Grim Reality

As the grim reality of the 2008 football season begins to set in, favorite sports columnist Bill Simmons puts it very well in his recent mailbag column on Tom Brady. I can add nothing to this - it's perfect - so I'll just excerpt it here:

Getting final word on the Brady injury felt like being an actor on a cop show and identifying a murder victim at the morgue: Yep, that's it. That's the 2008 Pats season. You can pull the sheet back over it. Thanks.

And as my crestfallen father put it, "I'm not like you. I don't gamble. I don't do fantasy. I could care less about the other teams and what they're doing. I only care about the Patriots. I was really looking forward to this season. I wanted revenge for that stupid game we went to. And the season just ended in eight minutes. It's like it never happened. It just goes to show you what a shame last season was -- you get so few chances to do something great like that, and we had a chance, and we blew it."

Q: If we go back to 1:15 remaining in February's Super Bowl, the Pats have (since) suffered the Tyree catch, the Burress TD, the near-miss Hail Mary to Moss and then Brady's season-ending injury at 7:38 of Week 1. Could this be the worst 8 minutes, 53 seconds in NFL history?-- Howard L., Las Vegas

SG: Apparently, you missed the Rams-Eagles game. Don't rule out the 2008 Rams giving us the worst 960 minutes in NFL history. But you're right, in terms of stomach punches, that had to break the record for "most legitimate stomach punches within nine minutes of NFL action," with Brady's knee injury giving birth to a whole new Level of Losing: The "Left At The Altar Loss," when you're waiting for months and months for the season to start (like planning a wedding), then you have your fantasy drafts (the bachelor party), then you have the rehearsal dinner the night before (making your starting fantasy lineups, making your bets, figuring out which games you'll watch Sunday), then you go to the church for the actual wedding (getting in front of the TV for the 1 p.m. ET games) … and as you're standing on the altar, you find out your bride either changed her mind or got run over by the limo driver. That was me and every other Patriots fan Sunday -- we had our tuxedos on, we were ready to go, and suddenly we were sitting in a waiting room in a hot tuxedo waiting for medical updates on our comatose fiancee and halfheartedly trying to talk ourselves into one of the bridesmaids.