Anyways, apparently I’m a glutton for punishment and had sports radio on yesterday every time I was in the car. So ride it with Toucher and Rich, lunch with whoever was filling in for Gresh and Zo, and my ride home from work was Felger and Maz handing it off to DA. It was during the hand off that I heard that last of the calls of the day and like it so much I made it my Facebook status (thus me asking who’s friends and who’s not).

For all that we may have been down yesterday, that call really made me laugh. It made me laugh for all the bandwagon jumpers that were just like that guy. Clearly the call was a joke, but really, we were inundated with TONS of bandwagon folks.

But the reason for the headline is this; it does suck. It sucks that they lost for sure but what really sucks is that sports radio is going to analyze all this stuff for the next two weeks. I mean, there’s nothing else to talk about now. It’s like a sports black hole around the MLB All Star game in the summer. We don’t embrace college sports in Boston, the Celtics are mediocre and not worth talking about, and the Bruins are great but we’re just waiting for the playoffs to start at this point.

And the ultimate dick punch yesterday? Was getting this email from Modells in my Inbox:

The team that played better, won. That’s the bottom line. I’ve moved on, and I wish sports radio would too. Enough with the Gisele and Welker not making the catch. I really don’t want to hear anymore about it. Yes we know with a healthy Gronk the team probably wins that game.

Wake me up when it’s draft time and we have our two first and two seconds. This team isn’t going anywhere and has a chance to really add some pieces in the draft.

Look forward not backward.

We worried all season about the defense. We worried that they’d not be able to stop anyone. We figured when the Pats played the Packers in the Super Bowl it’d be a shootout that they might be able to win and knew it would be whoever had the ball last.

Well, we know the Packers were knocked off by the Giants and it was the Giants that faced the Pats last night in the Super Bowl.

The Pats came out and took a dump offensively on their first possession getting called for a safety as Brady mailed a pass 40 yards down field to no one. The already tired defense came back on the field and before we could blink it was 9-0 Giants.

The thing is, the defense that was band but don’t break all season, continued the trend. They kept the Giants off the scoreboard the rest of the half and woke up to go into the half 10-9. To say I wasn’t worried was an understatement. Like Eli said before the game, “If the Pats are up 45-0 at the half, I’ll still be worried.”

We knew the lead wasn’t safe but we knew having deferred that the Pats would have a chance to extend their lead from 10-9 to 17-9. Which the Pats did. Were we comfortable? Of course not, but this was a good way to start the half and we figured if the defense could get the offense the ball one more time, soon, they could really put the game out of hand.

But it never happened…

We watched Brady throw a pick intended for Gronk when they should have been rushing the ball and killing clock (we miss you Corey Dillon). We watched Wes Welker not catch a ball he’s caught probably 15 times this season. It was a dagger. With the offense sputtering we sat in shock.

We sat in shock as Eli drove his team down and for all that we were rooting for a turnover, the clock was working against us. We said they should let the Giants score, which they did, and then the Pats got the ball back with a little over a minute left.

Normally you’d think a minute and change would be enough for Brady but after the last Super Bowl, you had to have a sinking feeling in your stomach too. That magic with Wigggins, Redmond, and Troy Brown just didn’t seem to be there anymore.

And it wasn’t.

The team couldn’t get that last touchdown and for the second time in four years the Pats lost to the Giants. Which led to this Facebook post from me:

The Pats are young, Brady is hungry, and they’ll be back. It’s a bitter taste right now, but we’ll bounce back. We always do.

I just went back and read my column for the last time the Giants and Pats were ready to face off in the Super Bowl. You can read it yourself Click Here. It’s amazing how not only confident but downright cocky I was as at the time.

The good thing that came out of this was that it humbled a fan base. We wouldn’t take opponents lightly anymore and it really started to put a chink in the armor of Belichick. At that point we all were still drinking the Kool Aid but that was the first big gaffe that we’d seen.

So what have we learned in the last four years? Well, we’ve learned that Belichick isn’t infallible. We seen free agent signings that kind of blew up in his face, draft picks that didn’t pan out, and some coaching decisions that left us scratching our head (fourth and two).

