Pigskin Slut

I am a pigskin slut. Still a Patriots' fan, yes, but I just can't quit Tom Brady.

It's a year later and seeing Brady now should be like seeing an ex with their new significant other, someone who is taller, thinner, better looking, and richer than you, and who may be nominated for a Nobel Prize next year for isolating the anti-aging properties of avocados and making it possible for human beings to live forever. Seriously, he won another Super Bowl? He's still married to a supermodel? He left the land of the ice and snow and moved to Florida? (I hate those people! I'll die with my hands frozen to the handles of my snowblower, damn it!) Not a single syllable of acrimony or even the most thinly of veiled comments regarding the palace intrigue in Foxborough that led to his unceremonious departure?

He got drunk. 

In public. 

And everyone thought it was adorable! 

Okay. It kind of was adorable. 

More importantly, it appears the Patriots may finally be getting over the break up. Shaved off that ridiculous mustache. Got a professional haircut. Back on the Peloton. Bought some new, slimming clothes. Switched to a whitening toothpaste, gingivitis risks be damned! Moving on. It takes time. It isn't - and won't be - easy.

Still, June is the time for crazy, irrational, "...and if everything breaks our way…" optimism for football fans. My dream of Belichick and Brady meeting in the Super Bowl is off life support and looks like it might well survive November this year. I like to think 2021 will be Bill Belichick's "Still Your Daddy" season. Twelve wins, all by 5 points or less. It could happen! Might need to finally break down and buy that home defibrillator. Probably don't want to go cheap on that.

So, yeah, I'm already thinking about Super Bowl LVI because it's June and anything is possible. 

My Five Favorite Super Bowl LVI Scenarios-June Edition

The Rematch 

I can't think of anything but Ali-Frazier as a comp for back-to-back Brady-Mahomes Super Bowls. The Thriller in SoFi! When Roger Goodell contemplates this scenario all he sees just before he loses consciousness is a green sky raining money. 

The Reunion

Brady. Belichick. It won't matter how many nice things they say about each other in the press conferences, pigskin pundits and bobbleheads will be sure to deconstruct the subtext. Cue the "Game of Thrones" references.

Shared History

I'd want to see a Titans-Buccaneers SB LVI if only for that moment before the game, during the anthem, when Tom Brady's and Julio Jones' eyes meet… And Brady winks. And smirks.

Overdue Bills

The Buffalo Bills did something bad in a past life; broke a deal with the devil and now you're paying the price for eternity level bad. They are doomed to lose Super Bowls and otherwise to teams quarterbacked by Tom Brady. A Bills-Buccaneers SB LVI could be like an alignment of celestial bodies causing a gravity beam that vaporizes the entire city of Buffalo, a little bit of Canada and most of western New York state. 

Cowboy Up

I still want to see the Patriots beat the Cowboys in a Super Bowl.