The New England Patriots: Football's Ultimate David

The “David vs. Goliath” plot line in sports is as fun as it is cliché and, in fact, it might be the most of both. In 2002, New England beat the 14-point favorite St. Louis Rams. Largely remembered as a case study for the “NFL is rigged” conspiracy theorists (Jesse Ventura, etc.), this was the first Superbowl after the September 11th attacks and so it seemed “too fitting” that the scrappy “Patriots” would prove to be America’s best team. Hell, the Superbowl logo for that year was deliberately changed to be more patriotic and the game itself was pushed back a week in honor of the attacks four months prior. From a PR prospective, the Rams didn’t have a snowball's chance in Vegas. Still, the Patriots came to dominate professional football for the next decade with a narrative beauty that is entirely unmatched.

The 14-point spread granted by the gambling gods was one of the largest for any Superbowl ever. Yes, even “Dallas vs. Buffalo: Part Two: First Blood.” Even if they had no other information, the sports media would have called this a “David vs. Goliath” story. Fortunately, they had even more evidence to support this set-up. The St. Louis Rams, fueled by their “Greatest Show on Turf,” had won the 2000 Superbowl and coasted to a 14-2 record and blasted through two previous playoff games like James Bond at an Atlantic City poker table. Indeed, for the first time ever, things were looking good in St. Louis.

Conversely, New England barely started the football season off in the right stadium, they were so lost. In their second game, star (?) quarterback Drew Bledsoe went down with an injury and the Patriots were forced to trod out a doughy second-year quarterback named Tom Brady. Baby Face Brady (as he was never called) experienced record-breaking success and matched up famously with Coach Bill Belicheck (who was still in his Senator Palpatine stage).

"So he looks like Joe Lieberman to everybody else too, right?"

Continuing the narrative symbolism to an almost redundant level, the Patriots broke NFL tradition by not introducing the starters individually but by having the entire team introduced as one collective. Lifted from the school of Disney sports movies, the corny beauty of athletic camaraderie (in the backdrop of national solidarity) set an obvious precedent of which the NFL has yet to waiver from to this day.

As the story had to go, with some dashing luck and plenty of moxie, the Patriots turned what should have been the worst Superbowl since the year before (that Ravens-Giants stinker) into a game worthy of watching for 86 million television viewers. David had slain Goliath. All was well. But then something happened. Something nobody could have dreamed. The David Story continued.

I was raised Catholic—which, among other things, means I never really had to read the Bible. Every week my family would go to church and hear the priest give a book report on the Bible that could go no longer than 60 minutes or people would hold up their arms and start tapping on their watches. However, I did pick up that the same David that killed Goliath later became king. Similarly, the Patriots went on to win 2 more Superbowls and otherwise ruled the NFL for a few years.

As the story of Bible-David goes, King David lost God’s favor royally by screwing around with Bathsheba—a married woman. The song “Hallelujah” covers this story somewhat, but has since been used in so many movies and TV shows that the song’s original writer/singer, Leonard Cohen, has asked for it not to be used anymore. Regardless, King David acted a fool with some broad and then tried to cover his tracks by having her husband sent to the front lines of a battle and get killed. For his misdeeds, King David would lose a newly-born son, a wife and favor with God.

This comes back to the Patriots with the devastating spy-camera scandal and subsequent investigation--predicatively--named Spygate. I guess it’s like “Watergate”…except there’s spying…or whatever. Yeah, the sports writers didn’t exactly earn their paychecks with that one. 

Anyhow, the New England Patriots were found guilty of videotaping the New York Jets and punished with a series of fines and loss of their…pause for dramatic effect…first-round selection in the 2008 draft. Just when they were about to bring some new life into their football family, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell smote them. However, other stinging accusations of videotapes never came to pass and so 31 self-righteous teams felt the Patriots got off easy.

A few millenniums ago, King David would spend his remaining years vainly fighting off insurrections orchestrated by his own sons until eventually ceding the throne to wise Solomon. Appropriately, the New England Patriots would experience similar, fleeting success for the next four years; but ultimately found themselves humiliated twice by the New York Giants—a team that shared a stadium with the Patriots’ original accusers, the Jets. In both Superbowl matchups, the Patriots were the odds-on favorite but fell short to New York--who continued their revenge spree with the death of Osama Bin Laden two months after the second Superbowl win (just to pointlessly tie this all back to September 11th).

Perhaps the Patriots (David) had become Goliath and thus deserved to fall twice for their previous, but now tainted, victories. Perhaps they just stayed as “David” and lost to the most appropriately-named team of Goliaths: the Giants. In either case, I feel the narrative has wrapped up nicely and I would like to conclude my well-documented dislike of the New England Patriots.

This season will be a fresh start for me and the Patriots, which is huge relief because rooting against the previous decade’s most successful NFL team was really exhausting. Now I can focus on bashing the would-be Cinderella team that has since turned into the Courtney Love of football: the Detroit Lions.