Keep On Truckin’ (One Nation, Underdog…)

So yesterday I had to watch my football team, the New England Patriots get their asses mercilessly handed to them by none other than the Denver Broncos, a team we barely beat in overtime a few games ago thanks to one of the best comebacks in the history of our franchise.  Yesterday we played the Broncos again for the AFC Championship and the right to go to the Superbowl. We fell and we fell hard to a Broncos team that fought like true champions. Any loss of that magnitude hurts but it hurts even more given what the team had to endure prior to and during this season. We loss Wes Welker to the none other than the Broncos due to our team’s inability to but fourth a competitive salary. We loss Aaron Hernandez to, well the entire country already knows how much of an idiot Hernandez is so I’m not even doing to share my two cents on that one. Rob Gronkowski, our star tight end and probably the best NFL receiver in recent memory due to his giant hands, his height, and unbelievable speed was rehabbing injuries from the previous season and wouldn’t be cleared to play until several weeks into the season. With the loss of a very dominant receiver core and the introduction of many rookie players, every sports commentator in existence spelled doom and gloom for our team. No one thought we had a chance at the playoffs this year and everyone wrote us off before we even had a chance to prove ourselves. In those first five games we played during the season, it was obvious our offense was hurting. We barely won games and the lack of a good offense ended up tasking our defensive line greatly which resulted in a nasty ripple effect in the form of losses critical losses to our D Line (Vince Wilfork and Tommy Kelly). Even with a good amount of wins and a lead in our division things were looking grim. Our rookies were sloppy and teams were easily destroying our defensive line. Yet somehow our team always managed to pull through despite the shitty hand they were dealt. Our team had a reliance I had yet see until now. Continue reading