The Silver Lining

Tom Brady is out for the season, in case you haven’t heard.

I would have to brush up on my five stages of grief from freshman psych, but suffice it to say that I have already moved on to “acceptance.” He’s out, he’s down for the season, and there is nothing we can do about that part. I have to stop reading message boards about it, because the anti-Patriot schadenfreude is off the charts. People hate us. I get it. But the sheer glee, the celebration at a man’s debilitating injury is sickening. Look, I hate Peyton Manning with a passion, but I would absolutely not dance a celebratory jig if he blew out his knee. Shawne Merriman is quite possibly my least favorite current NFL player and he almost certainly IS going to (stupidly, by his own choice) blow out his knee at some point this year, and while the Chargers are at least a tangential rival of the Pats, I will take no joy from it. So, to sum up, the internet trolls who spout garbage like “karma is a bitch” or “it couldn’t happen to a better guy/team” can just go die.

Now…on to the rest of the season. Or, as I shall now call it:

LOOKING FOR THE SILVER LINING WHEN THE BEST QB OF ALL-TIME GOES DOWN

First, Matt Cassel actually looked pretty good on Sunday. His pre-season performance was so uninspired that I actively hoped we would cut him loose. But obviously Bill Belichick, as usual, is smarter than everyone else. Cassel knows this system, and the coaches know what he can and cannot do. The people instantly writing this team off are simply misguided. We still have the best receiving tandem in the league, and that’s worth a lot—case in point, the 50 yard gain on a great adjustment by Randy Moss yesterday. There will be plenty more of those, by him, by Wes Welker, and by the rest of our talented pass-catchers. Losing one guy, even an All-World quarterback, is by no means a death sentence for the 2008 season.

We also happen to have four running backs that are pretty good. The offensive line has been pretty suspect since the end of last season, and they clearly need to step it up. We’re not going to be chucking it around the field 40-50 times a game any more. We’re just not. There’s some talent on the line. Enough to win some games by just grinding it out? We’ll see. The schedule is soft enough that we should be able to do exactly that at times.

But the biggest upside of this whole situation is the instant readjustment of expectations. Last year obviously ended on a horrible note, and it’s because that team was so ridiculously good, but all they’ll be remembered for is the final inability to seal the deal. Simply put, that sucks. We re-wrote the record books and had the best 18 game stretch of any team in the history of the sport, and in the end it counted for nothing. The Pats even hung an ill-advised banner to commemorate the regular season—a huge mistake. But really, the days of having a league-wide bullseye on our backs should be over, at least for the remainder of the season.

And that’s actually kind of cool.

What it means is that we don’t have to hang on every single game, with any loss being sickening. Because we had become that good. Don’t get me wrong—I had so much fun with that last season that it was insane, and I really hope to return to that level of dominance as soon as next season. But the Matt Cassel era gives us a different rooting opportunity. Now we can live week to week with dampened hopes. We can be happy with every single win. We can dream about possibly still winning the division. We can aim for the playoffs, with the memory that anything can happen then. We can root for a quarterback that has not started a game since he was in high school. And we can rub it in everyone’s faces when the Patriots continue to play like the Patriots.

Mark my words: this is far from over. The Patriots will make the playoffs. In fact, they will still win the AFC East. They get to truly play the underdog role that they have relished, and get to legitimately flaunt the “no respect” card that they love to play. We’ll see what happens, but I think it’s going to be a fun ride. And for the first time in a long time, it’s okay to view something that ends with less than a Super Bowl victory as a successful season.

I already can't wait for the Jets game Sunday.