There Are Games and Then There Are Big Games

As per usual, I am going completely nuts about something over which I have no control.

Note to Self: This is not an extinction level event.

It's just a football game.

So what if it's Monday night and the whole pigskin universe will be watching. 

Just a game.

So what if it's a divisional game for first place in the AFC East.

Just a game. (There will be four more after this one, you know? Let's just pump the brakes on this whole "first place" thing for now, shall we?)

So what if it's been talked about as a season-defining moment, the first real test for these New England Patriots and their rookie quarterback, McCorkle Aldente.

Just a - Wait! Haven't I heard that one before? Like before the last four games? 

Okay.

This isn't a "just a game" game. 

Anyone versus the Patriots in prime time is an easy sell. No football fan is ambivalent when it comes to the Patriots. They are tri-corner hatted heroes to some; evil genius, Batman-level villains to everyone else. 

But this game?

This is about as good as regular season games get. 

The preseason Super Bowl favorite of pigskin pundits and bobbleheads - the Bills - versus the Evil Undead Empire - the Patriots - in prime time? 

Man-Child Future Prototype QB Josh Allen vs. Golly Gosh Gee Wiz QB Mac Jones, to define their individual legacies and the FUTURE OF FOOTBALL ON THIS PLANET? 

The two best defenses (my understanding is that defense correlates to winning championships so that's kind of important) in the AFC playing for bragging rights, and for non-refundable airline tickets and hotel accommodations in Los Angeles for next February?

The Post-Brady Patriots not only refusing to willingly hop in the grave but threatening to renew the lease on that space they rent in your head? For the next 10 years?

This is the kind of game that checks all those boxes and then some.

This is the kind of game that has Roger Goodell dreaming of electric sheep made out of Bitcoin. 

It's also the kind of game that has me wondering why I still haven't ordered that home defibrillator. My wife knows CPR so I'd probably be okay but like they always say, better to have the defibrillator and not need it than to need the defibrillator and not have it.

Mathematically speaking (I'm sorry; I don't know who told you there would be no math because there is always math and I'm kind of disappointed in you that you actually believed them) this is just 1 of 17 games. It won't determine the ultimate winner of the AFC East or overall conference playoff seeding. There are five weeks and a number of plot twists still left to play out in the narrative that is the 2021 NFL season. The loser of this game could still very well wind up with home field advantage throughout the playoffs. (Not statistically likely but, yes, okay, the math says there's a chance.) Still, it's difficult to deny just how much this game means to both teams.

Buffalo had waited patiently for two decades for their turn. They had been stuck playing Little Brother to New England's Big Brother. Then Big Brother left for a job opportunity in Florida and the Bills swept New England in 2021 for the first time since the heady days of Jim Kelly, the K-Gun Offense, and losing four straight Super Bowl games. Those were the days and those days were back. Buffalo wasn't even worried about New England; it was Miami that was the only real threat to their AFC East hegemony. The Bills would take that next, ultimate step in 2021, and play for the Lombardi Trophy! This monday night is a game the Bill were supposed to win for the next 5-19 years. Hard to calculate just how much psychological damage a loss in this game could do.

New England suffered through the first year of the Post-Brady era; a living pigskin reminder that everything ends badly. The pigskin universe seeks balance and the Patriots and their fans were going to have to suffer some serious regressing to the mean after two decades of winning at nearly an 80% clip. 7-9-0 in 2020 wasn't sufficiently bad enough to satiate the blood lust of football fans west of the Connecticut River but it at least allowed them to use the phrase "below .500" in describing the Pats. Four, five, twenty more years of that, and we're square!

Yeah. About that...

A loss would be tough to take for the Patriots, but a win this Monday night could put all of that in the rear view before it even happened. It could serve as an inflection point to mark the beginning of a new era in New England Patriots football.

It could be one hell of a story.