New England Patriots

Some people are chewing their fists that the Brady-led reign of terror may be over:

And now that the run is over, what we’re experiencing feels something like grief. Or maybe, less nobly, like withdrawal: We’d become addicted to winning, and as happens with addiction, no amount of winning would ever satisfy. Six Super Bowls should have been enough—fans in many cities would be happy with just one—but we craved more, needed more.

I'm not a Brady hater. Actually, I felt lucky to witness such historic dominance. But I can't get behind any feeling of despair. The Patriots were a league joke for decades, then suddenly became the mid-century Yankees. Any fan whose team was so dominant for two decades should simply take a breath and be grateful for the long run of success while acknowledging how rare such runs are. I mean, I get it - the end of the Jeter-era Yankees was shocking even while we braced ourselves for it. But I recognized how lucky I'd been all those years, and haven't expected such a run again anytime soon.