ESPN.com - Enjoy your hangover, New England

ESPN.com: Page 2

Monday, February 4, 2002
Updated: February 7, 6:51 PM ET
Enjoy your hangover, New England

By Brian Murphy
Special to Page 2

The Cooler, if you will recall, was parked last week in Copley Square, right by the T station.


	Adam Vinatieri may need to adjust to a new long snapper.

Let's go Major Understatement this morning and say ... yeah, we'll keep it there.

Spike it with Irish whiskey. Pour a little clam chowder, if needed.

Despite the best wishes and intents of you foul-mouthed, profanity-laced, vitriol-laden e-mailing New Englanders who have exactly located the place where the sun does not shine and encouraged me to shove The Cooler there ... I come to you full of love today, baby.

Let's smoke the peace pipe. And if we do it NorCal style, we'll all be the better for it. Trust me, babe.

Where do we start at The Cooler?

First of all, let's start with The Hangover.

Can all of New England remember a Hangover like the one it is currently experiencing? I simply cannot find it in my West Coast self to believe that any moment in New England sports history -- not Fisk, not Bird stealing the ball from Isiah, not B.C. winning an NCAA hockey title -- can match the Hangover you are currently feeling. We in NorCal remember the vibe. It was January 1982, and it was Joe and Dwight and The Genius and The Goal-Line Stand and, sweet Jesus, are those unbelievable memories.

Just thinking about 'em makes me want to pop two Advil and chug a pint of water.

St. Pauli Girl beers for all Cooler-dwellers. You do, truly, never forget your first time.

So let's say it: Was it the best Super Bowl of all-time?

I don't know. I do know that no team has ever shown more stones in a Super Bowl than the 2001 New England Patriots. As Clint Howard said of Steve Martin's kid in that Little League game in "Parenthood," the Patriots had no business being in that Super Bowl!

And they certainly in the name of Georgia Frontiere had no business winning the freaking thing!

This really is Super stuff.

The Super Bowl used to suck. Blowout city. Now, in the last five years, we've had John Elway going helicopter on us in an upset of mighty Green Bay. We've had Steve McNair's last-second bid for glory ended on the 1-yard line by Rams LB Mike Jones.

Maybe the salary cap and free agency, which have created a regular season that, plainly, blows, gives us the best possible postseason -- parity in January.

And now we have the Pats. The defense. The Tom Brady Thing -- you know, the Joe Montana vibe, only without the talent. The Bill Belichick thing. And Adam Vinatieiri.

Side note: If I ever hear that Adam Vinatieri is buying a drink anywhere in a 60-mile radius of the Olde Towne, I am personally hopping a nonstop from SFO to Logan and challenging to a duel with sabres the barman or the bar patrons who make Vinatieri dig.

Adam Vinatieri, friends, drinks for free until we lower him down into the dirt. Clear on that?

I am full of maximum props for the team that has to be considered the Most Epic ever to win the Super Bowl. Note: the quality of Epicness does not necessarily mean Hall of Fame stuff. There have been much more talented squads to win it all. Like, 35 of them. But to truly reach the state of Epicness, you have to dump a two-touchdown favorite, you have to do it by beating the crap out of them physically, you have to do it by withstanding a storm, and you have to do it by winning as the clock expires.

That, pal, makes you Epic.

I, like the rest of America, refused to believe. You in New England, as you may or may not have expressed to me in e-mails that would give Andrew Dice Clay pause, believed.

Lads, you win. As a great Californian once said: Can't we all just get along?

Or, as my boy Howie, born in Boston, raised in Plymouth, now living in New York, said to me when he called at the end of the third quarter:

"Aaaaaaaa ... Uuuuuuuuu ... Oooooo ... Uuuuuu ... Aaaaaaaaa ... Uuuuuuuuuu."

He was wearing his Ty Law gamer at the time.

I had to tell him: "Fifteen minutes to go, bro. Do me a favor. Don't forget to breathe."

The List of Five, then, dedicated to the Exhale Heard 'Round New England, where the slate-gray February skies seem just a little bit brighter:


	Willie McGinest puts a celebratory hug on his mom in the same way that drew a nearly devastating flag.

