18-1.
Perfect season, almost. The Pats didn’t finish it.
Greatness finishes. Not to take anything away from NY, because they filled the classic underdog role, banding together and taking the "us against the world" mantra, and they really delivered a great, clutch game.
But the Pats didn’t finish. Now, instead of being "the greatest team ever", they go down as having the worst / biggest / most memorable loss in Super Bowl history. It doesn’t matter that they have 3 Super Bowl wins. It doesn’t matter that they had an undefeated regular season. It doesn’t matter that they won with seeming ease in the playoffs.
THEY DIDN’T FINISH.
Chuck Klosterman wrote a great article about how losing would immortalize the humanness of the Patriots’ historic season. He’s right. Instead of looking at them as machines, we can now learn a heavy but good lesson from their loss – FINISH THE EFFING THING. Towards the end of the season it seemed they let up a bit, they stopped scoring the "Eff you touchdown", running up the score, etc. Granted, it’s easy to understimate how difficult it is to keep that mental edge for an entire season – even Michael Jordan admitted as much during their 72-10 season. But it just seemed like they let up towards the end of the season.
And it wasn’t that they were overconfident in the SB; it was that because they tried to be so cool calm and collected that they didn’t play with the emotion they needed to – especially on defense – and in no sport is emotion / momentum more important than in football.
But nothing they did all season matters now. All the talk about "G.O.A.T." (Greatest Of All Time, for those who’ve never seen that acronym), all the records, none of it matters. They didn’t finish.
I have been inspired all season by their dedication to focusing on the moment, on the task directly at hand. That is a great lesson to learn from them and their 18 wins.
But there comes a time, when it’s all on the line, to let go of some of that emotional control and go balls-to-the-wall to the finish line. They didn’t do that.
Until you’re dead, you have a chance to do that. FINISH. No matter what you’ve done in life, good or bad, don’t forget to finish.
The Patriots looked like the Patriots, when they regained the lead late in the 4th quarter. But where was the emotion on defense that last drive? FINISH. Because instead of "ever", as Junior Seau alluded to, now they look at forever being known as…18-1.