The Patriots’ Super Bowl run isn’t just luck

I’m really good at the “mental breakdown because my team just inexplicably lost” piece. Some might say I’ve perfected it. 

It’s a simple recipe: a quarter cup of deadpan explanation of the situation, two tablespoons of emotive indignation, a dash of emotionally potent oversimplification, and four entire cups of poetic license to underscore the crimes against peace currently being waged against your team. They say love is stronger than hate, but for post game coverage in sports? I haven’t found that.

So whoop-de-doodle-ee-doo, what am I going to do with this New England Patriots situation? 

This run to the Super Bowl — not the Puppy Bowl or the Soup Bowl you made for lunch, the actual, unreconstructed Super Bowl — demands the full force of an emotional breakdown, the total mobilization of all poetic resources to describe what’s going on here. But they didn’t inexplicably lose… they are actually… succeeding… inexplicably. This is an unprecedented reaction-content emergency, a bit like getting hit with two feet of snow on some random Tuesday in March. Cool? Yeah. Were we prepared? Not at all. 

You’d think I’d have some experience with this given the fact that the Patriots Dynasty™ was in full swing, oh, for just about my entire life. But amazingly, the entire time I’ve been writing about sports publicly (save for that one time in middle school I made a Google Site and said the Celtics should have drafted Kris Dunn over Jaylen Brown and that Manny Machado deserved the AL MVP) the Patriots have been terrible. Also, the last time the Patriots were good, I was 16! Anyone remember how refined their opinions were when they were 16? Pretty sure I still thought the Les Misérables movie was good back then. It’s not. It isn’t good.

You know what’s good? This Patriots team, and contrary to all logical explanation they have gone from a 4-13 unwatchable disaster to a supremely watchable 17-3 Super Bowl team. Don’t let the last two weeks fool you, this Patriots team in good weather can be very exciting and explosive; Drake Maye will certainly have at least one picturesque deep-ball in the big game, and hopefully TreVeyon Henderson can make his first big play of the postseason when he actually has proper footing. 

Those despairing that the Patriots are in the Super Bowl again because they’re sick of the Patriots Dynasty™, I can’t help you. But those who are worried it won’t be a fun game? Nonsense. 

The “storylines” going into the game are going to be ridden with self-serving “I was right”-isms, with people flying around with takes about how this Patriots team is fraudulent and will get smacked by the Seahawks or that Sam Darnold is fraudulent and will turn into a pumpkin come midnight on February 8th. But in the boldest sports media move since JJ Redick opened the podcaster-to-NBA head coach pipeline, I’m going to do the opposite: I was wrong!

“Sometimes you gotta believe things before you can see ‘em,” said Mike Vrabel in the locker room after the game, referring to how no one this side of the Euphrates River thought the Patriots had any chance of winning the Super Bowl this year in September. And… yeah, pretty much nailed that one, Mike! I did not believe we could win the Super Bowl. I was hoping for a playoff berth. Any New England fan who tells you that they thought this team could win it all this year either says that every year (and is thus delusional) or is lying. Looking at you, Craig from Medford.

But maybe there’s a place for delusion, because while we talk so much about “championship windows” in sports, we might just be getting it all wrong. Your “window” opens in training camp every year and closes when you get eliminated from the playoffs. Even the New York Jets had a window this year; the New Orleans Saints had a window; even the Kansas City Chiefs had a windo—well, actually, maybe that would have been too crazy. You get my point.

“Not believing” in the Patriots to start this season was the rational choice, given the coaching staff and roster had been completely overhauled, and it was reasonable to assume it all wouldn’t just work immediately all at once. Soooooo… it did, and I won’t bemoan the point too much because I laid it out in detail two weeks ago when I wrote the incredibly-poorly-named Google Doc “Patriots season retrospective.” Suffice to say, I did not think this would happen!

