’t care. Two long haired players of opposing teams talking to each other. Matt Stafford with his Gen-X ahh hat fashion. Level on the eyebrows. Flip the wisps out the side of the cap. Crack a Steel Reserve. You’ve earned it.
