Vrabel’s Vengance
While I sat there watching the Patriots remove the Giants from this plane of existence on the past Monday Night Football, a thought kept occurring to me with every hit. “That seemed unnecessarily hard”.
It wasn’t just me. My entire Bluesky timeline was taking notice. My Discord was seeing it. Everyone could see the Patriots were playing every down like they were roid raged. Basic tackles turned into the kind of hits that would turn you or me into pink mist. Jaxson Dart would get sent flying out of bounds on a legal hit that really only required a mild shove to work. Gunner Olszewski would fumble from a concussion after Christian Eliss hit him on the helmet so hard the paint flew off. The Patriots were playing some of the most violent football I’ve seen in years. And it came seemingly from nowhere. They aren’t doing this in every game. The Patriots are a tough team, sure, and the former linebacker turned coach Mike Vrabel surely has instilled a brutality to them. But this was…more.
It made me wonder if Vrabel was excising some demons.
Super Bowl 42 is the greatest sports moment of my life. Even at the time I understood it was special and that I would be unlikely to ever witness a more meaningful win as a fan. But every coin has two sides. While I will take that game to my grave and remember it long after the faces of my loved ones have faded, everyone on the other side will carry that burden. Especially the players involved.
Patriots fans were treated to 3 more Super Bowls down the road so their pain was eased if not erased. But Vrabel? That was his last Super Bowl appearance. He was traded to the Chiefs in 2009 and retired a couple seasons later. The 2007 Super Bowl would have been his career’s crowning moment. 2007 was his best season as a pro, his only pro bowl and all-pro honors.
Several members of that team have gone on record about how much it hurts (hahahahaha). Brady has said he’d trade other Super Bowls for that one. Teddy Bruschi went on Julian Edelman’s podcast once to talk about the game from his angle. That game hurts guys in ways other games don’t. It wasn’t just a Super Bowl. It was a Super Bowl with something historic on the line. They came inches from true history. Instead, it is now a different kind of history.
I don’t know if Vrabel has ever gone on record about that game. Vrabel probably rewatched that tape over and over all week and forced the team to endure the pain just to amp them up. Those Patriots on Monday night were men possessed. If I was a betting man, I would bet lingering pain from 2007 fueled that performance. Gotta get revenge somehow.
As an aside, I often hear from Pats fans and players use that “I’d trade 2 Super Bowls for that one” line. I think that’s some privileged cowardice. It’s easy to be like “I’d trade 2 of my team’s 6 Super Bowls for the special one”. You still got 4 other Super Bowls. Privileged bastards with no perspective. That’s not a trade. What are you even losing? The Rams/Pats part 2? That game sucked! Pats/Panthers? The most memorable part of that game was Janet Jackson’s nipple. These are cowardly answers.
Gimme a real answer. I’m not a Pats fan, but if I was, I think every SB is on the market for that one. The only Pats Super Bowls that I think I’d struggle to give up are the first one, and 28-3. The rest of them, traded for 2007. That’s an actual trade. So tell me you spoiled conglomerate: what are you really willing to give up for something untouchable?
The Gi-Ant impaled on the goalpost is wearing the wrong jersey. He deserved it.
100% agree on the super bowl conversation, if you want to wistfully imagine trading away your rings for perfection you better be willing to trade away all of them
A few friends and I used to joke about what the Giants gave up to topple Satan twice, and the following 15 years of misery have been WORTH. EVERY. PENNY. I still think your bargain is a bit too in-their-favor. Generally, Super Bowls are forgotten by everyone but the fanbase that won them after 3-5 years unless it’s a trivia question. Getting that undefeated season through and through, including the big game? Suddenly the Dolphins are forgotten, and the Patriots become the name brought up each and every single year.
Here’s more what I’m thinking:
– All other TB/BB Super Bowls vacated
– Kraft is held publicly accountable in the court of public opinion for his happy endings, no paying people off to stop writing about it.
– People need to STFU about Brady being the GOAT and then citing team stats as evidence. If I say Eli took a paddle to Tom Brady twice, the Pats fans in my life are oh-so-quick to point out, “It wasn’t him! He had a Top 3 defense! Gronk was injured! Blah blah blah!” So that door needs to swing both ways. Stop saying Tommy Boy is the GOAT. He’s the most accomplished QB of all time (well, not after this deal). Super Bowl wins absolutely do not imply he’s the greatest, and every Pats fan has to sign a blood oath forfeiting their lives if they ever make the claim again.
