Actual Pats Fan
Pro Bowl Player
- Joined
- May 26, 2016
- Messages
- 10,390
- Reaction score
- 10,235
NFL's Greatest Games
Now, before everybody calls me a glutton for punishment, here are my reasons:
Besides being the de facto championship game of 1976, the outcome was going to be historic regardless. These were the two best teams in the league, by far, and New England's 48-17 destruction in Foxborough on October 3rd was indicative of the Patriots' superiority. The Raiders could not handle them. But that game was not in Oakland, with everything on the line, and the officiating was ordinary - George Atkinson's flagrant fouls were called, for example - and it could reasonably be anticipated that the field would be at least slightly tilted in the home team's favor. After some near misses, it seemed clear, including to the media, that this was 13-1 Oakland's best shot to win a Super Bowl in the 70's.
Boston fans had already seen the Stanley Cup lost to the expansion Flyers two years earlier, and then the Larry Barnett/Jim Burton World Series a year later; but the football world was no more ready to accept a Patriots' world championship then than it would be in February of '02. Football junkies new the truth; aside from them, Rodney Harrison would have found plenty of material in the national media.
All Pats fans remember exactly where we were and who we were with that day. Most of us also lived through JFK's assassination as well, and they are sad memories. But this is our heritage; this is our identity. It was the best of times, and it was the worst of times. This was our pinnacle pre-Tom. But this is also a reminder for us, that we still have unfinished business. Even after four titles and a very promising fifth, most of us realize that total could easily be eight. And, amazingly, we remain as disrespected and yes, ridiculed as ever; and none of us need reminding that the league is not our friend.
And, this is an opportunity for young fans to see us at the dawn of the modern era, before Orthwein/Kraft F.E. Inc. decided to bury the very thing they're honoring now over at the Hall; what deserves to be on our players at the end of the season on the sport's biggest stage, representing us.
The original TV audio would be educational; as everything out on the field rapidly spiralled downward from the sublime to the macabre, Curt Gowdy, who of course has tons of local N.E. ties, is mostly silent. His partner, John Brodie, mumbles and bumbles through it, but there's no denying what everybody watching at home was seeing.
But it would, as always, be much more entertaining to hear Gil Santos' and Gino Cappelletti's radio simulcast instead. It's like family members taking you through a journey of adventure and discovery, and as we relive this, we're reassured that our boys did finally make it to the top in '02, and there is a ton of redemption in that.
Last edited: