Forget Curse of the Bambino

I don’t want to hear anymore about the poor Red Sox, or The Curse of the Bambino. Please, no more whining from New Englanders about Billy Buckner or how long-suffering they are. They’ve got a team, a hero, a victory, and a championship to take to their graves now, an in-the-clutch, game-ending play to win the title of all titles, the Super Bowl. Not just any Super Bowl, either, but absolutely the most thrilling one ever played, the first one ever to have a team score the winning points on the final play of the game.

Bill Belichick put together the game plan of his life, helping his defense score seven points and set up 10 more. Tom Brady, essentially a rookie quarterback, said he wasn’t nervous or worried and played like Joe Montana those final 81 seconds when the Patriots took over inside their own 20. And Adam Vinatieri, who started this all by somehow making an impossible kick in the snow to help beat the Raiders, kicked the game-winning field goal again, not some perfunctory chip shot, but a 48-yarder that split the uprights dead center as the clock ran from :07 to :00.

This is pretty good stuff, as sappy, cornball sports stories go. The Patriots started the season 0-2, their $100-million quarterback sidelined with a serious injury, and seemingly no place to go but down. And even though they won the AFC East, then came back in the snow to beat the Raiders, then hit the road to beat the favored Steelers in the playoffs, they fumed all week at being 14-point underdogs to the Rams.

“I understand why folks doubted we could stop them,” Patriot linebacker Ted Bruschi said.

But he also knew how it felt to be David, triumphantly standing over a slain Goliath. “I feel like Rocky right now,” Bruschi said, “and I just beat Clubber Lang, Tommy Gun and Apollo Creed. Once in a while, just once in a while the underdog wins it all.”

The NFL actually needed a great game. It needed a thriller to prove to people the Super Bowl is still the grandest event America can stage, that it’s always worth attending, even if the security measures are annoying and the teams not universally appealing. The NFL needed a game that will make those who left early or never showed look at their TVs and know they missed something compelling and historic, something like what happened here Sunday.

MICHAEL WILBON

Washington Post

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Other men win a Super Bowl, and it changes them forever.

Nothing of the sort will happen to Bill Belichick. He already has everything he ever wanted.

The coach’s son who was more interested in poring over his father’s game plans than playing with the rest of the 5-year-olds in the neighborhood has grown into a man who still is more comfortable with a playbook than people. All week long, Belichick’s players painted a picture of a controlling coach who smiled only grudgingly when they won, and often was so consumed he wouldn’t talk to them after a loss.

JIM LITKE

Associated Press

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The theme of the day was patriotism.

The game itself was no different.

The red, white and blue was dominant before, during and after Super Bowl XXXVI. Using a demonstration of spirit, determination and teamwork, the organizers of the game pulled it off, and so did a group of coaches and players who were given no chance.

From the very start, the Patriots were a perfect fit for the unity theme that swirled within the Superdome. All the flag-waving and anthem-singing was designed to assemble a country anxious to show an example of togetherness.

Likewise, so were the Patriots. In a break from Super Bowl tradition, the Patriots were introduced as a team, not individually. That’s the way they played all season, so they figured, why change now? Brady even felt a little guilty when he accepted the MVP trophy, which he won largely for his work on the winning drive.

The Super Bowl mirrored their season, because not one player stood above the rest.

“You can’t beat a team like the Rams with individuals,” safety Lawyer Milloy said. “It takes a team. That’s what you saw today. That’s what we gave during the evolution of a season.”

SHAUN POWELL

Newsday