– The Patriots will NEVER win another Super Bowl for a minimum of 100 years (so everyone who was around for 2007 will be dead before they can win again).
That’s right, the Patriots can NEVER win another Super Bowl again in the lifetime of anyone who witnessed their Now-Perfect Season. The single greatest victory in all of football comes with the caveat that it’s your final one to witness. You can bask in its glory every year, but you’ll never get another.
Only thing is the Fins aren’t forgotten, because (a) we did it without all that arcane bullshit (b) we still won despite Garo Yepremian’s blocked kick-pass-pick six.
Perfectville: Population ONE.
You posit a scenario where the Patriots go 19-0 and immediately collapse like the Broncos did after 2015. This would be very funny.
Perfection isn’t worth 6 SBs. Id rather have the 6 championships.
You need to up the ante: No Boston Sport can win a championship for the next 100 years. It’s what they deserve after all that city has gotten while still complaining.
The Super Bowl conversation is one that does come up in Pats circles all the time, and I agree that the trade-offs for that scenario are usually extremely weak which just kind of confirms that the Patriots did do just about everything you could do “get over” SB42.
At this point, I’d honestly say that I wouldn’t trade anything to get that game back, specifically because I’m privileged enough to say that my team actually has substantial assets to trade. Most fanbases would do anything just to watch their team get their first Super Bowl ring, meanwhile I’m part of a fanbase that can engage in hypotheticals about which of their Super Bowl wins are most valuable relative to others. I’m not trading away any of that. Perfection would have been awesome, and I still hate the fact that they brushed so close against the sun just to burn, but if going through that low was what it took to see those guys win it all 6 times over, then I’m taking that deal every day of the week and twice on Sundays. It’s not even a question at this point.
I mean, shit, I was content with the team being ass for the rest of my life after Brady left. We got to witness more history in 20 years than most of the league will experience in their entire history. Instead they end up with Drake Maye after 2 down years. If that’s not a blatant sign that you’re extremely lucky/spoiled as a fan, I don’t know what is. Asking for anything more goes beyond even biblical levels of greed at that point.
This is more or less the shorter version of my incredibly long take below. I really don’t think I’d trade because I’m pretty damn happy with my football fandom, and I’m certainly not willing to give up more than one for it. Which I think either shows an insane level of cope or that we’ve just kinda got over it after winning 3 more. Maybe both, idk.
I don’t think it’s cope. The reality is that watching your team even win ONE Super Bowl is an immense privilege in and of itself. Patriots fans got to see it six times over. I’m not trading away those highs just to get one back, no matter how extreme that one particular high may be.
Ultimately, New England went out and did the exact thing you have to do in order to get over a loss like that. 18-1 will always be a meme, but it doesn’t hit nearly the same when you have 3 additional rings to cry into. May as well be a footnote to Pats fans at that point.
Oh no, not you, too.
I’ve seen so many Giants fans crying about this game.
Crying? C’mon now. I looooooooves me a good dogpile on Dave, but he is NOT crying about the game, so I’m really not sure where you’re getting THAT from. Many Giants fans (like me!) want Schoen fired, and losing in such an embarrassing way is something I, for one, found to be quite amusing, and thoroughly cackled at (outside of my QB already suffering brain damage and seeming aggressively stupid and entirely unaware of how to @#%&^$*%&*@#&%*!#&$*@#&$! protect himself). Not only does the loss make Schoen look bad, but the more the Giants name gets hauled through the mud, the higher the chances are that Mara wakes up and realizes he IS the problem. It’s not likely, but we can hope.
The sentence about a shove is bullshit. Elliss’ job is to stop Dart from getting the first down. A shove doesn#t get that down. Also Elliss ran in full speed to get to Dart.
NFL football is a violent sport. We have seen those kind of hard hits the whole season.
Buddy come on. Dart was on the edge of the line. A gentle shove with one hand extended would have been enough leverage to teeter Dart out of bounds well before the marker. Hell, it might have even gotten him out of bounds sooner because his extended arms would have contacted Dart before his shoulder hit did. Stop pretending that the violent hit was necessary. All that was necessary with Dart where he was is a bit of contact, any type of contact. Dart was right on the line, not several feet from it where a shove might not have been enough to get him out.
