You Guys Read the Internet?

Me too! I even have a blog: [URL NOT FOUND]

You follow professional sports? Me too! I happen to have a preference for Boston-based teams, including (but not limited to) the football squad that recently got their (gorgeous) teeth kicked in by one from New Jersey! (No, not that one--the one with the head coach who mistakenly thinks that he can bury his self-loathing under a pile of fried foods, narcissism and sexual perversion.)

According to the internet, the New [LOCATION PERSISTENTLY UNDEFINED] Jets are the best foot-based sports team ever now and they will never, ever, lose again.

For real! It's on the internet!

Eli Manning: 'Wait a Minute, I'm Terrible'

Now that that's out of the way, all that remains in the pursuit of NFL justice is a revocation of the Giants' Tecmo Bowl title.

Patriots, Act

For the last few weeks, as the regular baseball season began to drag its feet toward the playoffs and sports fans' attention began to wander toward autumn (in most cases because their fantasy baseball teams and/or their actual baseball teams and/or both were already in the crapper), people have been asking me, a fairly outspoken New England Patriots fan, if I am excited about the start of the NFL season.

Surprisingly--perhaps to no one more so than myself--my answer has been: "Enh."

The fact is, I'm mad at the Patriots. Not because they lost the Super Bowl last season and not because they fell one game short of historic perfection...but because those things happened as a direct result of the fact that the Patriots bought into their own hype. There's nothing wrong with a team believing that it can't be beat--one could even make the argument that such is the essence of athletic competition. But as soon as a team starts deriving that kind of unreasonable confidence less from itself and more from a third party--say, for example, bandwagon fans who were barely aware that the team existed before 2001--it has reserved itself a front row seat at its own Comeuppance Circus.

Think I'm overstating the matter? I suggest you familiarize yourself with the tale of the mentally disabled quarterback who earned a Super Bowl ring on the back of the Patriots' hubris.

Given that I am deeply familiar with the vitriolic hatred that fans of professional sports teams outside the Boston area have felt, with increasing dedication, toward fans of Boston-area-based professional sports teams ever since the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004, I understand that most "Patraters" would be eager to view my apparent indifference as a surefire indication of a fair-weather fan. As it happens, those are people who had never given a second thought to Patriots fans prior to 2001...and that actually would make them, in a sense, "fair-weather haters".

I ask you this, fair-weather Patraters: Did you hate the Patriots fans back when Steve Grogan was running the offense on the field in Foxborough Stadium? No...you didn't. Because, not only have you never heard of Steve Grogan, you don't even know what Foxborough (also incorrectly spelled as "Foxboro") Stadium is. Mosi Tatupu--whom you've also never heard of--will gladly see you out the door.

At ten o'clock a.m. (PST) on Sunday, I will be seated front and center before my television set, surrounded by friends loved ones--all of them tried and true fans of the NFL team from Foxborough ("Foxboro" to the poseurs)--and I will be rooting for my New England Patriots with every last ounce of my sportsfan soul.

And if they don't lose to the Chiefs, which they probably won't, I'll be rooting for them to lose the next game...and, perhaps, the one after that.

I will do this because I truly love my Patriots, and I therefore realize that their media-drowned quest for a "perfect" season last year--and the ridiculous, jinx-tastic pressure that came with it--was what kept them from achieving a championship season.

Any NFL fan who would rather see his team have a perfect regular season (which, for the record, the Patriots did last year) than win the Super Bowl is the absolute antithesis of a genuine fan.

Which would mean that he's a New York Giants fan.

Which would mean that he's all about the Jets, now, because they have Brett Favre.

In either case, he calls himself a "New York" fan while rooting for a team that plays in New Jersey...which makes him a sad, sad shell of a person.

Hillary Clinton of Arkansas by Way of Illinois Sucks Up To Football Team From New Jersey in Attempt to Please New York, Lose Massachusetts

"Clinton grinned and said, 'Hm, I wonder why,' referring to Obama’s support of [the] New England [Patriots]."

That legendary wit of Senator Clinton was unleashed to point out the likelihood that Barack Obama's decision was motivated by the fact that he has been endorsed by Ted Kennedy and a number of other prominent Massachusetts figures.

Way to stick it to him, Hill! You've no doubt been a Giants fan fo' life!

Thanks to Dave for the tip.

Super Bowl XLII Replaced With Faulty Tecmo Bowl Cartridge

The more times Tom Brady got sacked yesterday--courtesy of an offensive line that appeared to be made of ectoplasm--or threw passes that vanished into thin air, the more suspicious I became.

But it wasn't until the fourth quarter, when flailing nincompoop Eli Manning closed his eyes and hurled his umpteenth hopeless prayer of the game and the ball ended up magically stuck to the side of David Tyree's helmet, did I know for certain that the world was witnessing a complete work of fiction.

It was a bold choice on the part of the NFL, and it certainly paid off for Fox in television ratings. However, since the Patriots had worked so hard to stay undefeated through the season, it might have been nice if the league had given them a chance to play in the Super Bowl instead of replacing them with digitally-rendered suckbots.

A Super Bowl Olive Branch

So much has already been said in anticipation of today's historic contest that I am uncharacteristically compelled to refrain from throwing my own thoughts on the pile.

Instead, I will take the high road, and hope only that the Patriots will make Eli Manning violently suffer for his brother's staggeringly undeserved Super Bowl victory last year, regardless of the facts that (1) he had nothing to do with that outcome and (2) he's functionally retarded.

May the best team* win!


[*As long as it isn't the New York Giants, because they're not good.]

Raise Your Hand If You're Undefeated

(Raise two if you and your teammates broke a few other records in the process.)

Now 'The Today Show' Will Never Win the Super Bowl

Former NFL running back Tiki Barber (y'know--the Barber twin who didn't win a Super Bowl) is set to become an NBC television personality, a hiring that is scheduled to be formally announced by NBC in a press conference on Tuesday. Barber, who will begin his new job in April, will be a news correspondent for “The Today Show” and is expected to have a role in the NBC’s Sunday night football broadcasts.

Personally, I think this is a very risky signing for NBC, particularly with regards to "Today". Barber has said that rather than being another ex-athlete who sits on a panel and pontificates about the game he used to play, he wants to be a "do-it-all" broadcaster...specifically citing "Today" co-host Matt Lauer as the type of broadcasting personality he hopes to become.

How can the network not see the writing on the wall? He might be all smiles and "no regrets" on the surface, but you just know that to retire after one of the best seasons of his career without a Super Bowl ring is just eating Tiki up inside. It might not happen right away, but sooner or later that repressed rage is going to fry some circuits in Barber's brain, leading to an altogether deadly Single White Female situation between him and Lauer, the unwitting object of Tiki's misdirected obsession. I don't see this turning out well for anybody...particularly Meredith Viera, whom Tiki might very well end up killing with a shoe. Tune in this spring!