Oh, I think it's worse BECAUSE of the success we had become accustomed to as Patriot fans.
I remember the Aaron Boone nite vividly. I was living in the city then, and I remember walking back from Copley and feeling just about as sports-depressed as I ever had - the city was a complete ghost town and the few people outside pretty much wanted to leap in front of a bus. But there was something about the fact that it was the Red Sox and that this is what they do - they let you down. Something about that made it feel a little better.
Now, granted, the Sox won the next season, so perhaps I am "misremembering", but I remember the suckiness of that loss waning, again, with the help from that notion that "this is just who the Red Sox are - they are losers". You could wallow in self-pity. It is the Red Sox identity. There was some comfort there.
The Patriots losses in 05, 06, & 07 all defied what we had learned in 2001-2004, and that's what makes it so hard to swallow. Belichick and Brady had been defined as winners - the Patriots, defined as a team that makes the plays when it counts. But in the end, in 05, it was Brady's uncharacteristic INT to Bailey, and in 06 & 07, it was Belichick's defense collapsing against - of all people - the friggin Manning brothers. It was like the Bizarro NFL. To make it even worse, the 2007 season would have cemented the two as the greatest of all time at their positions - and even more frustrating is that Brady had another key 4th quarter drive to - presumably - seal the deal. Then it was erased by the biggest fluke play you'll ever see in a Super Bowl game.
Nothing will upend SB 42 as the single most frustrating sporting event known to New England.