This “it’s Eliss’ job” like he’s legally required to shoulder bash the QB out of bounds is some nonsense. WRs and guys get shoved out of bounds normally without massive hits all game long. Eliss went for the shoulder bash. It was legal, it was perfectly within his rights, and my point is not to complain about the hit but to point out how it was indicative of how the Patriots played all night: with extra juice, like they had something to prove.
Have you tried shoving a person while running at full speed? We have seen so many arm tackles absolutely whiffing on taking players down. Elis was about one yard away of converting to a new first down. Elliss’ job is to prevent that. Yes, it was a hard tackle but Elliss played it the correct way. To say a shove would have done the job is just incorrect.
Players run out of bounds dozens of times per game. WRs, RBs, QBs, Returners, anyone who gets to the edge. For every player who runs out on the sideline, 90% of them who get contacted are just casually shoved out. Arms extended, leverage forcing them out of bounds with momentum. Very few of them are hits, probably because hits tend to risk a flag. Hits out of bounds tend to get flagged even when legal, because it’s clearly not necessary force most of the time, and that’s why it gets called unnecessary roughness. A full shoulder bash is simply unnecessary due to physics. When a guy is running on an edge, a gentle push is enough to teeter them off balance out of bounds. It’s basic physics. This wasn’t an open field tackle, which needs as much contact as you can get to ensure taking the player down. It’s on the boundary line, where a gentle shove forces a player to adjust his balance and at that stage, their momentum will take them out.
Go run along a thin line and have someone gently shove you in the process and watch you easily go over the line trying to keep balance. A basic shove is all you need when the player is right on the sideline.
Honestly, I think the Dart hit was the most reasonable of all of them. He’s a QB who’s known for running hard, but just came back from a concussion. You take one opportunity to hit him hard, and hope it makes him reconsider going for those extra few yards for the rest of the game.
Some of the rest of the hits…yeah, they were perhaps a bit much. And I say that as a Pats fan who grew up a Giants fan (and still is, but not when they’re facing New England).
Well, for whatever it’s worth, I’m not mad at Elliss. I’m annoyed that my idiot QB has no idea how to protect himself and apparently learned absolutely NOTHING from his 28th concussion of the season against DAAAAAA BEARS. Fighting for an extra couple of yards (which he didn’t even get because it was called back for a penalty, IIRC) is NOT worth him being unavailable for multiple games.
Anyway, I digress. I agree with Dave, Elliss *could* have made a gentler shove, BUT. It’s 100000% on Dart to GET THE !*&@$ out of bounds so that Elliss can’t make that hit without drawing a penalty. So I don’t *blame* your boy, but yea, he could have gone lighter.
I’m more annoyed that we have a QB whose brain is going to be pudding by his third season… if he even makes it that long.
I can’t believe the Patriots have a 16-0 Banner. How is that any less embarrassing than the Colts “AFC Finalist” banner?
It’s not. And every pats fan I know hates it. Thankfully they took it down in 2015.
I did not realize they took it down, that’s hilarious. 16-0 is still a hell of an accomplishment but I guess it was just a reminder that it ended badly
I can just hear the announcer on the speakers during halftime. “Heeeeeeeeeey faaaaaaaaans! Remember that season we went undefeated! The first and only time an NFL team has EVER gone 16-0, and then we… uh, then. Um. Then the season was…. uh, canceled. And nothing happened and we all went home and ate ice cream. SIXTEEN AND OH, WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
Worship ended with Tzeentch. Khorne is our God now.
Blood for the blood god!
skulls for the skull throne!
I learned from 2007 to value the journey regardless of the final destination.
It ended up a huge disappointment but I got over that and look back at the 18 wins, Brady to Moss, etc. I remember many wonderful moments to go with the pain of helmet catch.
What happened happened and I enjoyed all six Superbowl wins so I’m not changing anything.
Okay so this is going to be a giant wall of text but tl;dr: I’m not even sure I’d trade any for 07, but certainly not multiple.
