No, it happened, I am sure of it. So did the moon landing.
Since then, NASA has returned to the moon several times, launched and retired the space shuttle, launched skylabs I and II, acted as one of three or four lead agencies on the International Space Station, launched the Hubble and Kepler observatories, discovered hundreds of exo-planets, launched several rovers to Mars and probes throughout the solar system, observed the spectacular breakup of shumaker-levy 9 and its effect on the Jovian upper atmosphere, and gotten well along the way to a manned mission to mars that I expect to see in my lifetime.
The Jets, on the other hand, have succeeded in creating false hopes, broken dreams, and two AFCCG appearances - not wins, mind you, appearances - in the same span of time. Wait, did they go to the AFCCG before this century? I forget actually. To us, losing in the SB is a bad season, after all. Losing in the AFCCG is sort of a blip - a decent season but certainly nothing to celebrate. I know, I know, we're spoiled.
Sorta like NASA I guess. I hesitate to come up with an agency the Jets can be said to resemble, for fear of insulting the competence and fan-friendliness of, for example, the Internal Revenue Service.
That's why when anything bad happens to the Patriots, its a good day in green bean country. 
