Casual Football fans think Super Bowl Sunday is the most exciting day of the NFL season. But real fans know that day is conference championship Sunday.
(“NFL’s Historic Conference Championship Sunday,” The iPINIONS Journal, January 22, 2007)
Sure enough, this NFC championship game between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Green Bay Packers lived up to the hype. But I was not pleased. Because the last thing I wanted when this season began was for former New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady to lead his new team, the Buccaneers, to a winning season, let alone the Super Bowl.
In a word, “Deflategate,” explains why my NFL commentaries are replete with lamentations about Brady’s Patriots as the only cheaters who too often prosper. But, evidently, he wanted to demonstrate that he was the key to the Patriots winning 6 Super Bowls in 9 appearances in 20 years. Because only that explains this:
We don’t need to speculate anymore. Tom Brady is telling us himself why he left the New England Patriots after 20 seasons.
ESPN’s Ian O’Connor reported recently that Brady simply had had enough of Patriots head coach Bill Belichick. Our Tom E. Curran also reported that Belichick didn’t exactly make Brady feel wanted as the six-time Super Bowl champion entered free agency for the first time.
(NBC Sports, April 6, 2020)
Well, as much as I hate Brady, Trump is gone, and we no longer live in a fact-free world (where alternative facts are just as persuasive as objective facts). Because, with all due respect to Lou Gehrig, Tom Brady has to be the luckiest SOB in the history of professional sports.
After all, the Patriots failed to even make the playoffs this season without him.
What’s more, Brady enhanced his Benjamin-Button lore, while padding his record, by defeating his purported peers, namely Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints and Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers, in consecutive playoff games (on the road and on their home turf to boot).
Because, in doing so, he made them look like geriatrics trying to play a young man’s game. But, apropos of luck, as I exclaimed in utter disgust to my old college roommate, only Brady can throw three interceptions and still win a championship game.
Meanwhile, the Buccaneers are hailing him as a sports messiah, so much so that they’re already considering renaming their city Tompa Bay:
The Buccaneers, led by their newly-signed 43-year old quarterback in his first season in Tampa Bay, will … the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl in two weeks. Brady led the Bucs past probable MVP Aaron Rodgers in a classic 31-26 win at Lambeau Field.
Super Bowl LV will be Brady’s record-10th Super Bowl appearance, and he enters with a career record of 6-3. The Buccaneers are in the unique position of getting to host this year’s Super Bowl, becoming the first team to play in the big game in their home stadium.
(NBC Sports, January 24, 2021)
My only hope now is that this reputed old GOAT and his Tampa Bay Buccaneers will be so humiliated by the new “kid” Patrick Mahomes and his Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl 55 that it finally forces Brady to retire in ignominy (albeit after appearing in his record-setting 10th).
Speaking of which, given the way the Chiefs scalped the Buffalo Bills, they seem poised to be the first team to repeat as Super Bowl champions since, well, Brady’s New England Patriots did in 2004 and 2005.
It took the Kansas City Chiefs five frustrating decades to make their second Super Bowl appearance.
Now, the defending champs are headed there for the second straight year.
Showing no lingering effects from his concussion, Patrick Mahomes sliced up Buffalo’s secondary with ruthless efficiency Sunday night, helping the Chiefs roll to a 38-24 victory over Josh Allen and the Bills in the AFC championship game.
(KY3, January 24, 2021)
So here’s to Mahomes leading the Chiefs to a ho-hum reign over the next 20 years that rivals the one Brady had in New England from 2000 to 2020; that is, without all the cheating.
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Conference championship… Super Bowl…