To address the original idea first, I agree that trading our two weakest SB wins for the one legendary one is pretty weak entitled BS, much less trading one of the weaker ones. I certainly wouldn’t trade all of them for 07 because it’s pathetic how the Dolphins still hang their hat on their one moment of greatness half a century later and I’d much rather have what we have than THAT. But ultimately I wouldn’t trade any wins for 07 because each of the wins meant something and was special for its own reasons, in no small part because of the context of 07 and 11 making the story of the Patriots dynasty much more compelling, and the later SB wins something more meaningful.
To start, I wouldn’t trade any of the original dynasty for 07. Granted, I was only 13 in 04. I was too young to really fully understand and appreciate the significance of what I was enjoying. But the first SB is always special, and with the added context of the Patriots winning the SB after 9/11 (which is maybe a dumb reason, but was part of what I enjoyed as a naive 10 year old who still believed America was the shit) and stifling the “Greatest Show on Turf”, that one was part of what cemented my lifelong love for football. My dad was a more casual fan. He would watch games and enjoy the winning, but he would enjoy Bears wins equally much because he grew up in Chicago and it felt more like something he was invested in socially than for his own sake. 01 also taught gave us that first taste of the signature inevitability that would define the Patriots dynasty. One of the things that made the team so magical for so long was that feeling that as long as the game was close, Brady could close it out on the final drive. 01 was the start of that.
03 and 04 are, admittedly, less special to me when taken on their own. 03 was, I think, the least special of any of the 6 SB wins. It was fun that Brady remained undefeated in the playoffs throughout the first dynasty. Perhaps I was too young to remember, but I don’t really remember anything being that interesting about the story of the game either. We beat the Panthers. It was a good game. I was pretty happy. It’s, I think, the SB win that most Pats fans would be willing to trade for 07. But trading any one for 07 is some real lack of conviction, so we’ll set this aside for later.
04, with the context of completing the dynasty and denying the Eagles a win (surely you Giants fans can sympathize with that), that made it special to me. That was the point where I think a lot of Pats fans’ entitlement came from. Brady had never lost a playoff game. We had secured the next great football dynasty. That era trained us to expect great things from the team, and those expectations are an important part of why I wouldn’t change a single damn thing about the Pats SB history. Again, I’ll come back to this later.
If we had won 07, that would have been incredible. Most of us expected to win in 07. But I honestly think 07 would’ve just ruined us as a fan base (or maybe just me, or maybe we already were ruined). If we had won 07, particularly after the 01-04 dynasty, I’m not sure if I would’ve cared even if we had lost all future SBs. It wouldn’t have been fun losing them, but like, we’d have won 4 including 07. What more could we really even want? I feel like winning 07 would’ve given me both that sense of entitlement that Pats fans too often embody, and honestly would’ve made winning anything after that mean a lot less. Like, sure, winning 7 with one being undefeated would’ve been better than winning 6. But I feel like the feeling of mortality from the failure in 07 allowed me to really appreciate the other wins in a way I’m not sure I could’ve had we just kinda won it all. Say what you want about what that means of me, psychologically, but that’s just how I feel about it in hindsight.
I also enjoy the story of the Pats dynasty much more now that it’s complete, for the inclusion of the 07 and 11 losses. Honestly it’s funny that the juggernaut’s Achilles heel is goofy ass Eli Manning. It’s funny that our arch-rival Peyton’s dorky little brother was the one we truly feared as fans, even if most would never admit it. And it makes the second dynasty SB wins feel that much more special in the context that the only team who could ever really stop us was the Eli Giants (and the Ravens in the AFC, but more on them soon ((yes, we lost to the Broncos too but honestly that felt more like an extension of the Brady-Manning thing than it was the Broncos specifically. Plus our rivalry with the Broncos came around the same time as the second dynasty, whereas overcoming the Ravens was a core part of the narrative of the beginning of the second dynasty)).
While the losses in 07 and 11 are THE main reason I wouldn’t trade any of the later SB wins for 07, each of the second dynasty wins had something special and unique that makes me appreciate it for its own merits too. It’s easy to forget now, a decade later (ugh… time, man) but all anyone could talk about this season was the demise of the Patriots dynasty. This was “On to Cincinnati”. This was the season after the Legion of Boom had inaugurated the speculative “next dynasty” for the Seahawks. The Patriots hadn’t won a ring in a decade! (Shock and horror, I know!) But, the Patriots had been in the AFCCG for the last 3 years straight and hadn’t been able to seal the deal. The first time in 2011 we were denied by Eli FUCKING Manning, yet again.
