Bill and Tom, meet Randolph and Mortimer

As the last seconds ticked off the clock in Super Bowl XVI a lot of things went through my mind.  Chief among them was “Nnnnnnoooooooo!”  It felt like the death of everything, sports-wise.   The improbable run of excellence of all 4 of the Boston teams began with a the 2001 Patriots, who came out of nowhere behind a quarterback that nobody else wanted, and featured a bunch of guys that other teams had given up on.   Since then the Patriots have gone from beloved underdogs to the reviled overlords of the NFL.    Belichick was too arrogant, they said.  Brady was too pretty.   Bob Kraft too powerful.   And they just won too much.  And then along came “spygate”, which cast the Patriots, and Belichick and Brady in particular, as villains. 

And what have the Pats done since then?   Won more games than any other franchise (including an 11-5 year with a guy at quarterback that had not played a game since HIGH SCHOOL).    Been to two Super Bowls.   Yes, they lost them both, and people point to that and say “see, they can’t win without cheating!”.  But they got there, which is a lot more than can be said for most teams.  And they lost because they played a team that is exceptionally well coached, and matches up very well with the Pats, and because Tom Brady may only be 95% of what he used to be, and because other coaches have maybe closed the gap with Belichick in terms of game-planning.  But they will still be a very good team for years, and will have a chance at another title before Brady calls it a career.  I tell myself that, and it feels  true. 

And yet in my heart…..in the aftermath of another heartbreaking defeat I could not handle the truth.  All I could see in my mind’s eye is Tom getting another year older, and maybe a little less effective than he was when we were winning, and a team that may not have as much heart (which this year’s team had in spades) or talent (Wes Welker could be gone, as could Matt Light. - two huge parts of the team)  next year.  If they don’t get to the SB again next year Tom will be yet another year older.   And then maybe their window of opportunity will close, and they’ll just be another good team that might be good enough to make the playoffs, but not to win it all.   And when Tom eventually retires maybe they just go back to being an also-ran.  This is what kept me up the other night, wondering if we’ve seen the end of the Patriots as a serious contender.   It reminded me of the scene late in the Eddie Murphy/Dan Ackroyd movie “Trading Places”.   They both are less than sympathetic characters in the beginning of the movie.  In fact, they’re both jerks, before being redeemed and made to be the heroes, defeating the evil Duke And Duke (sort of like how Eli and Tom Coughlin were not very popular, even in New York, until they won the SB while defeating the evil Belichick and Brady).  In the penultimate scene in the movie Eddie and Dan corner the market on Frozen Orange Juice, using stolen, proprietary information that was supposed to be used by Duke and Duke brothers (yes, a sort of spygate for the commodities market) , the firm for which Eddie and Dan had worked until they were framed and disgraced by D&D.   But D&D were given false data after Eddie and Dan stole the information.   The result as the market closes for the day is that Eddie and Dan are made fabulously wealthy.   The Dukes on the other hand, are bankrupted, and lose their seats on the NYSE.   One of the Dukes has a heart attack on the floor of the exchange.  The other Duke rants “ You can’t do this to us!   There’s been a Duke on the board of this exchange for 100 years! We built this exchange!   Turn those machines back on!   Bring back those traders!  Nnnnoooooooo!“

That’s how I felt on Sunday night, as if the Patriots had been kicked out of the top echelon (losing their seats in the NFLSE  - NFL Stock Exchange - as it were).   As if Bill Belichick had been left stunned to the point of near death by the experience, while Tom Brady (or his wife) was left to rant at the heavens for the return of something that is lost and gone:    “You can’t do this to us!   We’ve been the best team in this league for more than 10 years!   The popularity of this league is due in large part to us!  We built this league!   Turn those lights back on!   Bring back the Giants so we can play this game again!  Nnnooooo!”

My head tells me that the Patriots will still have more chances to win the Super Bowl though.  That you can’t keep B&B down forever (as was the case with the Dukes. In the epilogue of another Eddie Murphy movie “Coming to America” they are two destitute bums living on the street,  only to get a second chance when someone hands them a stack of money and one of them says “we’re back!).    Would I trade places with a fan from Green Bay, or New Orleans, or even New York?  No.   Who knows what will happen in the future.  Maybe someone will hand the Patriots a stack of money, in the form of a stud defensive lineman, or a great wide receiver, in this year’s draft.    If so, like the Dukes, I believe that Belichick and Brady will be back.