Divine Will

I'm sure that I was not alone in daring to think the Unthinkable last night -- that Our Patriots might... well, let's just be brave about it and just go right out and say it... lose.

The last two games, but especially last night, saw contests that were in doubt the entire way. Our defense doesn't seem to enjoy it very much when the other team comes right at them, rather than meekly handing the ball over the way they are supposed to. At least Mr. Kyle Boller had the decency to throw a back-breaking interception, the way he's supposed to all game long, in a critical point in the fourth quarter.

Similarly, our offense has allowed the Holy Brady to be sullied with the filthy *hands* of the opposition, and roughly thrown to the ground, SIX TIMES.

SIX! How much more can the man be expected to bear! Why don't we just replace his helmet with a crown of thorns, and be done with it? Doesn't the NFL know that the man has to sleep with supermodels and produce the next master race? Won't anyone think of the children!

I'm sorry, I just get very upset sometimes. I haven't been getting very much sleep last night, worrying about The Savior and his pretty, pretty face.

Anyway, in the midst of tossing and turning all night with visions of Raven defenders cheating for down after down after down in the Patriots 50-play drive to victory last night, I finally achieved an epiphany, around 4am, when the mix of berry and bubble gum cough syrups really kicked into overdrive. (I know I shouldn't mix the two, but when My Team is involved, I can be a pretty mean drunk on hard liquor. Also, I finished all of the blueberry schnapps last week, when AJ Feeley worried me so.)

Perhaps -- and this is not anything that we can ever hope to know, because the mind of Coach is not a place that we unfit mortals are permitted to know -- this is all part of Coach's Master Plan to weed out the nonbelievers from the flock.

Perhaps it is not that the Patriots are not particularly well-built for games in bad weather, when we have to degrade ourselves with *running* plays. Or that teams that can get to the quarterback (by flagrant, non-stop and disgraceful cheating, of course) without sending extra blitzers are in the position to keep the game within striking distance.

Or even that Our Team might not even be the hottest team in the league anymore, what with the struggling to defeat below .500 teams and unprecedented back to back failures to cover the spread.

No, this is all just Coach's Will, to make the rest of the league think that they've got a chance, and therefore make them develop a false sense of security when they play Us.

That must be it.

Next week's game is in Pittsburgh. I'm not worried anymore. Coach's Divine Will, and the fact that Ben Rothlisberger will never be the kind of quarterback that AJ Feeley and Kyle Boller are, reassure me. And also you, if you are smart enough to be a Masstermind.

Patriots Uber Alles!