The 2012 AFCCG loss was to Elite Playoff Dragon Joe Flacco. The Ravens had crushed us in 2010 in the playoffs, and would again in 2013. They had given us a hard time in the regular season too and it felt like the AFC had its own Eli Manning and goddamnit was that annoying and a little scary. Although, again, most Pats fans wouldn’t admit to fearing the Playoff Dragon.
As mentioned, the 2013 playoffs ultimately ended with the (premature, as it turned out) proclamation of a new dynasty, and I think made everyone good and ready to declare the Patriots dead. And to start the 2014 season it sure looked like that might be the case. We ultimately bounced back and made the playoffs with a bye, but lo and behold the Playoff Dragon is guarding our path forward yet again. I was at that game. It wasn’t some explicitly talked about *thing*, but between the “dynasty is dead” talk that season and our general struggles against the Ravens, there was a real palpable anxiety heading into the game, which only got worse as the Ravens got out to a 14-0 lead. It felt like we were about to get Playoff Dragon’d again. Eli Manning’d AGAIN. The Pats fought back to tie the game, only to go down by 14 again and have to overcome another 14 point deficit in the same damn game. It was cold as hell, we were fighting for our lives, and nobody was sure if we’d ever actually make it back to, much less win, another Super Bowl again. The Pats managed to get a lead with like 5 minutes left but none of us felt safe. We’d been traumatized by Eli Manning and AFC Eli Manning enough that we didn’t have that same arrogant, entitled, confidence as we did in the first dynasty era.
The most memorable moment of that 14 playoff run, and one of my all time favorite Patriots memories, was sitting in that wind chill 5 degree cold as the Ravens were driving down the field and the stadium put on “I Don’t Wanna Lose Your Love Tonight” during a pause in play. The whole stadium was singing along and it felt like this metaphor for all the anxiety we were feeling, collectively, as a fan base. There’d been talk all season about the dynasty being over, the Seahawks being the “new” dynasty, speculation that Bill and Brady were heading for a divorce after the season. And all we wanted in that moment as fans was for it to keep going, for at least one more game. Here’s the best clip I could find (apologies in advance) https://www.tiktok.com/@bcpr_617/video/7270306383273151786 The Patriots went on to win that game, and extracted the Colts’ souls in the AFCCG, and made it back to the SB for what could potentially be, for all we knew, our final time.
Just like that game against the Ravens exorcised a lot of our Playoff Dragon demons, that 14 win against the Seahawks felt like a release from the frustration and anxiety that came with being the best team in football for a decade and having no SB wins to show for it. It had everything. It was in so many ways just like the Patriots last 2 SBs. The ones they lost. Brady took us down the field to secure the lead late in the game, but there was too much time on the clock. One drive later and it looked like we were poised to come up short yet again, courtesy of an insane circus catch of course because why would we expect anything else. I think Kraft summed it up best in an interview after the game where he said all he could think at that moment was that “we have no fucking luck”. But something different happened this time. BB didn’t call a timeout, and that somehow mind-tricked Pete Carroll to get cute with the play calling after letting too much time run off the clock. Instead of just letting Marshawn Lynch send us to the shadow realm and securing the Seahawks ascendancy over the Patriots as “the new dynasty”, he tried to pass the ball. HE TRIED TO PASS THE BALL. One miracle later, and we’d finally banished what felt like the last of our playoff demons and finally, after losing twice to Eli FUCKING Manning, we’d won again.
You can say it’s awfully entitled to be complaining we went a decade between SB wins, and it wouldn’t precisely be wrong, but the Patriots had been so good for so long it would’ve felt like a Josh Allen Bills level of wasted opportunity to have never won again after 2014. Although at least unlike the Josh Allen Bills we made it to some Super Bowls to lose in, instead of the AFCCG.
The 2015 season was frustrating because of how close we came to overcoming the corpse of Peyton Manning propped up by one of the greatest defenses of all time. It sucked seeing the Mannings get yet another ring, but it was much less miserable because we’d finally broken the curse. I know I would’ve felt at peace with any outcomes after 07 because after 14 I was starting to feel the same way.
