The 2007-08 Patriots Brought Us Back Down to Earth

Domination. Dynasty. Dee best team in the league. Ever.

The 2007-08 Patriots sure had a good shot to claim association rights for all these words and phrases. After slapping around the already weary and beat up San Diego Chargers for their 4th AFC Title in 7 years, most fans were feeling pretty good about a week 17 re-match with the New York football Giants. I knew we had a legit shot. I think most people in Boston and New England were in the “cautiously optimistic” caucus, knowing full well that there are no sure things in sports.

Even for the more-dominant-than-usual Patriots.

After all, we hearty frost-bitten New Englanduhs were only a year removed from one of the worst playoff defeats in Boston sports history. Losing to the Colts in that gad-dang velodrome out in the heartland was far worse than losing Game 6 of the World Series in 1986. Since I grew up a FAN (not an obsessive-compulsive devotee) of the Red Sox, I didn’t know that Buckner doffing that ground ball only evened the series at 3 games apiece until I was 21 years old. All that time, until that one fateful night watching a NESN retrospective on the magical Boston sports season of 1985-1986 in which all 4 of our professional teams were in the finals, I had assumed that clip was in fact depicting the Mets clinching the title. I was too busy growing up, being a weird kid in Natick, playing football, throwing the shot-put and applying to college, to realize that NO, stupid!!!! The damn Sox had Game 7, and an extra day thanks to rain, to redeem themselves and blew that too. Sure, Game 6 was devastating. They were a strike away from having the Series crown. But it carried way too much weight in this town.

Two years removed from the sweet relief of the 2004 World Series title, and having won 3 Super Bowls since 2002, the dark days of 1986 were a distant memory on Sunday, January 21, 2007. But what would go down on this day was worse. It stung more. The ’86 Sox were close. And broke a lot of hearts – but they really just cut through scar tissue and refreshed old wounds. The Patriots of recent memory had been different. We were supposed to go into Indy and beat a good team whose defense, up until the playoffs, had underachieved mightily. Matchups be damned. Dwight Freeney going against Matt Light and whoever the other tackle was? Light plays up in big games. Bob Sanders covering wideouts like Jabar Gaffney and an aging Troy Brown? It had never been a problem before. Know why? “We got Bra-dy, cha---cha, cha-cha-cha!!!”

That’s right, we had Brady. Recent history had told us loud and clear that the Pats’ defense had to play well, but not spectactular, against Peyton. We had Kevin Faulk, one of the best and most versatile situational backs out there. We had a veteran / rookie team of Corey Dillon and Laurence Maroney. The offense looked as good as it ever had. Plus, we had Brady.

Since Brady took the helm, a slightly modernized Walsh-style offense thrived. And won games. But not today. Too many well-thrown balls dropped. A defensive effort that was good enough to give us a chance, but without the punch to put Peyton’s ass on the carpet often enough to rattle him or take the ball out of his hands with turnovers. So we went home defeated.

Then came the most exciting Patriots’ offseason since drafting Drew Bledsoe at the dawn of the Parcells Era. The ultra-value investors of the Patriots’ coaching and management staff decided to grab a few blue chip wideouts to go with their superstar quarterback. We got Wes Welker. We got Donte Stallworth. And most importantly, we got Randy Moss. The Patriots stacked up like never before. Already picked as a contender yet again, they had a superstar QB, solid defense capable of improving, and a 2nd year running back in Maroney who showed signs that he’d blossom in 2007. We had an elusive, tough, and speedy bulldog of a wideout in Welker who not only fit in the playbook, he fit in the fans’ hearts as the scrappy underdog. And Randy effing Moss.

Tom Brady was more excited for 2007 than he was on his first date with Gisele. And for good reason: Moss re-defined the deep ball during his years with the Vikings, to paraphrase Chris Carter on HBO’s Inside the NFL. A team that was a couple plays away from an exciting AFC win title, and would have beat that wide-eyed Bears squad by 17, now had an all-world wideout with whom their all-world QB could pick apart defenses.

To say we were the Super Bowl favorites heading into the 2007-08 season was a platitude rivaled only by saying something akin to “My, it is soooo nice outside today!” while wasting a July day reclining on a beach in Maine. We’d go 14-2, and beat whoever the NFC sent to Arizona. That was my prediction that July, sitting on that beach in Maine. Barring devastating injuries, smooth sailing was in store for these New England Patriots. A team that won the right way, with class, pride, and an unrelenting determination was going to win their 4th NFL Championship. I felt it in the cockles of my heart, dammnit!

Like the 49ers and Giants teams of the 80’s and early 90’s, the Patriots had swagger, personality, star power, and a defense, and fans whose devotion rivals that of the craziest NFL fan base in the country. They had not been denied their perfect regular season. They would enjoy the extra week off given the best team in the AFC, and of course home games throughout the playoffs.

Two weeks after defeating Green Bay, the Giants rolled into the desert drooling and snarling. Riding high on a playoff run almost as improbable as that of the 2001-2002 Patriots, having broken the sunburned balls, slapped around Dallas as if they had stolen their prom date, and pulled of a win in the most frozen condition the Tundra had ever seen on an infamy-preventing, career-redeeming field goal by Tynes in OT. Not only were they white-hot and peaking at the right time of the year, their week 17 near-miss against the “unbeateable” Patsies was still fresh in their minds, and thus they were still playing as if each Sunday were their last. Not Brett Favre-Mississippi-drama-queen-debutante style. They played inspired, with fire under their asses, and ice in their veins.

