Hey, you.
How you doin' there? Today's not so hot, huh? Trust me. I know.
You know that feeling you had for a good 14 weeks this year, where everyone trumped you up as one of the greatest teams of all time, you led SportsCenter every day, and the political ways your players and coaches dodged "19-0" questions during every single interview made you smile? Remember seeing your quarterback on every other commercial? The buzz at every home game? Those were damn good times, huh?
Well, as all good things must...it ended, but what replaced those times were about 60% as good, but you still had the gleam. Your historical dreams of immortality then shifted to saying things like, "Well, hey, the '85 Bears were 15-1," or, "Well, now they won't be distracted and can just play football". Oh, your team would still win the Super Bowl, of course--they just wouldn't be the team that gloriously dumped Mercury Morris's file into the "Irrelevant" bin.
Then...yesterday happened. And let me take a stab at your thought process during the game:
"Everyone's been talking about their team lately. What about us? We did win fourteen games in a row, after all. So while I'm a little bit worried about losing--dear God, the thought of laying an egg in our first playoff game after that whole, 'We're going undefeated' thing, I would just die--I'm not going to show it. We're going to win!"
"OK, whatever. They get on the board first, but it's only a field goal. So what?"
"We matched it. We're not getting beat in our house!"
"Fuck. They just scored a big touchdown. We'll match them..."
"And we did! Touchdown! Now if only we can score first and quit having to match, the points will start flowing..."
"OK. They got another field goal. Now here is where we get a touchdown..."
"FUCK. A touchdown at the end of the half? Are you kidding me? OK, so we're down by ten at the half. Not ideal, but we can totally come back. I trust Mike and the boys to figure things out."
"What's with all these punts? When will our offense show up? What the hell is happening? It's almost the fourth quarter!"
"Every third down is giving me an ulcer..."
"Oh, God. We're going to lose. We're going to lose, aren't we?"
"Why do I put my faith in you, Jesus? Why are you doing this to me?"
"Touchdown! Only down ten! If we can stop them here, score a touchdown, and get an onside kick, we can win!"
"We're not going to win. I care way too much about sports."
"Fuck this. I'm not even going to watch the Super Bowl. I need to take a sports break."
Sound about right? So, did you listen to sports talk radio on the way home? Or did you and your friends drive in silence? Oh, well. At least you didn't talk about how you could have spared at least a little pain--and been able to afford next year's season tickets--had you sold your tickets and not even gone to that goddamn, stupid game. Oh, dear Lord. You did do that...didn't you?
Cheer up. It gets better. Sure, you'll realize when Aaron Rodgers is, say, 36 with three serious surgeries how many titles you left on the table. Each time you had an elite quarterback go down in playoff flames only to watch someone else hoist that stupid trophy. And besides, you already have one title with Rodgers, and you had one with Favre.
Some great ones only get one, you know.
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