That was more or less how I was feeling in 2016 when the Falcons started to blow us out. Sure, getting blown out sucks, but eh whatever. We got one more. Losing won’t hurt nearly as much because we managed to not go out quietly, even if this really was, finally, the end of the road for the dynasty. Hell, I even started playing Settlers of Catan with the game on in the background with the friends I had over to my apartment after the Falcons went up 28-3. Like, that game is over, but the last we can do is see it through to the end.
I don’t think any more really needs to be said about 28-3. If you asked me to pick between getting to win 07 and winning 28-3, I would take 28-3 without hesitation. That will never be anything less than the greatest, dumbest, most incredible SB win I’ve ever enjoyed.
Another reason I know I would’ve been pretty chill with losing anything after 07, if we had won? I honestly had not even thought about the loss to the Eagles in 17 for, like, 3 or 4 years until I sat down to write this. It’s not that I forgot it had happened, but by that point we’d won 5 SBs, one was 28-3, and like frankly it’s not that much different than losing in the AFCCG, which we did all the years we didn’t make it to the SB from 2011 to 2018 anyways. This was definitely my Entitlement Era of Patriots fandom. Hell, we even lost to Eli Manning ass Nick Foles, so the whole losing to goofy QBs thing was intact.
And then finally 2018. 2018 is special to me for a few reasons, and I would not trade it even 1 for 1 for 07. Although I do recognize that’s a fairly insane take. For one, winning the 3rd made it officially a double dynasty, which was pretty cool. For another, maybe it was due to years of watching BB coached teams, but I’d always really liked special teams. I had an Edelman Jersey before he became Second Wes Welker, when he was just a special teams grinder. Matthew Slater was one of my favorite Patriots players just because he was so damn good at the things he did. He felt like the type of mythical Patriot Way player that just Did His Job (TM) and didn’t cause trouble.
So 18 turning into a defensive/special teams slugfest that literally nobody outside Patriots fans enjoyed was just amazing for me. I actually enjoyed the game on its own merits because I like defense and special teams, having played and learned way more about football than is reasonable for someone who never played more than D3 goofball and never went on to do anything with football professionally. But the fact the Patriots won in the most miserable way possible gave me a lot of schadenfreude from all the haters I knew must be tearing their hair out at how awful the game was and how annoying the outcome was.
Also because of the -gates (shout out to the Saints! Thanks for denying Peyton a ring, -gate breaux), I had developed that kind of homer defensiveness about anyone trying to put any coach above BB because a lot of people already seemed eager to deny his legacy for whatever reason they could find. So having him dismantle McVay’s system so completely was very fun to watch for that reason, too.
So what’s the lesson here, you entitled masshole? What’s the takeaway? Idk man. I just don’t really think 07 was all that important, in the context of everything that happened after. I’d rather have won it, but time (and all the success) has well and truly healed that wound. I can even look back on it with a sense of humor now that I’m not so thoroughly traumatized by the Eli Mannings of the world.
Plus, we got 6 rings which pisses off Steelers fans to no end. And I think we can all agree that’s as noble a purpose as any.
I’m also not one of those Patriots fans that sees the Brady-Bucs win as our unofficial 7th ring. Those guys are losers. I’m happy for Brady and all, but like come on man. Most of you people had probably never watched a Bucs game in your life that wasn’t on Redzone or against the Patriots.
This is a nice long extended perspective that I appreciate. It also kind of confirms what I already sorta knew: the second dynasty really softened the blow of the ’07 loss for most fans. At the time 2007 happened, we had no idea the Pats and Brady would stay good for another decade. It felt like that might have been the last hurrah for that squad, which still had a lot of the original dynasty players like Vrabel and Bruschi on it. There was no precedent that Brady would just…keep going. The Seahawks win seemed like it really unclenched a lot of Pats fan buttholes, like it gave them permission to breathe again that the team could still do it.
I love this perspective of it. Every NFL game has a meaning, and I wouldn’t trade a win for a loss or a loss for a win, no matter how heartbreaking it was, even as a Packers fan who has had far less (playoff) success in recent years.
