These days, short-term memory seems like a requirement for rabid fanhood.
It'd be fun to spend some time this week in Boston listening to devastated Patriots fans talk about the BUNCH OF BUMS who spit the bit in the AFC title game.
Ron Borges is a longtime Boston columnist who now writes for the Boston Herald, and today he presents some perspective that has to be downright startling to fans perched on the edge of tall buildings as a result of New England's second-half meltdown against Baltimore.
The opposite of success in sports is not necessarily failure, as one local radio talk show host argued yesterday. That is only true if you don’t truly understand success and failure.
Failure, NFL-style, is Scott Pioli in Kansas City, not Bill Belichick in New England. It is Mark Sanchez in New York, not Tom Brady in Foxboro.
How about we get some perspective here, folks?
The Patriots, though defeated on Sunday, did not fail. The 2-14 Jacksonville Jaguars failed. The Patriots lost a football game. It’s not the same thing.
You certainly don't have to be a hardcore Patriots fan to remember how bad that franchise used to be. Remember how bad they were on Tecmo Bowl with Steve Grogan and whoever else? Just look at how slow these guys were. The stench from the franchise was so bad that it's hard to forget, all these years later.
Brady had a tough day against the Ravens and he’s had days like that before. He had less than optimum performances in two Super Bowl losses against Baltimore’s NFC clone, the New York Giants, as well. As we said, styles make fights.
But to argue that a 12-4 season that ends one game from the Super Bowl makes you a failure is the kind of thinking that led the San Diego Chargers to fire Marty Schottenheimer in 2006 after a 14-2 season. How’s that worked out for them?
It is the response of a spoiled child, which a generation of Patriots fans have become. If you were, say, 15, in 2001 you’d be 27 today. In that time you’ve seen your team play in seven conference championship games and five Super Bowls. You’ve grown up thinking it’s your birthright that the Patriots hold the Lombardi Trophy, even though it’s been eight years since they last did it.
Sustained success results in one of two things: thankfulness or arrogance. It breeds appreciation or entitlement. Only you can decide where you fit but understand this: The 2012 New England Patriots didn’t fail to do anything but win their last game, a fate they will share with 30 of their peers by the end of Super Bowl Sunday.
A few Wednesday big-city tabloid links, because sometimes that's the way we roll...
-- In the New York Daily News, Manti Te'o apparently provides a real receipt for the real flowers he sent to the fake family of his fake girlfriend.
The receipt from 1-800-FLOWERS.com, a copy of which was obtained by the Daily News and lists “Kainoa Kekua” as the recipient of “36 stems of premium white roses” sent by Manti Teo, 626 Notre Dame Ave., South Bend, IN. It is one of the pieces of evidence T’eo has produced in an attempt to prove that he believed Lennay Kekua was real and that he was the victim of an elaborate “catfishing” hoax that has riveted the nation.
The receipt also included T’eo’s message to Kekua: “My dearest Lennay, although our time together was brief, I feel like I’ve known you all of my life. Till we meet again. I love you, Manti.”
-- Te'o tells Katie Couric he didn't start lying about the fake girlfriend until December.
Pressed by Couric to admit that he was in on the deception, Te'o said he believed that his girlfriend Lennay Kekua had died of cancer and didn't lie about it until December.
"Katie, put yourself in my situation. I, my whole world told me that she died on Sept. 12. Everybody knew that. This girl, who I committed myself to, died on Sept. 12," Te'o said in an interview to air Thursday on Couric's syndicated talk show. A segment of the interview with Te'o and his parents was broadcast Wednesday on "Good Morning America."
The Heisman Trophy runner-up said he only learned of the hoax when he received a phone call in December from a woman saying she was Kekua.
"Now I get a phone call on Dec. 6, saying that she's alive and then I'm going be put on national TV two days later. And to ask me about the same question. You know, what would you do?" Te'o said.
An Associated Press review of news coverage found that the Heisman Trophy runner-up talked about his doomed love in a Web interview on Dec. 8 and again in a newspaper interview published Dec. 10.
-- If you thought CBS' non-stop coverage of Ray Lewis was over the top to this point (hand raised), you ain't seen nothing yet.
Order the blindfolds and earplugs. It’s going to get worse. All this noise will be amplified as Lewis transcends the world of sports and becomes a topic for the morning shows and nightly newscasts.
There’s something else to consider, a bigger issue. Lewis won’t fade away, but he would be less the focal point if not for the NFL’s network partners (especially CBS) being hell-bent on promoting their version of Everybody Loves Ray. It has ingrained Lewis into the nation’s conscience.
-- Someone please tell me why Phil Mickelson had to apologize for venting genuine frustration about having to fork out millions more of his money in income tax.
The big to-to, of course, is that Mickelson made over $60 million for hitting a small ball around a big green landscape on mostly bright, sunny days. Lots of class warriors consider it poor form for a rich guy like him to complain about finances or even to take his kitchen table conversations outside. Suck it up, they would say.
But he wasn’t crying poverty. He wasn’t blaming anybody or asking for asking for anybody’s sympathy. And if there are any critics out there who gleefully want to hand over more than half of what they make to the government, they should all make themselves known before the debt ceiling debate.
Let’s look at Mickelson’s “controversial” quotes from Sunday. He said he might have to make “drastic changes” because he was in the “(income) zone” being “targeted both federally and by the state” and that it “doesn’t work” for him right now.
Wow. You can’t get more offensive and insulting than that.
-- So now Jerry Rice is also saying his coach tried to sabotage the 2002 Super Bowl?
LW
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