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Blatantly Avoiding Brady Babble
September 7, 2008
New Englanders: Rejoice! Today kicked off the NFL’s 2008-09 regular season. Some of you may know me from Sawxheads, but don’t worry, I’m no one-trick-pony. I write under the penname of Sports Gal for a reason—I’ve got a taste for sports of most flavors. Just wait until basketball season starts…my laptop might shoot into flames due to content overload.
Tonight’s game leaves much to be discussed due to Brady’s early departure, but I’m honestly just not in the mood to be negative. Clearly, we have Dan Shaughnessy to play the role of Debbie Downer for the entire state of Massachusetts. I’ve said it before, but I think it bears repeating because I’m repeatedly offended by the man’s negative sports writing.
On September 4—just three days from New England’s opener versus Kansas City—Shaughnessy wrote a pre-season piece about the Pats. Instead of capitalizing on the opportunity to write an article that’s bursting at the margins with anticipation for redemption, he decides to dwell. After his first two sentences I knew I was going to have to throw down a few shots of Pepto Bismol to get through the rest of it: “What if they had won? Suppose for a second that Asante Samuel had made that interception. Or imagine that Jarvis Green had wrapped up Eli Manning in the backfield.”
Really, Dan? Is this the best you can do at the start of a brand new season? Why go back and make us relive the hell we Pats fans already suffered through from February until, well, probably until Super Bowl XLIII. Boston fans are notorious for taking losses badly—maybe even personally—and while the pain was briefly lessened when the Celtics won Championship Seventeen, we will never get over being bent over the knee of Eli Manning. However, the other thing that Boston fans are known for is the confidence (read: conceit, stubbornness…and I’m talking about ME too, here) that our team can win it all next time. We know that when the nights get a little cooler, Sam Adams Octoberfest goes on tap, and college kids starting crowding our Dunkin’ Donuts’, it’s time for brand new season and a brand new Roman numeral added to the Super Bowl Title that I can’t read, but the Patriots could win.
So why didn’t Dan Shaughnessy get the memo? Why write something like, “At 1 p.m. Sunday, American football fans will watch Jets-Dolphins rather than the Super Bowl losers against the lowly Chiefs. The Super Bowl shocker will always sting. It's doubtful the Pats, or any team, will ever get that close again.” Why make SportsGal angry? Irate enough to make her write in the third person, apparently, which is the direst consequence of all.
Instead, let’s talk about the fact that Matt Cassel stepped up when Brady went down, going13 of 18 for 152 yards with one touchdown and no interceptions. Or we can discuss Rodney Harrison: 14 tackles and two quarterback hits, playing multiple roles, from deep safety, to covering tight end Tony Gonzalez up on the line of scrimmage. How about cornerback Ellis Hobbs’ interception or fourth quarter, 51-yard kickoff return? I also watched “Super Bowl Loser[s]” Randy Moss complete six catches today for 116 yards, which of course includes that 10-yard touchdown mid-air snatch in the back of the end zone. No, we didn’t rack up the score against “the lowly Chiefs” today, but a win is a win.
I believe, Mr. Shaughnessy, that once again the Patriots are undefeated.
-SportsGal
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