All Smiles

(Photo from Yahoo! Sports)

I'm with these charming gentlemen above, it's all smiles in New England after that game. Something about the early snow and the throwback uniforms (which I had not previously been in favor of because there's really no need for nostalgia about an era in which the Patriots were known around the league as the "Patsies" despite the enduring awesomeness of the Pat Patriot logo), made it seem like, I don't know, Christmas or something. Randy Moss and Tom Brady certainly seemed to think so. And the elfin Wes Welker even got in on the fun.

Of course, since it's nigh impossible to just enjoy a football game nowadays if you're a Patriots fan without someone telling you that your team is a bunch of running up the score assholes who feast on babies and puppies at halftime, allow me to state that I too, wished Brady had been removed just a smidge earlier because I've no desire to relive what it's like to play a season without my star quarterback. But that said, they did take him out in favor of his backup and I don't think you sit your starter before halftime despite your lead. Especially if said starter lost in overtime last week because he still couldn't manage to get on the same page as his receivers. I mean, you work out the kinks where you can. And if that's at the expense of the Titans (erm, Oilers?), then so be it. If they can't stop the Patriots backup quarterback who is, I don't mind telling you, a gentleman I'm fairly certain was invented this very day, from waltzing into the end zone, well, that's not our problem. If Vince Young wants to throw for negative two yards? I mean, what are they supposed to do, hand back the interception all, "I believe you dropped this?" I don't think so. Also, I think you DO go for it on fourth down when you're up by a gazillion points because if you just kick it, then you're padding your points total. And if you go for it, at least you're giving the opposition a chance to stop you. Of course, since Tennessee is apparently made of marzipan and baking soda, stopping a Pop Warner team from Billerica probably wasn't going to happen but even still.

People disagree with me, but that's how I see it.

Phew. It felt good to get that off my chest.

Anyway, welcome back, Tom Brady! Good to see you, sir. Been a while. About halfway through the game, my brother sent me a text message that read, "I hope you enjoy my time machine. I like 2007." And since I seem to remember a football team of mine that could score points at will, I enjoyed that. And if one more person says the word "hubris" to me, I'm going to destroy a small village. Because it's not like anyone in New England is UNAWARE of what happened the last time they were scoring all these points, but damn, people, we can't enjoy a win? Seriously? Leave us alone for a few minutes, jeez.

Instead, I will just say - as we do it in New England - FLEA FLICKA! That? Was a thing of beauty.

At one point, after that beautiful play before which we'd seen Brady and Randy chatting on the sidelines, I speculated to Chrissy what that conversation must have been like.

Me: "Do you think Randy was all, 'Hey remember when we scored like twelve thousand points a game?' and Brady was all 'vaguely,' and Randy said, 'that was fun, let's do that again,' and Brady said, 'Cool. Flea flicker?' and Randy was like, 'Word."

Chrissy: "You missed a few 'muthafuckas' I think but otherwise, I'd say that's a faithful transcription."

I mean, probably that is exactly what happened, right?

I guess what I'm saying is, 59-0? Word.