Let's Check in With the Patriots Haters and Enjoy Their Delicious Tears

I still think the punt hit Edelman’s left hand. … You tell me that’s not a crazy break?
– Michael Felger

Like I said last week around this time, it’s not enough to succeed. To know true happiness, others must also fail.

These are remarkable days to be a Patriots loyalist. But as much as we are enjoying a post-orgasmic cuddle with yet another AFC title, you can’t fully be in the moment until you enjoy the misery of the anti-Pats jihadists. If I didn’t know it to be impossible, I’d be tempted to say their hatred exceeds our happiness. That would be ridiculous. But it is close. And it feeds my soul.

Cliff Kellerman is arguing Tom Brady – who engineered three go-ahead touchdown drives in the last 7 1/2 minutes and overtime – is just lucky because Mathew Slater won a coin toss. Felger is yelling at the clouds that the punt nicked Julian Edelman’s thumb tip. Eric Dickerson is still fighting the fight of Super Bowl XXXVI and lying his ass off. Rob Parker is checking into a hospital or moving to Mexico while his radio partner is saying he’s on his own. Shank is trying to pretend he’s somehow been on the right side of history all along.

The only one who’s admitting he’s finally had his spirit broken and the fight taken out of him is Shannon Sharpe:

Good for him. It takes a lot of character to finally admit you’re wrong after nine trips to the Super Bowl and every postseason record known to man. At least it makes Sharpe better than the rest of these bozos. Maybe now he can unblock the million or so New Englanders he hasn’t had the mental toughness to face.

God help me, I love it so. It’s not so much Schadenfreude. The Germans have an even better word for it: Fremdschamen. It means to be embarrassed vicariously through someone who doesn’t have their shit together enough to be embarrassed for themselves.

But we can’t help these guys. They are beyond saving. All we can do is be glad there is a nation of millions just like them who are having yet another Super Bowl Sunday ruined. And enjoy the tears of unfathomable sadness. So yummy.