1. The defensive holding call
Confession: I watched the game from the press room at Pebble Beach. Had Pat Perez/Matt Gogel duty along the shores of the Pacific. Rough gig. They even drop a cooler full of beer in the room while you write. Like I said, rough gig.

Anyway, we're all sorta writing about Gogel and mostly watching the game/drinking the PGA Tour's beer when Kurt Warner scrambles like his shoulder pads are made of concrete. He fumbles. The Pats go all the way. Until the flag.

Here was my thought process when I saw that: Oh, man, Warner runs like he got shot in the leg. Oh man, he fumbled. Oh man, the Pats are going all the way. Oh man, people in Boston are going naked. Oh man, people in Boston are in Full Nudity mode. Oh man, people in Boston are roaming the streets, drinks in hand, Fully Nude.

Then I saw the flag.

Here was my thought process: A flag? Oh man, people in Boston are exchanging their drinks for torches. Oh man, people in Boston are currently burning the city down. Oh man, people in Boston are organizing a posse to roll down to Manhattan and burn down Tags' Madison Avenue digs. Oh man, I wonder if they'll put on clothes before they do that?

Bottom line, and my boy T.C. always trots this out at times like this: There is a reason the World Series is the best sporting event America has to offer. When Scott Brosius hits a game-winning home run in Game 5, and when Derek Jeter hits a game-winning home run in Game 4 ... nobody looks for a flag.

2. Bill Belichick: Brian Billick, only deserving of praise
Like I told my guy Howie: I covered the NFL for five years. I heard every assistant coach break down blitz tendencies and zone defenses like they thought I knew what they were talking about. I've been an NFL fan for 25 years. I've heard talk radio and read beat stories until the scene has morphed into the Edge NFL Matchup gig that we have today, with Ron Jaworski breaking down game films in between orders of baby back ribs.


	Taking the Pats to the top secures Bill Belichick's stature as a coaching genius.

And I still have no idea what the hell Bill Belichick did to the Rams.

All I know is, every play, it looked like the Pats had 15 guys on defense. The Rams oughta send the film to Tags, protesting the fact the Pats had 15 guys on defense.

This is why Belichick is a genius. He played 15 guys, and nobody in the NFL picked up on it.

Cheers, Bill. Enjoy the parade.

3. Pat Summerall: Damn, you were good

Although we all know the truth. Hearing Summerall say, in that oh-so-American accent, that if we stayed tuned we could catch "Malcolm ... in the Middle" was not nearly as cool as hearing him tell us that if we stayed tuned we could catch "Murder ... She Wrote." Summerall was always more CBS than Fox, but what are you gonna do?


	No NFL broadcasting team was better than John Madden and Pat Summerall, right, in the last 20 years.

I'd like to believe, in my own little fantasy world, that Summerall and Angela Lansbury made a happy home together. And that when Summerall came home from an NFC championship game, they'd sit down and watch "Matlock" and enjoy a meat loaf.

Dammit, Pat, we'll miss you, pal.

4. A quick note on Britney Spears as host of "Saturday Night Live"
But first, I must apply a cold compress to my forehead.

I must lie down with that cold towel on my head.

Because I must summon up the power to describe to all of you the pair of gold lamé hot pants she wore in the Gemini's Twins skit. But if I try to ... Forget it. I have to lie down again. Hand me that cold compress.

Sweet mother of God.

5. As for Pebble Beach ...
Yeah, I won't lie. Bill Murray at Pebble is a good thing. Golf on the Monterey Peninsula is a phenomenal thing. A blue winter sky over Carmel Bay is a good thing, too. This golf tournament does not suck. But in reality, we cannot waste ESPN.com's valuable website space on young Matt Gogel.

Let's just say that today, The Cooler understands its place in the pantheon.

Tony Eason? Curtis Martin? Sugar Bear Hamilton?

Line up, boys.

The drinks are on me.

Brian Murphy of the San Francisco Chronicle writes the "Weekend Water Cooler" every Monday for Page 2.