First, let me say this. I am a New Yorker and a Giants fan. Obviously I’m happy about the win. But I have and will always respect the New England Patriots primarily because I am a big fan of BBs coaching. The bottom line is the past decade your team has played football on a level that has been inspirational. I have rooted for your team in every Super Bowl with the obvious exception of this one. If you guys pulled Sunday’s game out, if the outcome was 14-10 instead of 17-14, I would have had no regrets. At the end of the day if that was what fate had in store for us I would have been proud of our guys because they would have been right in there with one of the greatest football dynasties I have ever had the pleasure of watching play and it would have been no shame to lose to you –especially if we went down fighting.
My only regret is our win came at the expense of this amazing season you guys had and that its helped fuel a lot of this anti-Patriots sentiment. Sometimes you just come up short but that fact hasn’t stopped the legion of haters out there who are reveling in your misfortune calling your team cheaters, accusing you of running up scores and having their cheap laughs. None of that matters cause at the end of the day your team almost reached a pinnacle that only one other team has reached in all football history. Yes you missed the mark but what matters is that you tried.
There is no doubt in my mind that the Pats are one of the great dynasties of football. There is also no doubt in my mind that this last loss is excruciating but it can also motivate. Before they won Super Bowl VII the 72 Dolphins had to suffer a bitter humiliation in Super Bowl VI. They were horribly embarrassed on both sides of the ball by the Cowboys in a way that would put most teams into a 5 year slump. They carried that game with them all year and it was the motivation that took them to the one place no one else has reached before or since. While last Sunday’s game was nothing like that, what your team had in common with them was the feeling that when the chips were down you didn’t play at the level at which you were capable. Nothing feels worse than that. But the best teams come back from adversity and I hope to see the Pats come back from this.
This season we came into our own ONLY because we played YOU in that last game of the season. I am 100% certain if that game never happened we wouldn’t have made it past the first round of the playoffs. Somehow that game and the decision to play that game was a turning point for us and when you got us a second time you got us at the very best we could have been at that time. I am not delusional. I know this win is unlikely to be the beginning of some Giants dynasty; we are unlikely to get past the playoffs next year. But if by some miracle we DO get back, your Patriots are the team I want to see on the opposite sideline and if that happens, whatever the outcome, I want people to say WE brought out the best in YOU.
Whatever happens hold your head up high and don't mind the pathetic haters. You guys have every reason to be proud of your team.
Throwback