This playoff run has been a referendum on many things, the Tennessee Titans’ head coaching decisions notwithstanding (thanks for Vrabel lol). First, it’s a referendum on narrative-based prediction as a method, as the Patriots were favored in all three playoff games so far. Thus, it’s defensible to say this was the expected outcome! However, a lot of people, myself included, had a hard time seeing the Patriots winning three-straight playoff games with all their inexperience. But they did, and so the game-by-game prediction method takes the cake.

Second, it’s a referendum on the importance of skill versus luck in sports, because I will be the first to tell you this Patriots team has gotten ludicrously lucky. Easiest schedule in NFL history. No Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, Patrick Mahomes or Joe Burrow in the playoffs. The best quarterback they will face this postseason will be Justin Herbert, who was horrendous. Bo Nix was injured on one of the last plays of the divisional round. Snow destroyed any chance the Broncos had of a comeback. And now Sam Darnold is waiting in the Super Bowl. Like… dude.

In sports, in politics, in military operations, in life, maybe even in the afterlife, who knows — it is so obviously better to be lucky than good. Because luck does not exist in a vacuum; it’s the lifeblood of success, it affords one the chance to turn a good situation into a great one, and winning is often just whoever builds on their luck the best. The Patriots have been insanely lucky, and they have built a cathedral on it.

Third, it’s going to be a referendum on quarterback redemption arcs, because Sam Darnold winning the Super Bowl would be one of the most incredible career-turnarounds in NFL history. I was there for the Sam Darnold Jets tenure, and despite two years of revisionism, I remember. The North Remembers. He was terrible. He was Zach Wilson before it was cool. He would turn the ball over with unmatched dexterity and excellence. He took sacks that scientists didn’t even think were possible to take. I am flabbergasted at how good he has been. 

Last year on the Vikings, he turned into a pumpkin in the playoffs, but has been spectacular this year. This will also be a massive referendum on “turn-into-a-pumpkin-ism” as a way to discuss quarterbacks, because if Darnold pulls this off, nobody can ever say that again about anyone.

Lastly, it will be the ultimate referendum on the “defense wins championship” postulate you heard from your basketball coach when you were 11 to get you to move your feet. The New England Patriots are now facing their fourth consecutive Top 10 defense in both defensive DVOA and EPA/play — Chargers, Texans, Broncos, and now Seahawks — which is ancient Greek for “they’re really good.” The Seahawks cannot necessarily say the same, and the Patriots unit, while lower-ranked in those metrics than the Rams all season, has been playing out of their minds for a month now. They have three certified lockdown cornerbacks in Christian Gonzalez, Carlton Davis and Marcus Jones, and a front four that simply cannot be stopped as of late. That’s not hyperbole, Christian Barmore and Milton Williams could not be stopped against Denver. Watch this win against Quinn Meinerz. That’s the First Team All-Pro right guard. 

Seattle’s defense presents even bigger problems, with an embarrassment of riches and positionless swiss-army-knives flying all over the field playing coverage and laying huge hits. Mike McDonald calls a dominant unit, and they’ve been the best in the league all year. Drake Maye will have his work cut out for him, but it’s not an easy cut out like a nice triangle. It’s the full Squid Game umbrella. 

The Patriots will be underdogs for the first time all playoffs, but will also be playing in good weather for the first time in three games. Maybe it will throw them off, or maybe it will feel like the drag suit Olympic swimmers wear to make training harder is finally coming off. Maybe Sam Darnold will turn into a pumpkin or a squash or some nondescript root vegetable. Maybe the Mike versus Mike coaching matchup will be one for the ages, or maybe the Seahawks will stomp the young Patriots like a sapling that grew a little too high. I’m ready for anything, and if the Patriots win or lose, I don’t know what I’ll write yet. Because right now, I’m believing in something I still can’t quite see. 

What I won’t do, though, is say something like “this Patriots team is built for the future,” like we all tend to say about a young team that makes the Finals/Championship/Super Bowl in any sport. Because your window is every year, and every year, Craig from Medford is going to believe they will win it all. No longer will I question the wisdom of Craig from Medford. No longer.