Dear Patriots Fan,
I don't - in most cases - know your name, just the various online handles you use in various chatrooms, message boards and forums. Be it PatriotsFan, bradyisgod, patsrule2007, or whatever else you could come up with, you are the gestalt entity which has earned the ire of NFL fandom.
For almost 5 months now you've been strutting around like the cock of the walk, secure in your team's dominance of the NFL, confidently and arrogantly predicting the perfect season. With nary a glance towards spelling, and a barely a brush with grammar, we've had to hear about how the team from New England are "the graetest in the histry of the game".
Sometimes you seem to have a keyboard without a working shift key, as capital letters elude you, even in your beloved QB "tom bradey".
Also apparent, and almost as often, is your tenuous grasp of punctuation. Great long paragraphs of bile and shameless fawning, broken by not a single comma or full stop, declaring for all the world "I am an ignorant bastard and I am either so stupid as to be unaware of it, or simply arrogant enough to be proud of it," or, as you would put it, "im dum n i dont care."
You've dismissed mention of the Patriots long-time cheating as "haters" and ignored any attempt to discuss relative merits or historical evidence.
No, this season you've made being a fan of any other team a frustrating experience.
And now you're going to whine because it's all coming back on you?
Karma's a bitch.
Yes, you lost.
The Lord High-And-Mighty, Master Of The Comeback, Great And Powerful Engineer Of The Last-Minute Game-Winning Drive, The Golden Boy, The Man Himself, "tom bradey", couldn't hit a cow's arse with a shovel at the end of that game because the Giants had been doing
exactly what fans around the league have been saying for months: plow the field with Brady's face.
I'll leave the analysis for another time. But we were right, you were wrong: Any team that rattles Brady beats the Patriots.
But you refuse to even acknowledge the loss. There are rumblings of cheating, rumblings of biased refs. How absurd.
You lost. You've spent 5 months giving it out, and now it's time for you to take it.
And, yes, that means from everybody. Even Dolphins fans have the right to mock you for your stupidity.
All the jokes, all the ribbing, the names, the insults, these are your due. Take it like a man, even if that means most of you will have to fake it.
Maybe, like the sword going to the forge, this experience will help you. It may be next year, it may be in ten years time, but the next time your "pats" go 7-0, 8-0, 10-0, 12-0, perhaps you'll reserve judgment because you've seen how the mighty can fall.
Maybe, in a future season, if your "pats" go 18-0 to the Superbowl again, even then, maybe - just maybe - you'll hold your tongue and stay away from the message boards with your ridiculous guarantees and silly hyperbole.
Maybe, next time the "pats" start building a nice undefeated season, and the idiots swarm out of the woodwork to take possession of the Superbowl on week 7, you'll be one of the calm heads cautioning patience and wisdom.
And maybe this experience will make you a better friend, a better fan, and a better person.
Maybe.
See you next season.
And remember, 31 coaches now have the Patriots' number, thanks to the Giants.
This sums it up, I think:
