This is a nightmare.

I don’t know who to root for. I don’t even want to watch the game. I will, but more out of a sense of obligation than desire. No matter who wins I’m going to be unhappy about it. This is the least excited I’ve been for a Super Bowl matchup since…probably the last time these two teams met. Honestly I liked that matchup more because McNabb was cool. This is the least excited I’ve been since the last time the Cowboys made it in the 90’s and I was a kid who couldn’t even stay up for the whole game.

If the Eagles win then I can’t use rings against Eagles fans anymore. I can’t brag the Giants are the only team who can beat the Pats. The fanbase will get monumentally bigger and more smug and insufferable, Seahawks style. The team will have accomplished this without their #1 player (on offense at least), which means they are possibly set up for the future quite well. I will get a lot of smug comments here and on twitter and I’ll just have to eat it because well, I have to. Not looking forward to that. The bandwagon will be everywhere. I think we’ve forgotten how bad it got for a few years there in Seattle. At least the Seattle fanbase was newish. The Eagles fanbase is older and angrier. They’ve been waiting a long time. If you think the Eagles fanbase is terrible (which just last week I urged you not to) then a win is only going to make that worse. All those bad Eagles fans will get that much worse, because now they’ll have actual honest ammo to use.

If the Pats win it’s just the same old shit, new year. We’ve seen it. We’ve seen all of it. Even if the game is good it doesn’t have the storylines the previous Pats games have had. This is just business as usual. The “adversity” for the Patriots this year was one dumb article. Patriots fans will continue to be both impossibly smug and bizarrely insecure. So many people emailed and commented to me last year about how I CAN’T THINK BRADY IS THE GOAT WHAT A CRIME and it was astounding…why do you need validation on this? Why do you have to make yourself the underdog every year even when you are the best dynasty in the history of the sport? If the Pats win I assume I’ll get more of that. If the Pats win another fairly interesting year of football ultimately ends with a wet fart as the one team that isn’t interesting stands alone again. 2017 will become a footnote at the end of a long story that we all understood years ago. It will add almost nothing to the Pats legacy. Everyone will immediately turn to the draft because there won’t be anything left to bother reflecting on.

So I have no idea who to root for. The Giants fan in me says the Eagles can burn in hell and that I should root for the Pats to win again, so that Eli can stay the only one to beat them and so I can continue to lord it over Philly fans like the smug selfish fan I am. Besides, if the Pats do win, this garbage season for the Giants will just sorta vanish away instead of having the nightmare year end in the worst possible fashion.

The Football fan in me desperately wants something new. Something interesting. The Eagles are at least that. I can be happy for the fans from a less selfish point of view, as I do want everyone to experience seeing their team win a championship once. It’s a good feeling and I don’t want to deny that to a group of people who happen to wear a jersey of a rival team. I’d love to see Pats fans grumble a little bit again. I think I’ve been far meaner and more bias against the Pats on this site than I have the Eagles. I make jokes about my Eagles bias more than I show it. I genuinely am very biased against the Patriots because of how tired of them I am.

In fact, I’ve made a small promise to myself these past weeks. I’m going to make an honest effort to make less Pats comics. For as tired as I am, I make comics about them a lot, and I’m part of the problem. I’m part of the reason we can’t stop talking about this team we’re all so tired of. I’m part of the bulletin board material the fans use to justify the underdog attitude. So I’m just going to stop. 31 other teams deserve more love. If the Pats win I’ll give them a comic about it and then I’m going to do my best to just avoid making Pats comics.

I don’t have a rooting interest. I’ll figure out where my soul lies while watching the game tomorrow. I think the Patriots should win, but I actually think the Eagles will win. If Foles playes like he did in the NFCCG this Eagles team is exactly the kind of team to beat this Pats team, and this Pats team isn’t as good as it normally seems. So I’m calling it for the Eagles. Gut instinct.

ONE LAST NOTE. I’m moving this month and am going to need a little extra free time to pack and get things in order. So this will be the last Saturday comic from me for at minimum two weeks. If you wanna send in guest comics go for it. Tuesday and Thursday plus the Podcast will still update as normal. 

Enjoy the game, I’ll be over here drinking a fine glass of bleach.

 

Edit: For a change of pace I drew an Odell jersey but it just looked like a 12 so back to Eli we go