Perspective of the Day

You all will hate me for this post and its topic. Let's get that out of the way. Now, as I have mentioned, all I do with my day is sleep, eat, poop and watch tv, mostly sports, mostly Boston sports. Sometimes I get crazy and read about sports too. Something has struck me in the last few weeks, and that is the power of perception. The topic du jour has been the Pats running up the score. Let me make one thing clear, I don't give a shit if Belichick or the Pats are "classy" and I guarantee you Belichick doesn't care either, nor do I take it personally, so stuff the warm and fuzzy arguments up your ass. If one presents said argument to me I will try not to laugh in your face and then mark you down as a whiny bitch in my mental PDA. The only issue I have with it is the inevitable Brady injury. I am a strong believer in the football Gods and I don't like the idea of Matt Cassel running the offense. It's like Warren Wallace over Rusty Wallace, except the Pats will be the ones getting put into a wall.

Regardless, I have noticed that all of a sudden everyone loves Tony Dungy, hates Bill Belichick and pretty much down the line for all the Patriots and their Colt counter-parts. All of a sudden, T.D. being deeply religious is a good thing, but our president is excoriated for it. Here's a fact that was rather quickly forgotten. (save your GWB/TD contrasts, I'm perfectly aware, the latter sentence was not entwined with the former). The current double standard is noted perfectly in this article, and it's all because of "spy gate". I get it, the Patriots cheated, and again, I'll take the (at this point lame) jokes because I'd be making the same lame jokes if it were anyone else. But why are the Pats doing this. It's all based on pride. Again, they cheated, but the standard buzz from past and present players is: the advantage was minimal, not to the tune of 3 Super Bowls. So now they have something to prove, so what, let's see what they do with no tape, the early returns seem decent enough.

Will you applaud if someone takes a cheap shot at Tom Brady? I pity you if you answer yes. What has Tom Brady done besides excel at his job. Would anyone be pissed if your co-worker ripped off a week's worth of work to your 2 hours. If your answer is yes, you are the same type of person who is bitching instead of working to your potential. In the end this goes beyond football to the decline of our culture through easing adversity instead of meeting it head on. I'll be the first to admit it, our parents' generation and especially our grandparent's generation would out work, out smart and out class our generation. We have benefited from the gifts given to us by their work and rested on their laurels. Let's face it, we're labeled as lazy and will fight that our entire lives. Our contributions? Yet to be seen, I'm not entirely optimistic and rightfully so: we have anti-bullying laws, the banning of contact sports (even kickball) at recess, no team games at recess because someone might get picked last. Let's feel good America, but the future isn't so bright for the kids who can't handle adversity . . . I digress.

It seems clear to me why the Pats are doing this. The last team to go undefeated was the '72 Dolphins. It's nearly impossible to do these days with parity, salary cap, etc the way it is. For a team to pull this off, its going to take something extraordinary, perhaps a feeling of invincibility, a "play your ass for for 60 minutes and never take your foot off the throat mentality." (or, as the current society mindset wants it, let's get what we want then stop working, stop performing to our potential, let the other guys play, save our feelings, I'll buy it in amateur sports, but that kind of thinking has no place in professional sports). Past Patriots teams were notorious for playing to the level of their competition. The plan has changed. Any given Sunday is the league's motto, for the steam-rolling accomplished by the Pats to this point, we are witnessing something that transcends the game, a pursuit of perfection like none other. Can you accomplish it by playing 45 minutes every week? I don't know the answer to that, apparently neither do the teams that feel short in that pursuit.

Ask yourself, as I do when I wonder about a Brady injury, if you are in his shoes, if you are in Belichick's shoes, does the risk outweigh the return. Maybe he'll get a cheap shot, but more importantly, maybe he'll go on to have the single most prolific season ever, turn in the first undefeated season in nearly 35 years and go into the history books in that manner. The bottom line is: to do something no one has done before you, you need to make your own way and that's all this really comes down to.