Tom Brady and the New England Patriots quest for perfection fell short. (Source: AP)

In the New England Patriots’ eyes it was all but certain that they would culminate their unblemished season with a trouncing of the New York Giants in Super Bowl XL II. The double-digit Super Bowl favourite Patriots were so self-assured, arrogant and smug that they went to the extent of registering ’19-0’  and ’19-0 The Perfect Season” as trademarks with the United States Patent and Trademark office on January 17th, three days prior to the AFC Championship game against the San Diego Chargers. Talk about devaluing your competition.

Those perfect season plans of course didn’t go as scripted largely because the NY Giants weren’t intimidated by the juggernaut Patriots. They played an aggressive defensive game, manhandling the Pats at the line of scrimmage and caused Tom Brady a heck of lot of confusion and difficulty in getting the record-breaking offense on track. On the other side of the ball, the player formerly known as “the other Manning” came up huge especially down the stretch. Eli Manning was huge in the fourth quarter and cemented his status in New York football history by orchestrating a 83-yard drive to clinch the game.

Entering the big game there were two distinct camps of casual fans: those that were rooting for the Pats’ perfect season and those that were rooting against it. Regardless of who the NFC representative was the latter group of fans were going to cheer against New England largely because of how unlikable they’ve become. It’s a telling full circle story for the Patriots.

It was only seven short years ago that the Patriots were the upstart team led by a young QB that were given little to no chance of winning. Back then New England played the role of double-digit underdog when they upset the “Greatest Show on Turf” St. Louis Rams. The Patriots were beloved for defying the odds as underdogs. In the years that followed that first Super Bowl victory the Pats added two more rings to their fingers, Super Bowl XL II was supposed to be the fourth such victory in seven seasons. Over the past few seasons the Patriots have morphed from those loveable underdogs to a despised near perfectionist imperious dynasty.

The Patriots didn’t become the NFL’s most hated team for the most common reason that befell teams in other markets. Unlike the New York Yankees of the past two decades, the Patriots play in a salary cap system that prevents the flaunting of money and discourages teams to arrogantly outbid and shutout smaller market teams by throwing out more money, so they can’t be accused of simply having more resources than any other team. The Pats success in perennially fielding strong teams is predicated on the simple stock market philosophy of buy low, sell high. Although having a Hall of Fame QB at the helm through all the transition seasons doesn’t hurt either. The Pats, better than any other team in the league have been unafraid to let high price talents like Deion Branch, Ty Law, Lawyer Milloy, Willie McGinest and others leave when their salaries made them expendable to be replaced by cheaper, undervalued and/or aging talents i.e. Wes Welker, Rodney Harrison, Junior Seau, etc.

Certainly a level of disdain is created for the Patriots from their level of their exposure, granted much of it is out of there control. To steal a line from the Jim Rome Show, they’re on TV more than Leave it to Beaver reruns. Of the Pats’ 16 regular season games this season, 6 were played in primetime. Pure unadulterated jealousy is another major reason why so many fans were cheering against the Pats in the Super Bowl. For much of the season New England made things that other teams struggle to do like move the ball with ease of offense look so easy that it created a simultaneous level of admiration and jealousy rolled into one.

These factors surely combine to create a level of disdain against the Patriots but let’s be honest the reason the New England Patriots are so hard to like is because of their prickly leader. A leader who will be judged harshly over the next few months when further details emerge about the extent of Spygate and the level of knowledge Bill Belichick had about his team’s transgressions.

It’s only fitting that the last moment of the Patriots’ season was encapsulated with the classless move of the sore loser and bad sport Belichick leaving the field before the game was over. I hope that the mainstream sports media takes Belichick to task for his leaving the field with time left on the clock as much as they vilified Randy Moss when he left the playing field a few years ago as a Minnesota Viking with a few seconds left on the clock. Just think about it this way, every coach who was on the losing end of the Patriots’ 18 wins at least had the decency to remain on the sidelines for the full duration of the game despite in many cases the trouncing and public beat down their teams where administered. Bill Belichick should be reprimanded by the league and since he didn’t learn his lesson of proper decorum by paying a half a million dollar fine when he was exposed of cheating in Spygate, I have to think the next course of corrective action he needs is a suspension. For a guy who’s labeled as a genius you would think Belichick would be smart enough to seek out the counsel of his star wideout before committing such a public blunder. But then again Moss and Belichick don’t have the closest of relationships to begin with, when asked about his relationship with his surly coach during Super Bowl media day, Moss simply said, “We don't really conversate.”

I’ve given it some thought and the Patriots losing their chance at the perfect season on the last game of the year is the equivalent of a 99-year old that dies on the eve of their 100^th birthday. In both cases there’s so much hype, anticipation and pre-planning that goes into commemorating the big moment, then when the moment doesn’t come to fruition there’s a period of shock and speechlessness because there was a strong conviction that the moment was going to happen. Just as living to 99 years of age is a remarkable accomplishment that defies most odds, an 18-1 season still deserves a considerable amount of applause and adulation, heck, it is a record for most wins in a season. But without the Super Bowl trophy or Willard Scott acknowledging your triple digit birthday it’s not as special.