A Patriots Fan's Lament

The New England Patriots didn't just lose on Monday Night Football this week. They got hammered.  Bill Littlefield has been taking the pulse of New England football fans of this .500 team.

Among the only certainties upon which all must rest
Is this: New England's football team, if not, perhaps, the best,
Is certainly among 'em: They are organized and slick,
For they've been led for years now by the wily Belichick.

He rarely smiles, this Belichick. His lips are mostly sealed.
Reporters ask him questions...Ah, but nothing is revealed.
He's said to be a genius by the folks who know the game,
But Monday night a crack appeared across his fabled fame.

At game's end on that night we witnessed something seldom seen:
The Pats were on the losing end of 41-14.
All night Tom Brady's passes fell into opposing arms,
Or sailed beyond the reach of his receivers, as alarms
Went off in fans from Providence to Winthrop-by-the-sea,
In Maine and in New Hampshire, too, gloom triumphed over glee.

The season's young, they tell me. This is no time for despair.
But still I see, in my mind's eye, Tom Brady sitting there
Alone upon the bench's end, his face a tragic mask,
For he and Head Coach Belichick, were not up to the task
Of putting points up on the board as fast as K.C. did.
And are the Pats engaged upon the slipp'ry sort of skid
That lesser teams endure sometimes, teams lacking stone-faced Bill,
Does that explain why Pats fans have been looking kind of ill?

Oh, somewhere birds are singing, and the sun is shining bright,
And somewhere fans are laughing and their happy hearts are light.
There's dancing in the streets somewhere, and hope is on the rise,
As visions of the Super Bowl dance in the shining eyes
Of fans of teams that have three wins as fall goes stumbling on.
New England has a paltry two. If hope there isn't gone,
It's packing up its bags to leave; its mood has turned to mean.
"A loss?" it says. "We'd handle that. But 41-14?"

So blind to autumn's glory as it spreads across the hills,
New England fans anticipate the winter's coming chills,
And who can blame them if they feel at least a little sick
At glimpsing the mortality of their Bill Belichick?