P.S.: Thanks for beating the Seahawks in 49. Screw them and screw Brandon Bostick.
This is beautifully written.
I’ve always thought Tom Brady doesn’t win all those Super Bowls if he gets perfection in ’07. As much as he’d give anything for that win, it drove him to insane heights for more than a decade. It takes something extraordinary for such perennial motivation: ’07 was it.
I’d say that I would trade the Minneapolis Miracle for Brett Favre to not throw across his body in 09, but given that this is the Vikings I know in my heart that Longwell would have missed the kick anyways.
Pats fan here. In 2007, my parents were on the road and their radio was borked so I had to describe by cell phone the events of the fourth quarter to them. Then, because I was living in NYC at the time, I had to go to work in midtown the next day. My thirst for vengeance will never be slaked.
p.s. did you know that the federal judge who ruled against Brady in deflategate – a genuinely indefensible decision based on the legal standards – is a huge Giants fan who keeps memorabilia in his office? I visited it once when I was in law school, and I have never stopped believing that fix was in.
I am not a Pats fan but I have been told by ones who are that besides the two you mentioned they would give up the other 4. Not saying it’s a fair trade but that does change them from all time dynasty to some weird flash in the pan over and over. 2002 2007 and 2017 would be a very confusing conversation of what to make of the patriots.
07 was the Super Bowl for the 2007 season. The game took place in 2008. So for consistency you should say either 2001, 2007, and 2016 *or* you should refer to 07 as 08, if you’re going to go by the year they took place for the other two.
On the flipside of the “trading Superbowls” conversation, what about the Dolphins? They only have two, the Perfectville season and then the one right after in 1973, and none since. They haven’t even won a playoff game since 2000. They’re like the inverse of the Patriots in this situation.
Would Dolphins fans trade 17-0 in exchange for 4 or 5 more Superbowls in the Don Shula era? Is this an embarrassment of riches, or are there diminishing returns of joy if you win so many in the span of a couple decades? Does it matter that a hypothetical Dolphins mega-dynasty would at this point have been followed by three decades of suckitude? Will Pats fans’ answers to the original Superbowl trade offer change the farther in the past their own dynasty gets?
This is an interesting question but Im not sure most Dolphins fans would make that trade, namely because it was a long time ago when a lot of current fans didn’t exist or were too young.
They might trade ’72 for a few Marino wins though
Ironically the Pats kinda messed up one of Mario’s chances since he was the only one to beat the ’85 Bears. Would definitely have been a better SB than what we got.
I’d be cool with them giving up their first Super Bowl…
Still feel cheated by the officiating that season’s playoff run. Patriots had no business being in that Super Bowl and Marshall Faulk shouldn’t have been allowed to be taken out of it the way he was.
I always thought Rams win a superbowl in 00 and 01 of Vermeil remained their hc with Martz as oc. I’m less certain about 00 because of the injuries but no way the defense would have been that bad with Vermeil in charge. They could and should have destroyed the Vikings/Giants in the NFC and given us an awesome Rams offense vs Ravens defense SB
The impaled Giants player may be the most brutal panel in the comic’s history. I dig it!
I’d kind of want to keep the one over Seattle, too. That pick in the end zone was magic. And the discussion it caused over whether the pass was the right move or not carried on for years.
By the way… is there a joke I’m not getting to everyone in the first panel having jersey number 0 or 00?
I think it’s just to make them generic players instead of any specific guys.
I thought that might’ve been it, but was really hoping for it to be a joke of some kind.
I may be in the minority on this but I wouldn’t give up any of the Super Bowls for the undefeated season. Yes it would’ve been something no one ever could touch and the ultimate sports goal. The pain from that one and the other two makes the ones we won after that much sweeter and I appreciate them a lot more knowing it could’ve easily been that terrible losing feeling again
As a Pats fan I would trade most SB’s for 2007, though 28-3 and the 2014 one vs the Seahawks make that difficult. Sherman’s reaction + the unexpected interception by Malcom Butler will forever live in my memory.
Jaxson Dart was 12 during the 2007 Super Bowl. Any retribution taken out on the 2025 G-men for what the 2017 G-men did is purely symbolic.
Do we get to keep deflategate, brady’s ring with the bucs so we still see him everywhere, and the nft shill career arc? I can live with that.