Best Season Ever

I know it didn’t feel like it when Jimmy Garoppolo was falling to one knee, blinded by pain.

I know it didn’t feel like it in the second half when the Dolphins were roaming freely in the Patriots secondary.

I know it didn’t feel like it when Stephen Gostkowski’s potential game-clinching field goal attempt went wide right.

But trust me.

This is how the movie “Best Season Ever” starts.

First there was the unjust four-game suspension of their starting quarterback, Tom Brady, the face of the franchise, the greatest of all time. They were supposed to lose their opening game on the road against the preseason Super Bowl favorite Arizona Cardinals but somehow their young backup quarterback, Jimmy Garoppolo, came through and they wandered out of the desert with a win. Then that same young prodigy dazzled us with franchise QB skills in his first home start against division rival Miami Dolphins and had some of us wondering, hey, maybe there should be a quarterback controversy, after all, only to see a thousand sports radio callers silenced as he was felled by the cruel reality that is the National Football League. The ball was now in the hands of a rookie, Jacoby Brissett, who would make just enough plays to salvage a second precious win.

And now Brissett would have to start the next two games, with his first start as a professional coming on a short week, a Thursday night game against yet another buzzy preseason favorite in the Houston Texans, a team pigskin pundits and bobbleheads had tabbed to make noise in the playoffs, a team coached by the Patriots former offensive coordinator, Bill O’Brien and quarterbacked by next big thing Brock Osweiler.

The local gridiron cognoscenti were already reminding each other that we were all just hoping for 2-2-0 before Brady returned and with two wins in hand, that was now the worst case scenario.

Along the way, there had been more adversity, of course. Key players - Rob Gronkowski, Dion Lewis, Nate Solder, Dont’a Hightower - would miss time with injuries.

Pigskin pundits and bobbleheads, having ignored the history of Bill Belichick’s New England Patriots, once again would predict their demise, setting the line at -6.5 points.

Our heroes, of course, will have none of it. It’s going to be tough topping 2001. And 2014. But they believe in each other.

They’re looking forward to this Thursday; they’ll be playing to win the next game in what’s going to be the Patriots best season ever.  

I can hardly wait.