X reasons why the Patriots lost Super Bowl 46

I aspire to one day be what Bill Simmons is. Or at least, some equivocal derivative of him. The dude's awesome. He loves Boston sports, watches any important game with his dad and son, and is fair about Boston sports. Keeping that last one in mind, I'm going to try to emulate what he did and rationalize yet another defeat to the Giants in the Super Bowl. While Simmons found the silver lining in the loss, I'm going to beat the loss to death until it's out of my system and I can move on. Ten reasons why the Patriots lost:

I. I was right. I'm generally ecstatic about being right, but this time, I hated it. Going into the game, I knew that the Patriots had to do two things - win the turnover battle and not commit bad penalties. Well...

II. They lost the turnover battle. Of the three Giants' fumbles, New England recovered one. Which would have been awesome, if not for the fact that there were twelve men on the defense. Recovering the fumble would have stopped the Giants from scoring on the drive, which ALSO could have been prevented if not for the fact that...

III. The Patriots committed two crucially bad penalties. Unfortunately they had no chance to redeem themselves after the first one, which led to a safety and two points for the Giants. Two points that, had things run similar to what they did in the game, would have forced the Giants to score a touchdown in the 4th (they would have been down 17-13) instead of run the clock however they wanted. The other penalty was, obviously, the twelve men on the defense penalty.

IV. Destiny. The thing that I hate the most about this game is that I had the pre-2004 Red Sox mentality that we weren't going to win this game. I didn't trust our defense. I didn't trust our offense. I had this queasy feeling that Eli Manning would drive down the field and do whatever he wanted to the Patriot defense. The fact that it actually happened makes this 30 times worse, because until the Patriots win a Super Bowl, it's going to continue happening.

V. Tom Brady was human. Sure, he set the record for consecutive completions in a Super Bowl with 16. Sure, he went 27/41 for 276 yards. But the safety and the interception (which was the exact same play he had against the Ravens two weeks ago) cost the Patriots greatly, and Brady didn't do enough in the 4th quarter to make up for it.

VI. The essentially-road game the Patriots had to play. I'm not entirely sure why everyone in the world hates Boston sports except for Boston sports fans, but it's true. New England was playing in a stadium where they've never been welcome, and have never won - the Patriots are 0-3 in Lucas Oil stadium, losing last night, and to the Colts in 2008 and 2009. Not to mention that said the quarterback of the opposing team was the brother of the said Colts' franchise quarterback. Although I'm not sure who that one favored.

VII. The Red Hoodie still burns images in my mind. I don't know why Bill Belichick wore a red hoodie in Super Bowl XLII, but I believe that to be the real reason we lost that game. And this one. Outside the fact that it's hideous, it's bad karma. Belichick ALWAYS wears the gray BB hoodie. That one game ruined everything as far as karma goes for future Belichick-coached championship-caliber teams.

VIII. The challenge on Manningham's 4th-quarter catch. I'm not buying the "he had to challenge it" argument. He didn't have to challenge it - he was right in front of the play, the replay showed Manningham clearly had two feet in bounds, and Belichick should have saved his timeouts. If Brady has two timeouts instead of one with 53 seconds left, it's a different game. I'm not saying that would have won us the game, but I would have liked our chances more.

IX. Gronk was a nonfactor. I'm not using injuries to make excuses - at least five Giants players hit the ground with an injury during the game. What I am doing is implying that a healthy Gronkowski would have had more than two catches for 26 yards. And would have been targeted more than three times. A healthy Gronk means the Giants would have had to use resources against him, instead of loading up on the other receivers.

X. They weren't the better team. And they really weren't. They were lucky to be up a point at the half. They were lucky to be winning in the fourth quarter. Lucky they even had a chance to win the game at the end. When it's all said and done, you can say that the Giants got breaks that the Patriots didn't. You can say what you want about the irrational factors that played into the loss (see: items IV, VI, and VII). In this game, as is the case in most of such a high-stakes level of play, it came down to execution. The Giants executed plays. New England didn't.

So, there it is. No remark about the Bruins being second in the Eastern Conference, the Celtics having won 9 of 11, and pitchers and catchers reporting in less than two weeks. This loss wasn't about those teams, and it had nothing to do with those teams. When the Patriots look back at the season, they will look at the plays in the Super Bowl they could have made. They will look at a "1" in the loss column of games played at home, and remember that that loss was against the same New York Giants they saw in the Super Bowl. But they will also look at another AFC East division title, and AFC Championship that they had to fight for, and a season worthy of being dedicated to Myra Kraft. Everyone in the New England Patriots organization should be proud of the season they had, and should be hungry for more success next year.