As we’re all too well aware, it’s a busy, fast-paced world.
One minute’s new, cool, hip trend is the next’s forgotten fad. The path from Tiger King to Squid Game is filled with popularity potholes.
Diversified interests are everywhere, including sports and entertainment.
In a society both driven and distracted by social media, the old 15 minutes of fame is cut down to about 15 seconds. Grab my attention now or else….sorry, what were we talking about, I started scrolling through my TikTok feed!
It’s with that in mind that we consider Sunday’s battle between the upstart Chargers and fledgling Patriots in Los Angeles, two very different teams taking to the field with one very similar goal in mind.
New England and Los Angeles (congrats to all of us in finally breaking free from calling them San Diego!) both obviously want to win a SoFi Stadium, it’s why you play the game of course.
But in many ways they are playing for more than that, a less tangible but maybe more valuable modern achievement. Both teams need to win the game not so much for standings purposes rather for relevancy. One’s looking to retain and jumpstart the relevancy it’s built up early in 2021, the other attempting to create some genuine buzz and momentum as the middle of the NFL season hits.
Last we saw the Chargers, budding star QB Justin Herbert’s squad was getting its butt whooped in Baltimore, a 34-6 loss to Lamar Jackson’s Ravens sending L.A. bumbling into its bye week. The beatdown cut into some of the early-season excitement the Chargers had built with three-straight wins over the division-rival Chiefs and Raiders as well as the Browns.
The Chargers are 4-2 in the first two months of first-year head coach Brandon Staley’s tenure taking over a pretty darn talented squad that won seven games a year ago, sitting a half-game back of Las Vegas (don’t call them Oakland!) in the AFC West.
But they are also the second-fiddle team in L.A., sharing a stadium with Sean McVay’s popular Super Bowl pick Rams. Still very much a franchise that’s trying build momentum with a fan base and fill seats so that they have an actual home-field advantage.
They are a team that last time it crossed paths with Bill Belichick and the Patriots got blown out and embarrassed 45-0 last December at SoFi in front of a too-large contingent of New England fans.
While it’s true that this is no longer Tom Brady’s Patriots and New England is far from a roll-out-of-bed playoff team under Belichick’s rebuilding guidance, the visitors still bring an aura (just not Cam Newton’s!) to this game based on their history and reputation. Staley made that clear the way he’s talked up and about Belichick and his team all week. In case you hadn’t heard, New England is still apparently good in “all three phases.”
So if the Chargers want to be taken seriously in their city, in their home stadium, in the AFC, they need to beat a Patriots team that they are seemingly supposed to beat. If the Chargers want to exit their bye week, solidify their spot among perceived playoff contenders and prove their relevancy there is only one way to do it, do what every other marginally good team has done this season against the Patriots and beat New England.
Now, from a Patriots perspective, the relevancy conversation both in the NFL at large and in the landscape of Boston sports, is more obvious.
Last we saw New England it was butt-whooping the woeful Jets at Gillette Stadium, 54-13.
A team whose season was hanging in the balance earned its third victory in, finally, dominant style, to quiet its most vocal critics and embolden its most ardent, homerific defenders.
But a 3-4 record, those wins coming against the bottom-feeding Jets (twice) and Texans will only get you so far as midseason approaches.
Sooner or late you have to beat a team with a winning record, or even a pulse.
Belichick and a veteran roster led by rookie QB Mac Jones are still stumbling down an uncertain path. That can all change to some degree on Sunday at SoFi against the hot, young, dare we say trendy Chargers.
Beat the Chargers in L.A. and immediately New England has an impressive, marquee win to point to. No longer will moral victories against the Bucs and Cowboys be foundational points of pride for a team that by pulling to .500 would suddenly be very much in the mix in the wide-open AFC playoff picture.
Win consecutive games for the first time since last year’s trip to take on the Chargers and a few more fans and mediots might just jump on the New England bandwagon. There might even be a little buzz in Patriot Nation, and not the kind created by the opposition like Brady’s Bucs or America’s Team.
The Chargers and Patriots each have a clear opportunity at hand on Sunday, a chance at Halloween relevance, to give their fan bases a true holiday treat more satisfying than a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.
But, here’s the trick, the losing team is going to take a major step back in its 2021 journey, gonna be stuck gnawing on a stale popcorn ball.
For the Chargers a loss at home to the Patriots, even the not-quite-the-same Patriots two weeks after falling to the Ravens would be a symbolic admission they aren’t in the same stratosphere with the longstanding bluebloods of the conference and that they may always be a second-fiddle type squad.
Meanwhile, a loss in L.A. would be another blow to any playoff hopes for the Patriots and end any momentum picked up by the supposedly big win over the Jets. It would relegate Patriot Nation to the reality that their team isn’t rebuilt, isn’t going in the right direction and is in for a couple more months of basically meaningless football. It would be time for Boston to turn its attention to the Celtics and Bruins.
If the Patriots and Chargers want to be relevant come November, they better win on the last day of October.
Trick or treat!!!????
