Super Bowl XLII: We’ll Never Hug a Snake

By: Dustin Beutin

If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? In scientific theory, yes; philosophically, no. But, don’t get started on the whole “chicken or the egg” thing. That requires a discussion of evolution and genetics that could generate rioting hordes with pitchforks.

In Boston, Portland and Concord this morning, fans of the New England Patriots are crawling out of their homes and staring about at the new forest that has been presented to them. The scrod won’t taste the same at dinner; the maple syrup a little less sweet. Everyone from beer makers to bean eaters are asking themselves the same question: if you go through the season undefeated and lose the championship game, are you still one of the greatest teams of all time?

There were two cameramen assigned to a very special role on Sunday, each with a different target. One guy was given the unenviable task of filming the Manning family. Stars of the commercial world, there is nothing sexy about watching Peyton or Archie. Peyton is funny, yes; but he’s no Brad Pitt.

Presumably, the other cameraman was originally assigned to capture the standard images of Patriot’s owner Robert Kraft. But someone more important than an owner, a war vet or a brother appeared at the Super Bowl on Sunday. Brady’s international, inter-hotual girlfriend Gisele Bundchen. The People Magazine crowd that was being forced to watch and pretend to enjoy the commercials swooned with the opportunity to see how this untouchable famous person was “just like us” - cheering on her boyfriend at a football game.

With Gisele in attendance, the producers told the cameraman to stay focused on her like the paparazzi on Brittney at a pharmacy. From that moment, everyone assumed that as the Patriots rode to their penultimate victory, we would be given a steady diet of the “Gisele Cam”, with her holding the flowers Tom gave her a week ago, cheering as her god-among-men boyfriend/quarterback sealed the deal on the greatest season of all time. The guy who was told he would operate the “Manning cam” figured he was going to spend most of the evening hoping Peyton would rehearse lines for his next commercial shoot.

Yet, it was early in the game when the “Gisele Cam” caught something that angered fate, fans and football lovers everywhere. Here was the girlfriend of football’s ultimate poster-boy, in a box at the Super Bowl … drinking wine. From a really pretty glass. Televised shot after televised shot, there was Gisele basking in the shadow of Brady’s chin crevasse … with that damn wine glass in front of her.

There was little that could be done from that point to save the Patriots. If one thing has been proven out this season, it’s that pretty girlfriends residing in the skybox wilt the prowess of potent quarterbacks. More so when they wear designer pink jerseys or drink premier cru burgundy at a football game.

The Manning Cam went into full swing in the fourth quarter as youngest Manning - Eli, that is - orchestrated what will surely become known as one of the greatest drives of all time. He danced out of sacks. Receivers caught balls against their helmets. And that was just one play.

If fate was not involved, then certainly some other deity was. Perfection demands accounting for all factors, especially the appeasement of higher powers. How else could the Giants have built such a whimsical drive if not for the fury of the football gods that perfection was about to be placed in the hands of a man whose guest was sipping wine, pinky-finger unaccounted for?

By the end of this week, the last two-minute drive of Super Bowl XLII will have a nickname as befits an infamous series of plays that resulted in the downfall of a team on the verge of history. Perhaps it will be called “The Desert Drive”, “The Broadway Miracle” or simply “The Greatest Upset.” Whatever the media and fans decide upon, it will be easy to revel in how this all ended.

Could America have embraced the 2007 version of the Patriots as they once did the 2001 version? Doubtful. Not with the swirling clouds of doubt, the whispers of tainted championships and the rumors of cheating that have refused to go away this year. The NFL chose to bury away the evidence and information that it received on the Patriots video-taping of other teams. In so doing, they participated in a mistaken belief held by governments and corporations throughout time that it is better to hide the truth for short-term gains in publicity than to expose the truth for long-term gains in validity. America may be numb to corporate scandal, to government incompetence and to the well-connected getting off lightly, but they are not so forgiving in their sports.

Ask baseball, which is now chasing its own tail after turning a blind-eye to steroids when the home-run derby overcame the loss of fan interest following the crippling players strike of the early nineties. If the asterisk-branded baseball that will head to Cooperstown isn’t a sign that Americans will never hug a snake, then certainly there are few tears being shed for the Patriots this day. Save perhaps along the banks of the river Charles.

For the good sake of football, not only did the Giants hand the league a reprieve from having to enshrine a team led by a cheating sour-puss, but now broadcasters across America can stop pretending to be happy about the entire spectacle. Never before has hypocrisy in broadcasting dressed itself in such disgusting garb. The only thing that was good about the Patriots’ almost undefeated season was that it drove the television ratings to epic proportions: you know, as people tuned in to see if someone would finally save us from having to wonder how a team with Tedy Bruschi’s haircut could go undefeated.

Yet, broadcasters - especially the former player broadcasters who now compose the majority of sports analysts - said again and again they thought it would be great if the Patriots went undefeated. Why? So that a team led by an unlikeable coach and with the faint stench of cheating wafting from their cleats could taint the halls of Canton with the same filth Barry Bonds will sully baseball’s ultimate shrine? Pathetic. It’s one thing to root for good ratings and for your friends on the Patriots; it’s another to try and convince America that it should collectively root for such junk to be held up as the best the sport has to offer.

What happened in this year’s Super Bowl was good for Football, America and the people who paid $2,000,000 for 30 seconds of ad time. It was exciting. It was interesting. It was one of the best Super Bowls of all time. Geckos danced, babies barfed and dogs loved horses.

More importantly, it answered the biggest question of the year, perhaps of this generation of football fans: if you go through the season undefeated, but choke in the big game, are you one of the greatest teams of all time. No. A thousand times no.

Sorry, Boston, but no one wanted to see the Patriots go all the way. Not like this.

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Though other sportswriters in Chicago might still be unpacking their carpetbags, Dustin Beutin is a born and bred Chi-town sportswriter. Heading into the heart of the Big Ten (Purdue) broadened his sports views, and it was during the Jauron era that he lost the innocence of blind love for Chicago sports and began looking for an outlet to vent his frustration. A trip out west to USC for a Master’s in writing was only tolerable with high doses of ESPN and Dodgers games, though it gave him a respect for the national perspective. Now in the early stages of a sports-writing career, Dustin hopes to give back to the city of Chicago everything it gave him: opinions and heartburn.

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