I don’t know one poll that suggested New England was going to have this kind of night,” said CNN’s Jake Tapper. “Nobody predicted this,” said Chris Matthews on MSNBC.
Nobody did. Because the New England Patriots didn’t have a chance. The Jacksonville Jaguars had the experience and the elite personnel to carry them to victory. Most importantly, the Jaguars deserved to win. And they were certain they would. After all, they’d spent years preparing for this moment. The Jaguars were going to make history as the first Florida team, north of Miami and Tampa, to make it to the Super Bowl. The glass ceiling would finally be shattered.
Oddsmakers had the Jaguars as big favorites. FiveThirtyEight gave them a 74.2 percent chance of winning. Early in the game, with the Jaguars holding on to the lead, that chance of winning climbed to 93 percent.
And then, the unthinkable. The Patriots, led by its quarterback, Tom Brady, began to come back. Within minutes, the Patriots regained the lead. And with the game clock down to 0:00, the scoreboard showed 24-20, favoring the Patriots. All the major networks, as implausible as it sounded, projected the Patriots as winners of the AFC championship game.
It was a jarring defeat for the Jaguars who are having a difficult time coming to grips with the loss. All the players have yet to concede, and their head coach, through a representative, informed the press that he would not have any comment until the next day.
It’s no wonder that the Jaguars are bothered and bewildered—and simply stunned. Without warning, they were victimized by an absolutely shocking turn of events. So shocking, that even now, it’s difficult to fathom how it could have happened.
Let’s face it, Tom Brady had a bad day. Of course, that’s to be expected when you’re 40, and your health is questionable. That black bandage on Brady’s throwing hand was a clear sign that his best days are behind him. Yet Brady somehow managed to emerge victorious, and is poised to become the oldest quarterback to play in the Super Bowl.
Demands are being made of the New England front office to release Brady’s medical records. What type of injury did he suffer exactly? It’s all a mystery. All week long, the Patriots refused to offer any details. What medical procedures were administered, which meds were prescribed that would allow Brady to play through his pain?
Brady did his best to downplay any concerns. “I’ve had a lot worse,“ said Brady. “My only focus was on making the Patriots great again.”
But to many observers, Brady wasn’t convincing. Millions want to know if he is really fit and capable of leading his team in the Super Bowl. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has promised an inquiry into the injury and related matters, but is still being pilloried by fans throughout the country. Many fear a conflict-of-interest and suspect he cannot lead a fair and impartial investigation. They are demanding an independent prosecutor be brought in to sort things out.
New England coach Bill Belichick scoffed at the accusations and basked in the team’s accomplishment. “We’ve just delivered a big, beautiful win for our fans,” said Belichick as his team was celebrating. “This victory is so large and so meaningful, and yet the Fake News is working overtime to follow the lead of their friends, the defeated Jaguars, and only demean. This is truly a case where the results will speak for themselves, starting very soon. Win, win, win.”
Tom Brady was equally proud of the victory. “It’s pretty amazing. It’s just a great accomplishment,“ Brady gushed. “You know, I kept hearing from the other side how they have this button they can press to beat us. So I wanted to show them that I too have a button, but it’s a much bigger and more powerful one than theirs. And my button works!”
It can’t be overlooked that the Patriots are no strangers to controversy and have a long history of getting caught up in assorted nefarious affairs. Suspicion follows them wherever they go. Everyone remembers Spygate and Deflategate. The latter earned Brady a four-game suspension for his role in the shenanigans, and the ensuing coverup.
During the past year alone, the team has been rocked with scandal. It all reached a fever pitch when the Patriots fired an assistant coach, James Knowmey, who was thought to have uncovered evidence of Patriots’ personnel hacking into other teams’ playbooks. Knowmey did not accuse the team outright, but did suggest that their handling of sensitive information was extremely careless.
For some fans in Jacksonville and beyond, the fat lady has yet to sing. And it’s still not over. Not only in Jacksonville, but throughout the country, millions of people have raised suspicions, questioning if the points were tabulated correctly.
Within minutes after the game, a group of distraught fans announced they will be petitioning a Jacksonville district court to force the NFL to recount the points. Anonymous NFL sources have indicated that the manner in which the Patriots scored their last two touchdowns may be contested. The biggest puzzle is how 14 points—more than 50 percent of their total—could have appeared on the scoreboard in just the last 10 minutes of the game when they could only muster 10 points in the game’s initial 50 minutes.
There is also a case to be made for collusion with the Chinese. The giant stadium scoreboard is believed to be manufactured by a China-based company with close ties to the Communist leadership. It’s also been known for quite some time that the Chinese favored a New England victory. It seems a number of Patriots have been negotiating a special sneaker and jersey deal with the Chinese. A Patriots victory would make that deal far more valuable.
As the game footage is reviewed, it will become clear that New England’s apparent “success” was achieved even though they had possession of the football for just over 25 minutes, while Jacksonville had the ball for 35 minutes.
“It just doesn’t add up,” shouted Mildred Bortles, who claimed not to be related to Blake Bortles, the Jacksonville quarterback. Ms. Bortles will be among those heading to court to seek some legal remedy. “There’s no doubt that the game was stolen,” Mrs. Bortles added.
The Jaguars are not waiting to see what happens in the courts. They are organizing what they call The Resistance. Their immediate goal is to have the Patriots removed from participating in the Super Bowl, preferably in favor of the Jaguars, But they are willing to accept any other team. For them, it’s ABB: Anybody But Brady.
Numerous marches are planned with demonstrators taking to the streets wearing what they consider to be the symbol of the Resistance: Big Pussy Helmets, explaining that Jaguars are, after all, simply large wild cats with an exceptionally powerful bite.
So it appears that the nation is entering uncharted territory. It’s troubling, but, clearly, the Patriots have brought it all upon themselves.
Correction from an earlier post: We reported that all the controversy surrounding the Patriots has taken a toll on the team’s popularity, and as a result, the crowd for the game in New England was down dramatically. A quick look at the stands showed thousands of empty seats. We regret that this was not completely accurate. Gillette Stadium was completely sold out. The report accidentally commented on the number of people who were in the stands three hours or so before the start of the game.
Fake News Alert: Everything you just read is fake news. Pretty much nothing in the article above is true. Yes, the Patriots did beat the Jaguars 24-20, and are playing Super Bowl LII on Sunday. Everything else is lies and misinformation. It’s the same kind of distortion of facts practiced by the Democratic Party press each day while covering President Trump, his entire administration, and the Republican Party in general.