Now don’t get me wrong. I love excellence. What’s more, I love seeing people being excellent at things that I’m not. Great composers, skilled craftsmen, professional athletes. Witnessing astounding feats that very few individuals can perform is a treat, and surely I’m not the only one who knows that, as countless industries make excellence their mantra and charge a pretty penny for it.
But, after all, I’m also human. As such I love excellence…to an extent.
I mean, who doesn’t feel at least a little bit jealous of the Beethovens, Picassos, and Tom Bradys of the world?
They accomplish things that ordinary men can’t, and while that makes them all the more dazzling and astounding of figures, it also incites a tinge of jealousy. A little bit of “I wish I had that too”.
Yes, you heard me right. As he crests his record-setting eighth Super Bowl, it’s official: I am jealous of Tom Brady.
Now to be fair, it’s just a tinge. And truthfully more of a jealousy in the thinking that “man, I wish the Packers had that” as opposed to “man, I with Noah Lorey had that” (though to be fair Aaron Rodgers and the Packers have been bogged down by an awful combination of stale coaching and some of the worst luck I’ve ever seen, and I still contend that were the two quarterbacks’ situations reversed, we’d be calling a different man the G.O.A.T.). Still, jealousy all the same.
That being said, as excellent as Tom Brady and the Patriots’ accomplishments are, they’ve also decisively become something else: boring.
Don’t get me wrong, the Patriots have produced some of the most exciting Super Bowls in the modern era. The fact that they’ve never won (or lost) a championship game in the Brady-Belichick era by more than six points is astounding. The fact that they were participants in the first Super Bowl overtime is one for the history books.
Super Bowls XXXVI, XXXVIII, XXXIX, XLIX, and LI (and XLII and XLVI too) are some of the most entertaining moments of television, let alone football, that I’ve ever seen.
But just like all good things, the Patriots don’t seem to know when to call it quits.
They’ve made the extraordinary routine, but in doing so they’ve evaporated a little bit of the magic that goes along with something as momentous as winning the Super Bowl. When your sport’s largest stage is just another day at the office, I have to wonder what the point even is anymore? When there are no stakes, no struggle, just business as usual, is winning it all even worth it?
From a narrative standpoint, the answer is no.
From a narrative standpoint, with a dynasty this dominant, the NFL is treading into waters never truly explored in the professional football realm before (or at least not for a long, long time). With eight championship appearances in seventeen years, the Brady-Belichick tandem is nearly running parallel to some of the greatest NBA and MLB dynasties, something virtually unthinkable in a sport as focused on the team and set apart from overreliance on superstars as football.
And while dynasties are fun for fan bases, pundits, sports history junkies, and even (for a time) the average viewer, they lose their luster the longer they remain upon their lofty perch. After all, no one wants to see dominance forever.
Give someone else a shot.
Such is why ridiculous feats like the Celtics’ eight consecutive NBA Finals wins, or the New York Yankees’ 27 total World Series titles please few outside of Boston or New York.
Granted, the media will try to drum up the football world (and most of mainstream America) into a frenzy over the next week as they attempt to sell this just another Sunday in New England as some sort of cosmic clash between two titans of North American sports. But I don’t know if they’ll buy that one even in the deepest, darkest Harvard Yard.
The truth is, the Eagles are something of an upstart.
Underdogs who have gone 57 seasons without hoisting a championship trophy, only a season ago posting a 7-9 record, readying themselves to start a backup quarterback who was traded away by this very same Philadelphia team (albeit under a different head coach) three years ago, and bringing to the table a roster that doesn’t have a single 1,000-yard rusher or receiver.
That being said, don’t let this somewhat unorthodox offense catch you off-guard à la Minnesota.
And while the Eagles very well could win the game (I think their odds are a touch better than the five-point underdogs that Vegas has them pegged as), this battle is much more David vs. Goliath than King Kong vs. Godzilla.
So, when Tom Brady takes the field on February 4th at 40 years old, he’ll attempt to accomplish the excellent. He’ll try to be superhuman in yet another Super Bowl. If he’s successful, he’ll write one of the greatest stories in professional sports. Just don’t expect anyone outside of Massachusetts to cheer too loudly.
After all, at this point, it’s all sort of boring.
