I feel like I've spent the last two weeks with my pigskin head in a vise. And every day it got a quarter turn tighter…
The debate amongst pigskin pundits and bobbleheads has moved on from questioning Tom Brady's bona fides as the GOAT to wondering if Tom Brady is still alive.
Maybe even this Sunday.
Brady has fallen off that cliff, his dad bod lying crumpled on the rocky shore below. Gronk is suffering from an existential crisis. Edelman can't do it alone. Chris Hogan is a ghost, Phillip Dorsett is an enigma, there's no more Josh Gordon, and the hopes and fears of Patriots Nation it seems have come down to a guy just promoted from the practice squad. Special teams have been anything but special. The defense can't stop the run. Dont'a Hightower is a shell of his former self; Devin McCourty has lost a step. Aside from Trey Flowers and Stephon Gilmore, there isn't anyone on defense you need to gameplan for.
How did this bunch even make it to the playoffs?
Meanwhile...
The Chargers are as lovable as the Patriots are loathsome.
Philip Rivers winning the Super Bowl after years of suffering through one tragic playoff loss after another is the kind of story sports movies are made of. Getting to the Super Bowl by defeating his own personal Balrog (Rivers is 0-7-0 vs. Brady, in case you haven't already heard that a bajillion times) provides an incredible, improbable subplot. Rivers doesn't cuss (comedy gold in the right screenwriter's hands). He's Jesus' favorite quarterback. Rivers is the best quarterback of his generation not to win a Super Bowl and this is his time! Everyone west of the Connecticut River hates Brady. Everyone everywhere loves Philip Rivers. Peter King already has 5,000 words written about Rivers (just in case). I can see the headline: Nice Guy Finishes First!
The Charges are as complete as the Patriots are flawed.
A balanced offense that can throw passes to a trio of big, fast wide receivers in Keenan Allen, Mike Williams, and Tyrell Williams or run the ball with Melvin Gordon and Austin Ekeler. Special teams that are special with Desmond King a threat to score on kickoff and punt returns. A young, fast, athletic defense with bookend edge defenders Joey Bosa and Melvin Ingram who can get after the quarterback and a pro bowl rookie safety in Derwin James who is all over the field making plays against the run and the pass. Despite their wild card pedigree, they may in fact be the best team in the AFC.
Man, my head really hurts.
Hitting up YouTube for some Patriots Porn (all 77 of Tom Brady's playoff TDs!) to distract myself from this splitting headache only calls my attention to the fact that 2001 was a long, long time ago. A time before wildcats, RPOs, and the death and rebirth of the running back position. What the Patriots have done over the last 18 years isn't supposed to be sustainable. The 49ers had Joe Montana and Steve Young back-to-back and couldn't maintain their position of pigskin preeminence for as long as Brady has dominated the sport.
Think about that for moment.
Brady > (Montana + Young).
It's insane. It's incomprehensible. It's going to end because it has to end because everything ends.
But this Sunday?
Even after 18 years, 8 Super Bowls, 5 Super Bowl wins, over 200 regular season wins, the 2007 season, thinking I'd never see a greater championship game than SB49 and only two years later watching the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history, the year-to-year lease on the AFC East penthouse, the longest this, the most those; after all of that and more it still feels too soon for it to be over.
Brady, at 41, leading this flawed Patriots team to a 6th Super Bowl win would be a pretty good sports movie, too, wouldn't it?
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