So the Patriots got caught cheating three months ago, and their reaction - their coaches’ reaction in particular - was to turn this season into a crusade to stick it to the world and show everybody. This has led to the unsavory spectacle of guys ecstatically spiking the ball after touchdowns that put their team up by 50.
It was also, it says here, a mistake. I didn’t have the guts to say that two months ago, when I first thought it, figuring maybe Bellichick and Co. were, maybe, good enough to be above the rules.
They’re not, as we’ve seen the last two weeks. You cannot play an entire season with a chip on your shoulder. Eventually you’ll run on mental and emotional fumes.
Allow me to make up for previous lack of bravado: the Pats will lose this year. Not this week, but this year.
One more thing about last night’s amazing, controversial game: There I was (and so were you, probably), near midnight, riveted by a regular-season game (meaningless, in terms of the big picture of playoff berths, etc.) between two teams I can’t stand. A game you knew would be water-cooler and talk-radio fodder everywhere in America today.
Truly great teams, or teams shooting for true greatness, aren’t just good for sports. They’re phenomenal for sports.
In other news: When a game’s swinging on a questionable call, and there were certainly a couple of those last night, somebody in the broadcast booth has to take a hard look at the replay and tell us what they think.
This is the problem with the “Monday Night Football,” crew. Jaworski won’t do that because he’s constitutionally unable to. Kornheiser won’t, I think, because he considers it Jaws’ job. Kornheiser seems to see his role - perhaps because as a non-”football guy” he’s been told to - as a sort of big-picture essayist.
I actually like Jaws and Kornheiser, but this is a real weakness.
