The Morning Win: Boston sports championships are as boring as that Super Bowl

Once upon a time, back in the day before smartphones and flat-screens and these insulated metal water bottles I suddenly see everywhere, there was a city in the Northeast known for losing in sports. It was a lovely place, appreciated for its quaint, walkable streets and its spectacular autumnal foliage, its pitiable love of acrid Dunkin' Donuts coffee, and the city-wide chip on the shoulder that comes from watching your sports teams lose in spectacular fashion practically every year.

The basketball team was always an exception. But the baseball team was legendary for its haplessness, the hockey team hardly did much, and the football team was an afterthought. 

And so we felt for Boston. Back then, I think, we really did. We wrote off the nation's most grating regional accent as a charming thing, some weird byproduct of perennial sports sadness, and we abided New Englanders' overweening love for their home because we knew it came from a dark, dark place of disappointment. We let them think baked beans were something to be proud of. Someone even made a whole movie called Good Will Hunting to give Boston the local hero the Red Sox and Patriots could never provide, and the Academy indulged it with Oscars. 

Then something extremely weird started happening: A new Millennium dawned, and Boston teams started winning all the time. The Patriots won Super Bowls in 2001, 2003 and 2004. The Red Sox came back from a 3-0 deficit in the 2004 ALCS to beat the Yankees, then went on to win the World Series and end their much-ballyhooed curse. They won again in 2007, and again in 2013, and then again this past season. 

The Celtics, once the city's saving grace, added a championship in 2008. The Bruins won the Stanley Cup in 2011. And, of course, the Patriots won again in 2014, and again in 2016, and again in a snoozy Super Bowl 53 last night. Due to events entirely contained to the last two decades, the Patriots are probably the best team in NFL history. 

If you are lucky enough to call yourself a 22-year-old fan of all four major Boston sports teams, then you have now already seen 12 championships in your lifetime. Do you even appreciate it, kid? 

I sure don't. Enough of Boston sports titles. It's time for someone to implement a new curse, because this has gotten stale. 

Sunday's big winner

People who didn't watch the Super Bowl. I wrote a joke post advocating for skipping the game to convince your co-workers you had something much cooler going on, but more or less anything else you could've done Sunday night would've been cooler than sticking out that Super Bowl. Don't come at me talking about the finer points of defensive football. This is 2019, friend, and I want more. 

Quick hits

- The best and most important Super Bowl take came out before the game even started, when our own Andy Nesbitt argued -- quite accurately -- that the NFL should move the game to Saturday. I'm honestly embarrassed that I've never thought of this myself. "Super Bowl Sunday" is so embedded in my head that I always argue that the next day -- this day -- should be a national holiday and we can all skip work. But really, the best way to give the most people a day to recover from the Super Bowl would be just moving it to Saturday. 

- Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski put out a celebratory video that seemed to imply Gronk won't retire.

- Jim Nantz excitedly referred to a record-setting punt as "the highlight of the game," and he's not wrong. That whole game felt like a meditation on the value of punters. My terrible high-school football team had a really good punter, who kept us in a lot of games when we should've been blown out. So I already learned that lesson. But for the rest of you, yeah: Punters do some stuff. 

- I'm sorry. How can people get so broken up over national anthem protests and abide prop bets on anthem length? Gladys Knight is untouchable. Do not wager on her artistic choices, you fools. 

- Rams tackle Andrew Whitworth, a man of my own heart, issued this quote after the game: "At the end of the day, we're all going to die." I'm glad he meant, you know, the metaphorical "day." 

This day in dumb sports

Four years ago Monday, the Patriots held a Super Bowl parade and Rob Gronkowski chugged beers while wearing a Minion hat. Things do change: This year, he probably won't be wearing a Minion hat. 

Follow Ted Berg on Twitter at @OGTedBerg. Have questions or feedback about The Morning Win newsletter? E-mail Ted.