The Denver Broncos, my childhood team and greatest love in the sporting world, played against the most dastardly and evil franchise in sports yesterday, the New England Patriots. This has always been the game I circle on the calendar. The chance to wear my heart on the orange and blue sleeves of the jerseys that I grew up in.
It took moving into the heart of New England to really develop a hatred for all things Patriots. The fan-base is cold and merciless to outsiders. Perhaps it stems from the cold winters, or the hard lives that living in Boston leads to, but they feel the world is conspiring against them, with every scandal that Head Coach Bill Belichick brings upon their team.
All I know is this: nothing brought me more joy than seeing Tom Brady get hit 24 times in the AFC Championship game by the likes of Von Miller and the rest of the Broncos defense. Sick? Perhaps. Deemed worthy in my own mind? Of course. Not even winning the Super Bowl felt as good as that win did.
Why then, with the game of the year being played for me to watch, in the heart of enemy territory, did I feel no attachment whatsoever? I spent so many nights moving around nervously in front of the flat screen TV, fretting over each and every play, that now, to have no feelings about the outcome, leaves me wondering.
Could it be complacency? That may have been a contributing factor. With my team reclaiming the greatest prize in the sport last year, I didn’t feel the same intense fire to keep believing in the team that just couldn’t quite pull it off—like when the hometown Red Sox (strangely enough I root for them; I guess there’s something magical about Fenway on a warm summer evening) got their first World Series in more than 86 years back in 2004. Winning breeds contentment.
It could also be the new direction my life is heading in. I’m more focused on improving myself than I am with the trials of other men, no matter how much I associated with their accomplishments. There’s still nothing I love seeing more than a W in the column for those guys who put on the orange and blue every weekend, but it’s no longer the end of the world if they don’t quite manage to pull it off.
Is this maturity taking? That’s a frightening thought, but one I’ll have to face.