CUNNING COMMENTARY:Brady's Bunch a Perfect Family

Last week, while on vacation in the Berkshires, I came across a strange sight at the supermarket. On sale near the checkout aisles, New England Patriots and New York Giants jerseys, cupcakes, banners and balloons lay side-by-side. I realized that I was in one of a few strange, Twilight Zone-like patches in the world: a place where Boston and New York sports fans could co-exist in peace.

Certainly, Sunday’s Super Bowl matchup lacks some of the Boston-New York bite to which sports fans have become so accustomed. What pushes this game past the level of usual Super Bowl hoopla is, of course, the Patriots’ potential place in history.

As usual, sports fans seem to be rallying against the favorite—a natural position for those without an affiliation to either team.

But New England is a different type of favorite. It’s not fun to root for New England simply because the team stands at 18-0 (though, I admit, that does make it fun). The season has been “perfect,” from the fan perspective, because we have been able to watch the way a team comes together from its separate parts. The three players who have contributed most obviously to the Patriots success—Tom Brady, Randy Moss, and Wes Welker—have all had their best seasons as pros.

It’s certainly been fun to see Welker elevate his status from relative unknown to the league’s leading receiver,. More rewarding has been watching two of the NFL’s most talented players—Brady and Moss—grow simply by virtue of working with the other. While the wins and the records have been the icing on the cake, Patriots fans have the feeling that, in a weird chick-flick kind of way, these two have just been waiting to find each other.

Ever since New England established the potential for an undefeated season, each one of its games has taken on something a little something extra for everyone involved. As the Patriots started their season on a tear, winning games by two or three touchdowns with regularity, I realized that a loss, if it ever came, would hurt twice as badly.

It’s important to remember that this team is not simply a winning machine, that it’s human. Not human because—have you heard?—Brady sometimes brings flowers to his girlfriend. No, the tension exists because the Patriots are vulnerable, due to their apparent invincibility. More vulnerable, and thus more exciting, more fun to follow, because they have the most to gain by winning, and to lose by losing.

Giants fans will rightfully argue that their team is more vulnerable, more exciting, because it actually has lost. Until this season, every Eli Manning deep throw provoked was an exercise in abdominal fortitude. Before it stormed through the playoffs, New York allowed huge point totals to the NFC’s top two teams in weeks one and two, and critics said that once again, the Giants couldn’t quite hang with the big boys. Following this up-and-down season, New Yorkers might say, was more exciting than enjoying their opponents’ apparently monotone success.

But the Patriots—and their fans along with them—have had their moments of panic. As a few other editors of this newspaper can testify, I was prostrate on the floor and nearly hysterical in the final seconds of the Pats’ dramatic 27-24 win over the Baltimore Ravens in early December. Once I recovered from hyperventilating, I realized for the first time that an undefeated season was far from inevitable. The zero on the right side of New England’s record had flickered and might do so again. Sure enough, a few weeks later, the Patriots faced a fourth-quarter deficit to the very same Giants team they’ll see again on Sunday. While the record is perfect, the play, especially lately, hasn’t been.

Sunday’s rematch between these two teams will be historic regardless of the result: either the Patriots will be the first team to post a 19-0 record, or the Giants will be the ones who halted the “perfect” team. But as side-by-side shots reveal Brady’s dimples and Manning’s pseudo-acne, remember that this season, and this game, has been about the best sports have to offer. The Patriots are in the process of achieving what we all hope to be a part of as observers: the result of talented, hard-working individuals reaching their highest potential as a unit. As a sports fan, you couldn’t ask for much more.

- Staff Writer Emily W. Cunningham can be reached at ecunning@fas.harvard.edu