An Open Letter To The Hooded Loser.
A year ago after a win over the Chargers, LaDainian called you classless and it was written off as frustrating banter from someone who was just sent home on his own field. A loss which ruined their best season in franchise history and maybe he was venting. I for one, didn’t really pay it any mind as by my figuring, if you’re going to do the Lights Out dance and have no problem with Shawne doing it…have the decency to shut up when someone’s doing it to you. But…in something that I didn’t catch or it didn’t hit me until just now, I see something. He was right.
For the first two months of this season, before Spygate turned into the NFL’s equivalent of Watergate and your team decided to go all nuclear on folks, you forced opposing teams to basically sit for a half and eat the mud you were forcing them to swallow. In games where there really wasn’t any need to play a second half other than the fact that league rules mandated we can’t call 21-0 blowout rules like some do in Madden, these coaches came back out and stomached it. Even as their teams were being gutted with the equivalent of rusted machetes, they maintained. They ate their defeat rather bitterly and moved on. So your team moved along, like a bunch of ticked off madmen, with a chip on your shoulders the size of the National Deficit, begging anyone to knock it off your damn shoulders. For 18 games, nobody succeeded. Towards the second half of the year though, chinks in the armor started to form and simply put, even though you were winning it didn’t look as awe inspiring as the first half.
So most of the world deems the postseason more of a formality than anything else. Hell, even I didn’t expect anyone to beat you and Brady because after the AFC Title game in history since your Hoodie and Brady took over, nobody has. But then the Giants caught fire. Sure Coughlin took a ton of heat for playing his guys in a Week 17 game that had no real rhyme or reason at all, other than your boys becoming the only other team besides those celebrated drunks from the 1972 Dolphins (I mean seriously people, how come no one has called them on this yet? They drink every damn year an unbeaten team falls and have done so since they all hung it up. So by my count, that’s about two decades and pocket change of getting sloshed and nobody thinks another thing about this? Interesting.) and even Goodell finds it in his heart to let the people who don’t have the NFL Network to watch. And since someone here didn’t get what I’ve written to this point about Coughlin, I’ll do what I don’t like to and repeat myself. If Coughlin wins the Super Bowl, I’ll recant every negative thing I wrote about him. (But I’ll get to them in a second.) Still, nobody denies that you’re the best in the game at what you do. You were in the NFL’s equivalent to the “Central Black Hole” in Cleveland to start your coaching career and well, I don’t think anyone really begrudges you for failing there. Even LeBron’s starting to recognize that failure’s an imminent and inescapable thing there. You remade yourself into a modern day genius and your postseason record is the stuff that legends are made of.
Yet…with just one second on the clock of a game that you were outcoached in and your team outplayed, you showed no spine underneath that hoodie of yours. You walked off the field and didn’t want to sit through ONE KNEEL DOWN. Up until this point, I had a ton of respect for you as a head coach. I respected your team because in the 20 plus years I’ve existed, you’ve been the only “dynasty” per say that I actually didn’t loathe and despise. But now, in a way, it’s like that feeling you get when you’re warned about a bad person in your life and you don’t catch it until they do something that justifies all the bad will and crap, then you get the point. And you’re none too pleased with it. For the first time in roughly 13 years, the NFL has a true villain and while I won’t go as far as to call you Bill Bumclothes, you’ve established yourself as Sith Hoodie. Bill Simmons earlier in the year anointed your team as the Cobra Kai Yankees and ya know what? I think he’s right. The Cobra Kai as ruthless as they were, lost when it counted. Last night when the lights were turned up as bright as they’ve ever been…your team got choked out. BRUTALLY.
Now I’m fairly certain with the way the media works, they won’t spin it this way. But the truth is just that. Statistically, this was hands down the best job you’ve done to date. Your team got Brady the playmakers he needed and ironically, much like last year, when they didn’t make plays…you lost. Someone who until they more or less made their move, was a lame duck in a cap outcoached you. I’ve been more than vocal with my displeasure of him and the like and he forced me to eat some humble pie by getting his players to play above and beyond what they were capable of. Still, you’ll forever be known as the guy who coached the greatest bunch of underachievers this side of the 1998 Vikings. A team that like these Pats, had the firepower. Had Moss to boot, but just could not close the deal. 1998 saw the Vikes lose because their kicker didn’t make a sure fire field goal. Yours came because you had to convert a 4th and 13 only Brady had the throw land somewhere in the Mojave. 3 to 1 odds say if you had Vinatieri, you would’ve went for the points. Definitely a huge morale booster to Gostkowski, I mean, Coughlin went with a guy who shanked two field goals in freezing Lambeau IN THE FOURTH QUARTER. What’s that say about you holmes?
Ultimately, it didn’t pay off in the end. In the end, maybe everyone was right when they called you classless, cheats and downright scoundrels. Perhaps the maxim that “cheaters never win” really does hold true after all. Yet, what’s funny is that on top of the fact that your team lost is the fact that there’s going to be the image of you running off the field with a second left. That same second you used to go for it when 3 points would’ve done the trick. Now to be perfectly honest with you, it’d be foolish to think you won’t be back next year. I’d even venture to say that just as the 1972 Dolphins used their loss in 1971 as motivation the year they ran the table, you’ll find a way to spin this into running through all next year. Not to say you’ll succeed, but one has to question a few things now that for two straight years with the money on the wood, you’re going home with lint in your pockets to show for your efforts.
So sorry Boston, doesn’t look like you’ll have that sweep you were looking for. Ya didn’t get Johan (one more for the good guys J) and there’s no guarantee the Celts will win the title in June. But hey…take solace in the fact that while you weren’t man enough to stick around until the FINAL GUN, you’re the first 18 win team in NFL history to NOT WIN IT ALL. It’s funny, but for all the “Humble Pie” you were serving to your players this year, maybe you should’ve tried some. Ah well, plenty of time to do that now, right? Cheers.
Sincerely,
A Giants Fan Drinking Live Wire To Wash Down His Humble Pie
Posted 02/04/08 by Len | Filed under: An Open Letter To...
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