59-0

It's been a gruesome week for New England sports fans. We've had a splendid decade up to now so it's tough for us to complain about anything for a while. But the Sox made us remember what it was like to be a Sox fan pre-2004 in last week's Game 3 vs. Los Angeles. (That was Spanish for "The Angels", by the way, not English for "Los Angeles", the city, where the Angels don't play.) 9th inning. Two outs. 6-4 lead. Bases empty. 0-2 count on the #9 hitter. One strike away from getting back in the series. Oh, and on the mound is a guy with a lifetime playoff ERA of 0.00. Howzit end?

Yep, feels like old times. Painful.

We tried to make ourselves feel better by switching to the Patriots game. Hurray! A 10-point lead at the half! The Pats are back! Oh, no.

That's what it used to be like to be a Pats fan too.

So thank you, Patriots, for giving us a good old-fashioned ass-whupping yesterday. 59-0! What was that score again? 59-0.

I just need to type that again. 59-0.

One more time. 59-0.

"Yes!" you say. A shutout! Okay, yeah. A shutout is, like, 10-0. Or 13-0. Usually when you score 59 points, the other team scores 35. But no. The 0 is great but it isn't exactly the number that pops out at you, is it? It's the one that starts with 5 and ends with 9. Okay, have to do it again. 59-0.

The box score at halftime was already absurd. 45-0. (An NFL record, by the way.) Tom Brady with 345 yards and 5 touchdowns. We didn't even want them to come out for the second half. Really, nowhere to go but down. Seriously. I mean, think about what would have happened if the second half wasn't a letdown. If they just equalled the first half, the score would have been 90-0. Brady would have destroyed the single-game passing records with 690 yards and 10 touchdowns. Impossible!

So, all they really had to do was not suck in the second half. Well, they outscored them 14-0, mostly with backup QB Brian Hoyer making sure Brady didn't get cheap-shotted out of the game for no reason.

A letdown? Yeah, but who's complaining?

Oh, and by the way, the Titans two quarterbacks combined to complete 2 of 14 passes for -7 yards. Yes, that's negative. Wow. They completed just as many passes to Patriots players.

Feeling better about this team, we are. Please, Patriots. More of this.