The Patriots Way

Left: Heath Evans killing people. Right: Laurence Maroney winding up to kill someone.

Today, January 20th, the New England Patriots beat the San Diego Chargers to earn a birth in the Super Bowl in an attempt to win their 4th Super Bowl since 2001 and to become the first team ever to go 19-0 in a single season. I of course was where I always am during Pats games: My living room, wearing my lucky shirt, shifting side to side in a controlled panic attack. That's the way I roll, but today the Patriots rolled a bit differently. They beat the Chargers with a ball control offense, running the ball deftly, sticking to short passes, and using their offensive line (maulers all) to beat up the physically inferior Charger defense.

Laurence Maroney, all season the forgotten man behind the Flying Elvii (as the Patriots passing offense has been strangely referred to as), ran for 122 yars for the second straight game. With the Patriots passing offense floundering (Brady has 3 int's today), Maroney picked it up with 106 intense yards on the ground in the second half and third down back Kevin Faulk (Whom I will now refer to as Mr. Patriot for the rest of my life) caught some incredibly difficult and timely passes to carry them to victory. Between the two of them, they picked up 221 yards, and even fullback Heath Evans got into the act, picking up two third and shorts for first downs and all in all being a man amongst boys, spearheading many of Maroney's shifty and powerful runs.

Needless to say, I'm excited. I am a tad less excited because the Green Bay Packers (I'm sorry to say!) absolutely choked in the later game, losing to the New York Giants on Lawrence Tynes third attempt at winning the game by a field goal. It's hard to really pick who beat them...was it the Giants? Was it Brett Favre and his incredibly costly and errant bad passes? Was it Ryan Grant, he of the hype and the 26 total yards? No, it was none of them. I'm going to give the losing game ball to the entire Packer secondary, who killed them with horrible coverage, incredibly bad penalties, and altogether stupid decision making. I had at one point called them one of the best secondaries in football, and I am now ashamed to have said that. Bad Packers secondary!

Back to the point, a Patriots/Packers Super Bowl would have been one of the most highly anticipated Super Bowls ever. 90% of the nation would have sit squarely in favor of one team, while I would have stood firmly with my kindred spirit Patriots fans. Now? We get the Giants, a team we already beat once, and we get to play them indoors in warm weather. To quote my Counter-Strike playing alter-ego, Shaft, "GG nubs." I will be the first person to chime in with a predicted score, and here it is: Patriots 34, Giants 13.

Let's do this.