Aftermath.

After 48 hours of reflection and decompression, I find myself considering not so much that moment when Tom Brady's last pass of the season settled into the arms of a horseshoe-head, not the broken coverage by Ray Mickens late in the first half that began the defense's decline into exhaustion, not even the 3rd-and-4 at midfield with 2:30 left that if converted would have all but clinched the game. Of course the sting of Sunday's loss lingers, but a single four-point loss a) in the AFC Championship Game, b) against an extremely talented, experienced, and well-coached team, c) in front of said team's raucous fans, is not something that should force real Patriots fans to head en masse to the Tobin Bridge.
No, my thoughts turn back to what we have experienced over the last five years, when success has been so plentiful, so complete, and so unprecedented. And they also turn forward, to . . . the mystery that is the future. It's inevitable, I think, when our favorite team has had as much prosperity as these Patriots have, to find ourselves wondering, after the end of another season, how much more success we will get to experience. The last five years have produced the kind of pure joy that many football fans will probably never experience in a lifetime. Perhaps that sounds like hyperbole, but the list of professional football teams that have won three Super Bowls in five seasons is short. The bottom line is the Pats have been on an historic run, a run that has been almost indescribable for true fans, especially considering the sorry history of this team over its first 35 years. So now we are (or at least, I am) left to ponder some rather frightening thoughts: a Patriots team without Tom Brady, without Bill Belichick, without Troy Brown, without Tedy Bruschi, and on and on...
Some of these occurrences may not be happening for many years, others will take place all too soon. But the vital parts that made up three Super Bowl champions will continue to be chipped away by age, money, and declining skills, and Sunday's loss forces us to confront the reality that,as Patriots fans, the Golden Era in which we find ourselves is disturbingly finite. Of course, I don't really have to tell any of you this (especially since Bob Ryan has discussed it more than once), but at times it can be so easy to get lost in the moment, and when that moment is five years long (and running), it's even easier to forget what it is to be the fan of Just Another Team. Because this isn't Just Another Team, and it hasn't been for so long that it's difficult to remember what one looks like.
Sunday's loss will not long leave a bitter taste. It's pretty simple: the Colts were better, certainly not by much, but even more certainly, by enough. And ultimately there's no shame in losing to a better team in a hard-fought contest. What is more difficult to swallow is the notion that this team, the 2006 Patriots, was good enough to win it all, but came up short. The team was a huge question mark right up until about week 14. But I feel I can say with complete objectivity that their play down the stretch and in the playoffs was convincing evidence that this was a team that had all the necessary ingredients to win the Super Bowl. Hell, convert that aforementioned 3rd-and-4--a play Brady has made a thousand times in the past--and they are almost certainly in the Super Bowl. And who doesn't think they could beat the Bears?
How many teams could realistically call themselves Super Bowl material? Four or five at the most, maybe less.
And that's what really hurts: Knowing they were good enough, and not knowing if they ever will be again. Now I have no specific reason to think that they won't be strong again next year, and the year after, and the year after that. But the point is that we can't see what is in the road ahead of us. Injuries, contracts, dissension, poor personnel decisions...the list of potential obstacles is a long one.
I understand how pessimistic this sounds, but there's a fine line between pessimism and realism; this is by no means meant to be a eulogy for the Patriots. And to put it all in perspective: 25 years ago, 20 years ago, 15 years ago, 10 years ago, 2006 would have been one of the most successful seasons in the team's history. In the context of the past five years, it feels like a disappointment. But this was a good season; an exceptional season, really. It just remains to be seen exactly how it ranks in the once-in-a-lifetime experience that is the Brady/Belichick era.
As the wise man Joaquin Andujar once said, "Youneverknow."