This has to be the saddest form of Thanksgiving-afternoon entertainment in
America. Or maybe the second saddest.
The big fun, it seems, is to stick your head in the living room and get a look
at me nodding off in front of the Patriots game. After years of fighting to
watch at least some football on Thanksgiving -- while the rest of my family has
heartlessly insisted I engage in such lesser pursuits as feasting and
conversation -- I've finally come up with a rock-solid argument for why I must
be allowed to watch one of the day's two NFL games (I'm writing about it,
goddamit), and it looks like I'm not going to make it.
I get how it's funny (and if it were happening to someone else, I'd be the one
laughing loudest), but I can't say I'm particularly amused. I'm also not nearly
as close to asleep as everyone seems to think. I'm struggling to keep my eyes
open, yes, but I'm entirely aware of both what's happening on the field in
Detroit and in the room around me.
It's not my fault, I want to tell them. It's the wine and the tryptophan. It's
having stayed up into the wee hours on each of the three previous nights -- one
watching Monday Night Football, and then two making pizzelles. And to be
perfectly frank, the punt, kick, and turnover competition on the television
isn't really helping anything.
By this time in this season, I've grown relatively accustomed to the Patriots
and their sleepy style. Indeed, I've wondered at times if the key to many of
their wins hasn't been that they've lulled their opponents into some kind of
trance. But this has to be one of the single-most-boring professional sporting
events to which I have ever been witness.
The Lions came into this game looking awful. The Patriots came in looking
solidly mediocre. And neither team has done a thing to change its image.
It's five minutes into the fourth quarter and nothing has happened since
forever. The Pats are ahead 20-9. They've led Detroit since the very start of
the game. But they haven't done anything truly exciting since Tedy Bruschi
turned an interception into a touchdown early in the first quarter.
The Patriots' offense has accounted for a total of 275 yards on nine
possessions. They've managed a single touchdown, on a drive that started at
Detroit's 19-yard line.
Detroit has accomplished even less. In the Lions' first nine possessions, they
managed to log 249 yards. Detroit's rookie quarterback, Joey Harrington, has
been intercepted three times. The Lions have punted three times. And on their
other three drives, they've managed field goals.
Now, Detroit is moving the ball, destined, I imagine, to go nowhere or close to
nowhere yet again. I can't see as I'd be leaping to my feet in celebration any
time soon even if my belly weren't overfull and my eyes weren't determined to
take some time off. But I'm annoyed by the snickering. I open my eyes to glare
at my sister and then my mother as they hurry out of the room, laughing.
I hear someone, maybe it's my sister-in-law, out in the kitchen asking what the
joke is. And I hear my brother, Chris, explain it even as I feel another set of
eyes peak in at me. "My brother's struggling to keep his eyes open over
there."
I think, but don't have the energy actually to shout to him, "Where the hell
are you? You're supposed to be watching the game with me."
It's an unfair thought anyhow. To begin with, Chris never actually promised to
watch the game with me. I assumed he'd try since he always has in the past, but
I knew it would be tough for him to pull off this year since it's the first
time he and his wife have hosted Thanksgiving dinner. And while the turkey's
been cooked, carved, and served, there's still a house full of people to
consider, coffee to brew, pies, cakes, and cookies to put out. And there's the
after-dinner clean-up to tend to. If the game had turned out to be a
nail-biter, an air show, even a Patriots rout, the dishes might have been left
to sit for another hour. But I can hardly blame my brother for wanting to get a
head start on the pile when there's only this mess to miss.
Besides, he's put in his time. Dinner didn't start until after 2 p.m.
There was a good hour and a half of football before that, and my brother spent
it moving between the living room and the kitchen. A few plays, then a look at
the squash. A few more and a check on the turkey. Chris missed one of Detroit's
field goals while he was greeting our parents. We both missed Tom Brady
throwing an interception while we were carrying pies in from our Aunt Deb's
car.
As dinnertime approached and the game dragged onward, even I found other things
more interesting than football. Late in the second half, with the turkey out of
the oven and sitting while its juices set, my mother conducted a clinic on how
to make gravy. Glancing over my shoulder at the TV just in time to see the
Patriots set up to punt, I thought, "The Pats care less about winning than we
do about when to add flour."