Pats fans moan about the Giants’ victory, citing the lucky grab towards the end of the game, insisting still that Eli is not that good of a quarterback. He played well enough for them to win, and the Giants’ defense had the gameplan they needed to win. Pretty simple really: if Brady is getting knocked down, he can’t throw to Moss or Welker or anybody else.

So now that the wounds from the Patriots’ loss to the Giants on that cold dark evening have long since scarred over, I can look back and say that the team is better off having lost that game. No parade, no rolling rally, no dancing in the streets. I love Boston, I love Boston fans, but let’s face it, some are just as annoying as that Jersey kid with a Yankees cap on, talking shit on Lansdowne Street. It wasn’t enough in 2007 for New England to worship the team, we needed the whole league, the national press, the whole damn world to be glowing from this win. We became the very type of fans that we despise with such ardor - we became entitled.

Thank you, David Tyree. Thanks Osi. Thanks Eli. The winter was cold, but the Celtics won and the summer was gorgeous.

Foil in the Oven: The Tribe Has Spoken

The counting of the votes last night revealed that Parvati Shallow (above) was the winner of Survivor Micronesia.

As I do with any of these shows, I picked my favorite early on. I decided that I would go with Amanda Kimmel because she seemed to have all the qualities that you need to make it far in the game. She was very athletic, she had played the game before, she was attractive (which helped her ally herself with some of the stronger males in the camp), and her overall personality made her someone that was liked by all of the members of the tribe. She was easy to root for, and I really felt that she had a strong chance of winning. Going into last night's finale, I was feeling very confident. Unfortunately, things began to unravel a bit. Although she made it to the final two, she was not able to win over the jury in the final vote.

I really do believe that a poll of the jury before last night's finale would have showed Amanda as the clear choice. However, I believe that the pressure of the game got to her, and she made two critical errors that cost her the championship (a prize of 1 million dollars). Before I recount those critical errors, I'd like us to revisit the highlight of Amanda's season:

Let me set the stage: We're deep into the game. There are only two major physical threats left, Erik and Amanda. The rest of the tribe knows that they need to vote those two out if they are going to have a chance to win. Erik wins the immunity challenge, leaving no doubt that the tribe will vote Amanda out. However, she is very resourceful, and is able to blindside her competitors:


She never looked back from here. Erik went next, and then she won the all of the remaining immunity challenges. Once the final two were determined, the vote was left up to a jury of the last eight competitors to be voted off. I thought this would play into Amanda's hands because Parvati had been incredibly deceptive and manipulative in order to make it as far as she did. I never imagined that those people that she had manipulated and deceived would vote for her to win. And, I think I would have been right if Amanda had played it a little differently. Here are her two key mistakes from last night, as I see them.

1) Here is mistake #1: The final three have just had their immunity challenge (and the final immunity challenge of the game). Amanda wins, guaranteeing her a spot in the final two. However, along with this victory comes a difficult decision: she must decide who will be the other member to join her in the final two and who will be eliminated. The final three (Amanda, Cirie, and Parvati) had been an alliance ever since the start, and had grown close. So, it was hard for Amanda to choose which one to send home. Rather than simply announcing her decision in that night's tribal council, she began crying and talking about how hard the decision was. This really turned off the jury for two reasons. First, they would all kill to be in the final two and to have a shot at that million dollars. They resented the fact that she was crying to them about her "tough" position. Second, it's been well known that she and Parvati have become best-friend like on the island. For her to cry and wax poetic about what a hard choice it was, and then to choose her best friend on the island, makes it seem like all that emotion was just a show. The jury also didn't appreciate that.

Now, I believe that Amanda made the right move, and I don't think that she was crying only because of the decision (although I do think it was a hard choice for her). She had started to have emotional breakdowns the night before as well. In the past 6 months, she had played all the way to 2nd runner-up in Survivor China, returned home for a few weeks, and then headed out to Micronesia. The game was finally starting to get to her. But, the jury didn't know that. They thought she was just trying to put on a show about how hard her decision was.

2) The second mis-step came right before the final vote. Each member of the jury has the chance to ask one question to each of the finalists. Cirie, who had been with Amanda and Parvati in the final three, essentially asked Amanda "why did you choose Parvati over me for the final two? Why do you think she deserves a shot at the million dollars more than I do?" (paraphrased). Amanda responded by pointing out things about the way Parvati had played that were better than the way Cirie had played. This was a BAD MOVE, because I really believe that this changed Cirie's vote. Amanda should have said "She doesn't deserve it more than you. I chose her because you were more of a threat. You are a very good speaker and you know how to convince people to do what you want. I didn't feel secure bringing you to the final two with me." This would have given Cirie an ego boost, and I really believe she would have voted for Amanda. Amanda said before tribal council that she thought Cirie was a very good speaker and would be dangerous, but she didn't say it when confronted with that question. That was the pressure of the game getting the best of her.

For these reasons, Parvati defeated Amanda. Amanda's only three votes were from Ozzy (her love interest), James (her close friend from Survivor China, and someone who hates Parvati because he was manipulated by her), and Erik (who made the dumbest move in survivor history just last week).

Also, congratulations to James Clement(pictured below), a gravedigger from Louisiana who was named the most popular player (voted on by fans) for the second straight season (he also won in Survivor:China). He was given 100,000 dollars for each of these wins.

I don't think the fans could have picked a better player. James was a strong player, and one that I think everyone wanted to see do well. It was too bad that he was forced to leave the game for medical reasons.


So, it's always frustrating when you're favorite team (or in this case, player) makes it all the way to the end and doesn't win. But, luckily, tonight's critical game 4 and the overall excitement of the Celtics playoff run will make it easy for me to put this defeat out of my head.




Here is a preview of Season 17 (Survivor: Gabon), which begins in September.