Is Brady’s Best Behind Him? — SI.com
Patriots' Dynasty? It’s Over — Nashua Telegraph
Curse of Gisele? — WashingtonPost.com
Patriots: l’ailier espace Welker n’est pas en mesure de jouer — Metro Canada
The last one’s in French. I have no idea what it says, but it may be piling on like the rest. CBS SportsLine had one that read “Time For Fall?” with a shot of Tom Brady looking quizzically at Bill Belichick. A Yahoo Sports podcast was simply entitled, “Are Patriots Still the Patriots?” It seems many, many scribes and layout editors believe New England’s team could be toast.
And the record is 1-1.
Call me nutso, but I think it’s a touch premature to eulogize not just a season, but an entire organization. If we applied this approach elsewhere, we could slog through headlines like:
Great White Spotted Off Cape Cod; All of Florida Evacuated
Ahmadinejad Eats Bagel; Middle East Peace Declared
Unemployment Down 1 Percent: Get Madoff out of Jail and Fire Up the SUVs; We’re Back in Business!
It’s not fans I take umbrage with. I tend to think most followers in these parts are not yet unnerved. Even if you, fan in section 312, Row 6, are panicked, I’m OK with that. Many of us New Englanders do let our emotions rev hot and cold week to week. It’s who we are, and it once helped us ride out an 86-year freeze.
No, my beef is with the various national knights of the keyboard.
Football has always been tricky to cover because the distance between Monday night and Sunday afternoon leaves a lot of blank paper to fill. Add to it the ridiculously massive amount of competition for Web-surfing eyeballs, and we have all sorts of stupidity thrown our way. Bold predictions give way to absurd jumps-to-conclusion.
Still, even among that hit-seeking desperation, the voice inside who yearns for credibility has to stop and say, “Does a single loss to the Jets really signify the implosion of football’s best run franchise?”
I’m curious. What do you think the ink will read if the Patriots lose to the Falcons?