Chris didn't go to the dining table with the gorgeous bird he and his wife had
spent the day cooking. He hit the living room with me and ate in front of the
television (maybe because my excuse was his excuse, maybe because he wanted to
keep me company), listening around the corner to the compliments being offered
to the chefs.
We shared cooking secrets and talked about the approaching holidays while Bon
Jovi yowled from the TV at halftime. We worked on heaps of dark meat, mashed
potatoes, and dressing as the Pats and Lions stumbled through the beginning of
the third quarter, each team doing its best not to play any actual football.
Midway through the third, with the Pats leading 17-6, as I finished off my
second giant plate of food, my mother popped in to ask, "Who's winning?"
"New England," Chris and I muttered together.
"Oh," Mom answered, looking a bit surprised. "I don't hear a lot of screams."
"Not a lot to scream about," I mumbled, barely looking up from my plate.
On the TV, the officials announced that a Patriots challenge of a 16-yard
completion by Harrington had been successful; the ball was called back. But on
the next play, Harrington completed a nine-yard pass for an indisputable first
down. And the Lions, though no one could accuse them of having a good day,
continued to move the ball a chunk at a time, edging toward their third field
goal.
As the kick went up, bringing Detroit within eight points, neither Chris nor I
had any reason to be confident that the Patriots would hold on for the win. We
had a good idea Detroit would hold on for the loss, but that isn't quite the
same.
Chris decided the retro Patriots uniforms were bringing bad luck. Though
earlier in the day, he'd been excited to see the uniforms -- exclaiming, "Look,
it's the Sam Cunningham," as the Pats trotted onto the field -- it had
subsequently occurred to him that the Patriots who wore those colors weren't
anything like the Patriots who won last season's Super Bowl. At their best,
they were more like the floundering, ineffectual bunch we were watching this
Thanksgiving at Ford Field.
When Adam Vinatieri put up his second field goal of the day at the beginning of
the fourth quarter, giving the Pats a 20-9 lead and a solid grip on an awful
game, Chris made for the kitchen. I settled in, leaned back, and started to
feel the weight of my eyelids.
As the afternoon wore on, no single element snapped me back to complete
consciousness. My current state of semi-alertness is partly a result of my
annoyance at being poked fun of. It's partly Detroit's fourth field goal of the
game, which brings the Lions back within eight points (a gap that would be
entirely surmountable for any real professional football team with nearly 10
minutes of playing time remaining, but keeps the game utterly out of reach for
Detroit). And it's partly because my brother-in-law, David, and his mother,
Ardath, have finished eating and have joined me in the living room.
As far as David and Ardath know, this may well be the most exciting,
well-played football game of the season. All they see is a Lions field goal
followed by a nine-and-a-half-minute, clock-devouring Patriots drive that
starts at the New England 19 and moves all the way to the Lions' one-yard line.
It's an awkward drive, studded with penalties on both sides of the ball, but it
makes the Pats offense look almost okay.
It's certainly enough to get Ardath excited. And her enjoyment of the drive
picks me up a bit, not least of all because she's someone I never would have
pegged as a football fan. It's always fun to discover someone's not exactly who
you thought.
I think of calling Chris to come and watch the end of the game after Brady
converts a third and long with 3:30 left to play, but I decide it isn't worth
interrupting his conversation for such a trivial matter.
Ardath, for her part, wants to see the Pats finish strong.
"They'd better get a touchdown after all this," she says.
"Yeah," I grumble. "I'd like to see them finish off one of their
drives."
She stays positive -- "I know, it's been a great drive" -- but even that
doesn't last.
At the Detroit one-yard line with 31 seconds remaining in the game, the Pats
approach the ball clearly not intending to finish the day off with a score.
"They should try to get a touchdown," Ardath argues.
"They're just gonna let the clock run down," David tells her.
"Oh, come on!" she offers in disbelief.
I know just exactly how she's feeling.
Two minutes later, I'm grabbing a piece of apple pie, aiming to catch at least
part of what I hope will be a better game between Washington and Dallas, and
filling Chris in on the retro Pats' frustrating retro finish.
They'd best find their way back to 2002 in a hurry, I tell him, 'cause there
are four games ahead against teams that have never left it. And if they don't
win at least three of them, their 2003 is going to be nine months coming.
Sean Glennon can be reached at sean@thispatsyear.com.
Issue Date: December 6 - 12, 2002
