Monday, January 14, 2019

Deja Patriot vu

Don't worry about it, Patrick Mahomes. If you mess this up, we lose.

("Hey, that's my line!" -- Ty Webb)

("You can do it! I did!" -- Danny Noonan)

("Wanna borrow Billy Baroo? He never misses!" -- Judge Smails)

And, OK, so enough "Caddyshack." Besides, Patrick Mahomes, the Blob thinks you get the general drift.

If you mess this up ... America gets the Patriots in the Super Bowl again.

Let's be crystal about this: Nobody wants to see the Patriots in the Super Bowl again. Nobody. OK, so all the Sullys in Boston do, and probably most of the people in New England, but, come on, they don't count. Besides, they got the Red Sox last fall. They don't need this, too.

After all, it's not like the Patriots haven't been in the Super Bowl eleventy hundred times already in this millennium. America needs fresh meat. The Patriots are like your Thanksgiving turkey on Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend: Picked over, re-purposed, nothing left but a couple nubs of dark meat. What's left of that storyline?

Tom Brady's weird eating habits and endless grudge-holding over the sixth-round thing?

Done.

Bill Belichick cracking a smile once a century?

Done.

Rob Gronkowski's goofiness? Julian "I Was A College Quarterback" Edelman? Josh "Nah, I'm Good" McDaniel? Spygate? Deflategate? Robert Kraft Is The Greatest Owner In Professional Sports And Here's Why?

Done, done, done-done-done-done. Done to death. Done to the point where, if you were an enterprising sports journalist person looking to carve out more time for partying during Super Bowl week, you could just recycle everything you wrote a year ago, knowing no one would notice.

Sorry, but no. Enough of these guys. America wants you, Patrick Mahomes.  America wants you and Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelce and those two running backs named Williams and Chris Jones, the greatest shot-blocker since Manute Bol.

It wants someone to bring Hank Stram back from the dead and ask him what the deal was with that prep-school blazer he wore in Super Bowl IV. It wants to look up Len Dawson and ask him what Hank meant when he said they should matriculate the ball down the field. It wants to know whatever became of Willie Lanier and Mike Garrett and Otis Taylor and Bobby Bell, and to remind Fred "The Hammer" Williamson how he got knocked cold in Super Bowl I.

And how about Fred Arbanas, the tight end who was blind in one eye? Now there's a storyline for you.

America  needs all of this, Patrick Mahomes. It needs the Chiefs vs. the Saints or the Rams, because the Saints haven't been to the Super Bowl in eight years and the Rams haven't been there since Ricky Proehl and Isaac Bruce were catching passes from Kurt Warner.

So do it, Patrick Mahomes. You've got Tyreek and Travis and those two Williams guys going for you. You've got Arrowhead Stadium, the loudest barn in pro football. You've got the Patriots' 3-5 record on the road in the playoffs. You've got everything you need.

Do it for us, Patrick. Do it for America.

Make the Super Bowl great again.

Or at least not redundant.

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