Good Trumps Evil

Well, it's finally over. The drama, suspense, agony, and ecstasy of the professional football season is over. And guess what? The New England Patriots lost the Super Bowl, 17-14. That's right. Perhaps the 'greatest team of all time' with perhaps the 'greatest quarterback of all time' and the 'greatest coach of all time,' lost. And I couldn't be happier.

It's not so much that the good guys won. I mean, other than a New Yorker, who gives a rat's ass about the New York Giants? Other than Eli Manning, a rather bland fellow, and Michael Strahan, who can be marginally annoying, this group of champions are a mostly nondescript bunch. You don't hate them, but you don't love them either. At least, not until last Sunday night. We gotta whole lotta love for the G-Men now.

The Patriots, on the other hand, have provided a fair amount of drama all season. First, the cast of characters. At the helm, you have Tom Brady, the rather goofy-looking poster boy quarterback of the team, equally known off-the-field for dating the supermodel Giselle Bundchen and impregnating actress Bridget Moynahan. At wide receiver, you have the brilliant but previously troubled Randy Moss, who seemed to find himself again with this team, but who will be a free agent after the season. On defense, there is my homey (he hails from the suburbs of Chicago) Rodney Harrison, who was twice voted the NFL's dirtiest player by his peers, and was suspended four games this season for use of human growth hormone. There's also Junior Seau, who announced his "retirement" from the San Diego Chargers in August of 2006, only to "un-retire" 4 days later to sign with the Patriots. This is also the same guy who once jokingly uttered a racial slur against former teammate LaDainian Tomlinson ('the way to stop L.T. is to keep feeding him chicken and watermelon'). Finally, there's Richard Seymour, who was called "a dirty, cheap little pompous bitch" by San Diego Chargers center Nick Hardwick after the Pats beat the Chargers in the AFC Championship game earlier this year.

The Patriots started the year off with a cloud of shame, after it was revealed that they had been filming their opponents defensive signals from across the field, ostensibly to gain a competitive advantage. Further allegations have surfaced that the Patriots may have been employing this tactic for quite some time, and may have even filmed a practice of the St. Louis Rams prior to the Pats upset victory over the Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI.

Caught red-handed, the Pats took much umbrage at the notion that they were cheaters (true), or needed to cheat to win (debatable). Their extremely dour and ungracious coach, Bill Belichick, used the allegations as a rallying point for his team, with the Pats being determined to show the world that this was a great team - so much better than the rest of the league that cheating was at best, a superflous activity. The Patriots then proceeded on an impressive and unprecedented winning streak, finishing the season at a perfect 16-0.

It wasn't just that the Patriots won, it was how they won. Simply put, they ran up the score against their opponents. Scores of 38-7, 48-27, 49-28, 52-7, and 56-10 provided ample evidence to the league that the Patriots were indeed, a superior team. Long after games had been decided, the Patriots played their starters, scoring meaningless touchdowns, going for it on fourth downs, eschewing relatively easy field goal attempts. Belichick argued, unconvincingly, that his team needed to play a full 60 minutes of every game to prepare itself for their ultimate goal, the NFL championship.

And there's the rub. Anybody who has played competitive sports on any level at any time, either amateur or professional - or even video games for christ's sake - knows and respects that maxim that you do not rub your opponents face in crap. Now, there are exceptions for excessive trash talkers or to retaliate for a well-documented diss, but as a rule you do show some respect for a vanquished opponent. Once you've conclusively settled the outcome, you ease up and play your second or third units. Come to think of it, this doesn't just apply in sports, this is how civilized people behave generally.

And that's how the Patriots, a previously respected franchise on the verge of acheiving dynasty status, became symbolic of evil and all that can be wrong in the world. They became extremely....irritating. People all over the country suddenly became very interested in Patriot games, and not to see if they would run the table and finish the season undefeated. They wanted the evil guys to lose.

And for one of the few times in recent memory, judgment came swiftly and with finality. The Giants bitch-slapped and smacked the pretty boy QB in the mouth and showed that he too, is human. The Pats defense that was just good enough during the eighteen previous wins showed its age and vulnerability. The Giants played with guts, determination, and the gods were on their side when it mattered. And David Tyree made one hell of a catch.

Even more satisfying, it was a really good game, perhaps the greatest Super Bowl ever. After it was all over, as I watched the post-game stupefied looks of Brady, Belichick, Seau, and other Pats, one of my favorite lyrics from the 70's soul group The Stylistics came to mind:

"Payback is a Dog"

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