Don’t worry: The Patriots will be back

The Patriots lost yet another Super Bowl on Sunday night, their third loss of the last decade. Without context, that sentence could be taken as a tale of tragedy, but let’s be real here — the Patriots story over the last 17 years is not a sad one. They’ve built a dynasty the likes of which we’ve never seen in the modern NFL. And odds are decent that we’ll see them right back here next year.

The Eagles were too much in Super Bowl 52, and were deserving champions, winning the game 41-33. For Eagles head coach Doug Pederson, it’s a triumph and a testimony to a team that could have folded like 19 times this year and never did so.

For the Patriots, they’re left with another Super Bowl loss, and a long offseason to try and find the drive to get back again.

It’s hard to feel pity for this Patriots team. Tom Brady and Bill Belichick are infuriating. I get that. The entire Patriots organization is. (I won’t get into the fanbase, but yeah.) The Patriots are smug and they win and they’re condescending and they win some more. Boston as a city has won like four bajillion titles since 2001. This is all getting old.

But it’s also OK to put aside the hate for a moment and appreciate just how ridiculously good these two have been for the last 17 years. To acknowledge that we’re not going to get to see this for too much longer. And admit that we might never see an NFL run like this ever again.

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On Sunday, the Patriots fell behind early, made the comeback like they did last year and in so many other playoff games before, took the lead ... and then lost it. Patriots fans will blame missed tackles, or missed throws, or Malcolm Butler reportedly coming down with the flu ahead of the game, or Brandin Cooks being knocked out of the game from a violent hit in the first quarter, or a supposed illegal formation by the Eagles on a touchdown (it wasn’t illegal), or a supposed incomplete pass on another TD, or Tom Brady failing to catch a pass on a trick play, one eerily similar to the one Nick Foles would later catch for a touchdown.

The truth of the matter is that the Eagles were a really good football team, and outplayed the Patriots on Sunday. Pederson called an aggressive game from the start and was rewarded for it. He built a beautiful game plan for Foles, who played almost as well as he did last week, when he played the single greatest game of his life.

Alshon Jeffery was brilliant. Corey Clements made an incredible catch in the end zone. The Eagles forced a turnover when it mattered most. It happens.

For Brady and Belichick, the question now is: How much longer can this go on? There were rumblings on Sunday morning that the two would announce this was their final game together. It didn’t seem to come from any actual reporting, just materializing from the ether, as if the rest of the NFL were willing a dual retirement into existence.

Barring a surprise announcement from the two of them, the two will return next year. Brady will spend the offseason eating celery root and guzzling alkaline water, and Belichick will most likely head home and start watching tape for next season’s first preseason game.

For me, that might be the most impressive part of the entire Brady/Belichick run of dominance over the last 17(!) years — the ability to come back the next year and do it all over again. Football is an exhausting game, physically and mentally, and aside from everything else that makes Brady and Belichick the two best to ever play and coach this game, what’s so incredible about them is they have had the ability to, every offseason, find the energy and passion to gear up and do the whole thing again.

I don’t think they’re done. Brady’s pseudoscientific diet and workout regime may be all bullshit, but what isn’t bullshit is that Brady believes in it, and that belief is what matters. He gets to choose. And he’s chosen to sacrifice gluten and negatively charged ions or whatever the hell to ensure he gets to keep doing this.

After a third Super Bowl loss, you’d understand if he and Belichick had enough. No one is questioning their legacy. They’ve done all they can do; if anyone has earned a retirement, it’s these two. They can go and head to the golf course and live comfortably for the rest of their days as New England heroes.

But their refusal to do just that is at the root of what makes them who they are. It’s all wrapped up together. Belichick and Brady won’t walk away because they’re so great, and part of what makes them so great is that they won’t walk away.