But even through these mistakes, the team has been consistent. We haven’t had the misfortunes of suffering as a fan base through a 4-12 season. They’ve made the playoffs almost every year since that year and the one season they didn’t, the Pats still had an 11-5 record.

Nope, where the team faltered was in the playoffs. We saw the Ravens go up 21 in the first quarter and were just shocked. Then we saw Rex and the Jets come in last year when the Pats were the #1 seed and knock them off. Again, shocked.

But with the passing of Myra Kraft this season you sensed that there had to be some sort of divine intervention. I mean, a superior Steelers team gets knocked out by the Broncos. Then Cundif’s kick sails wide left. Then you somehow get the team with the worst record coming out of the NFC? Something’s clearly at work.

So for all that we’ve listened to the back and forth this week with the NY writers coming on our radio shows and shaking our confidence, at the end of the day my confidence with the Pats is too strong. Call it homerism but I really think that the Pats can win this game. I think that there is so much anger and bitterness from the last time these two faced in the Super Bowl that Belichick has his team ready to play perfectly.

I know it was almost two different teams in November when they played but think back to the game. The Pats drove down the field and Brady hit Gronk for the go ahead touchdown. Pats were up 20-17 with a minute and a half left on the clock. We looked at each other in the casino and all said the same thing. The Pats left too much time on the clock. The defense isn’t good enough to keep the Giants off the board. We’d hoped for a field goal, and we all know what happened. I made a bunch of money on a ridiculous 14 point spread.

So I think that if you take the stupid mistakes out of that game like Brady missing receivers all over the field that was a very different football game. The Pats could have been up at least 21 at the half instead of tied at zero. I think the same could be said about when the Pats lost to Pittsburgh. You take out the mistakes and the team probably wins that game.

So back to what I was saying, I think Belichick has the team poised for perfection. Each player doing his job, no breakdowns. I’m not saying the Pats are going to go 49ers over the Broncos 55-10 1990 style on the Giants but I think that they’ll manage the clock a lot better than they did in November towards the end of the game and I think it will come down to a field goal. Just so happens it will be a Gostkowski field goal and the Pats win 24-21.

Back Monday, really happy, or…

Another baseball column? No, hear me out.

So it was reported yesterday that the Patriots are going to try out a special cleat to help Gronk. Well, if I’m remembering my Boston sports history correctly, didn’t the Sox say they were going to try a special cleat for Curt Schilling back in 2004?

We all know that the cleat didn’t work and he ended up wearing the shoes pictured above.

I know it’s not the same injury but it appears to be similar, no?

So how about the Patriots contact Dr Morgan and get him down to Indy. Would it be really out of whack, assuming the injury is similar, for him to perform the same procedure on Gronk to get him able to play in the game?

I’m in the group that says that Gronk is the key in this game. If he doesn’t play, the Pats are going to have a much harder time winning. Way to state the obvious, I know.

Tomorrow we’ll get my official preview.

So listening to sports radio yesterday (still only 98.5 The Sports Hub for reference) they had some guy from NY on and they were asking him about the Super Bowl and his prediction. Now up until this point most of the people that I’ve heard being interviewed about the game went one side or the other (NY people taking the Giants, local guys taking the Pats) but were within a three point margin.

 This guy was different.

 He predicted a Giants blow out similar to the Giants blowing out the Packers earlier in the playoffs.

 Needless to say, this scared me. Don’t get me wrong I’m confident in the Patriots but have to admit that this prediction shook my confidence a little bit. I mean, the Pats defense andGreen Bay’s defense were both ranked pretty far down in the league this season. In fact most people that predicted a Pats/Packers Super Bowl said it would be a game with no defense and it would be the last person with the ball that would win.

So how will this really shake out? Well, you’ll have to wait till Friday for my prediction column.

But the fact that I could be rattled by just one guy’s educated opinion really bothers me. I know that the Broncos weren’t a good barometer for the Patriots but I thought that the Ravens certainly were and that the defense really stepped up when they had to at the end of the game.

I don’t think the Pats defense is as bad as everyone’s saying they are. I’m not saying they’re the ’85 Bears, but I think with a healthy Spikes and Chung in there up the middle, they’re a much better defense than the one featuring guys off the street.

I need you to chime in and make me feel better. Don’t let this one NY guy change my opinions.