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After last night’s New England Patriots – San Diego Chargers game, I sent an email to a couple of friends that read, “We won! We won! We won! I’m so happy!” As a New England Patriots fan, I get to send emails like that one with some frequency. In the morning after, the giddiness remains. So you’ll pardon me if I pause for one off-topic post before solving the president’s communication crisis or answering Andrew Sullivan’s calumnies.

One thing I imagine most people can’t understand in these days when sports commentators endlessly drone on about the Patriots Mystique is that for the first 30+ years of their existence, the Patriots were a cursed and wretched franchise. They were a joke. They were losers. It took 25 years of existence before they won their first playoff game.

Even for most serious Patriot fans, those days are now a distant memory. Bill Belichick and Tom Brady have built the Patriots into the model professional sports franchise. While others talk trash, the Patriots perform. At crunch time, when other teams are making emotional mistakes, the Patriots remain as cool as the other side of the pillow (to borrow a phrase).

YESTERDAY LOOKED LIKE IT was going to be an awful day for our Patriots. I was once a professional football obsessive; if I still were, I wouldn’t have been so blindsided by what a talented group the San Diego Chargers are. I knew Tomlinson was great, but I didn’t expect the Chargers to be so much faster and more powerful than the Patriots. Throughout the game, the Patriots seemed like they were playing uphill, like they had just barely enough talent to stay on the field with the Chargers. Halfway through the second quarter, my brother and I convened an emergency phone call where we acknowledged the painful possibility that the Patriots might get blown out.

But we forgot one thing about the Patriots: They always play up to their abilities. Even if they are a bit outmanned, as they were yesterday, the other guys will have to play pretty close to their best to win.

And that brings us to the Chargers. A couple of thoughts here, probably neither of which will be unfamiliar to anguished Chargers fans this morning: Boy, Ladandanalidanian (possible spelling error) Tomlinson is good. And boy, were the Chargers a bunch of undisciplined, poorly coached idiots. Fumbles, interceptions and other physical mistakes happen. Mental errors, especially ones of the self-indulgent variety like personal fouls, happen repeatedly only because the players and the coaching staff tolerate them.

Going into the game, I felt the Patriots had two big advantages. One was in the coaching department where the Patriots had the greatest coach of the modern era going against the biggest playoff loser in league history. The other was that the Patriots had Tom Brady, an asset unlike any other in the league’s history.

Frankly, as the first half wore on, I didn’t think these things would be enough. But then the Chargers and their coach began having just enough brain-cramps to keep the Patriots in it. When Marty Schottenheimer eschewed a punt or a field goal to go for it on 4^th and 10 in the first quarter, I knew anything could happen. And I still can’t figure out why the Chargers didn’t put the ball in Tomlinson’s hands more often. Like everyone else in the league, the Patriots had no answers for L.T. I was grateful for every Chargers offensive play that didn’t have L.T. as its showpiece. I bet the Patriots defense felt the same way.

AT THE END OF THE DAY, the Patriots prevailed because of a combination of good luck, their opponents’ willingness to self-destruct and their own uncanny ability to execute when it matters most.

As for the Chargers and especially their fans, I know how they feel. In a long forgotten era, the Patriots used to excel at losing these types of games, the kind that ripped a fan’s heart out. The Chargers’ post-game exhibition couldn’t have provided any comfort to their fans. The fact that their self-described “classy” superstar spent his post-game press conference whining that a couple of Patriots danced too demonstrably in the aftermath of their victory doesn’t augur well for the Chargers acquiring the necessary maturity to be champions.

And then there’s this: On the game’s key play, San Diego Charger Marlon McRee intercepted a Brady pass on 4^th down with approximately six minutes left. If McRee had just batted the ball down, the Chargers would have taken possession in better position than they would likely have had after he returned the pick. If he had just gone down after the interception, the Chargers would have had the ball back with an eight point lead and six minutes remaining. But McRee tried to run back the interception, and Patriot living legend Troy Brown ripped the ball from his hands. The Patriots recovered the ball, got a fresh set of downs and went on to win the game.

Afterwards, McRee refused to learn from his error. He defended himself, saying:

I was trying to make a play, and any time I get the ball I'm going to try and score. If it's a two-minute situation, that is the only time I'll try to knock the ball down. I didn't see the receiver [Brown] behind me and he stripped it. The receiver made a great play. I have no regrets for trying to make a play.

There, in one post-game quote, is the difference between the New England Patriots and other pro sports franchises and another example of why New England fans so adore their football team.

You don’t get better in anything at life if you refuse to acknowledge your mistakes. The Patriots have this figured out. They face their weaknesses and fix them. When the Patriots have lost over the past six years, they have never focused their post-game attention on their opponents’ conduct or other distractions. They instead concentrated on what they needed to do to get better. It is beyond inconceivable that the Patriots would lose a game due to a series of increasingly harmful mental mistakes and be angry at anyone other than themselves.

At times yesterday, the Patriots looked tired and beat down. But at the end of the day, as usual, they were looking like champions.

Comments? Critiques? Contact me at Soxblog@aol.com.