I could’ve told you before last night’s game that the Patriots would have won the Super Bowl – and I say this not as a football guru, not as an overzealous Pats fan and certainly not as a soothsayer.

No, I couldn’t have told you the score – although I wasn’t too far off – but the outcome was no surprise. After all, I’d already played the game as the Pats, and I’d won.

At around 5 yesterday afternoon, I was feeling anxious. Overly excited for the Super Bowl, I needed something to calm me down. So I found my friend Matt, an Eagles fan, and challenged him to a game of ‘Madden 2005.’

While the actual Super Bowl started off somewhat slowly, this one began with a little more firepower. After stopping the Patriots on the first three plays of the game, Eagles running back Brian Westbrook failed to call a fair catch on the ensuing punt, without regards to the lack of blockers ahead of him. The error in judgment led to a fumble shortly after receiving the kick, and gave the Patriots a chance for an early scoring opportunity.

‘That’s bullshit,’ Matt said. ‘I didn’t even see those guys there.’

He also barely saw Patriots running back Corey Dillon as he blew by the defense and waltzed into the end zone, giving the Patriots an early 7-0 lead.

Early on his next drive, Matt tied the game when Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb found a wide open ‘Hollywood’ Freddie Mitchell downfield and scored a touchdown on a 60-yard pass. This back-and-forth action epitomized the rest of the first half.

I regained my lead when Patriots quarterback Tom Brady threw a 15-yard touchdown pass to Troy Brown, but Matt tied it again on another big play – a 39-yard run by Westbrook.

Not to be outdone, I struck back by calling the same play I had just scored with, and again had Brady throw a touchdown pass to Brown – this one for 38 yards.

At halftime, the Patriots led, 21-14.

Where the first half had been an offensive onslaught, the second half featured much more defense. Almost every drive ended in a punt, and two Eagles possessions that looked promising ended with Patriots’ interceptions.

After a scoreless third quarter, Matt scored on a 5-yard Westbrook run, though I quickly regained the lead when, 46 seconds later, Brady threw a 76-yard pass to Deion Branch for a touchdown. For good measure, I ran Corey Dillon in for a successful two-point conversion.

When Matt’s immediate drive failed after an incomplete pass on a fourth down, he was convinced his fate was sealed.

‘That’s it,’ he sighed, standing up. ‘I quit.’

I convinced him to keep playing, but it turns out he was right. The score didn’t change and the Pats won, 29-21, over the Eagles – a score surprisingly close to the real-life score of 24-21.

See, I didn’t need to watch Super Bowl to tell you who would win the game last night, but I’m glad I did. Those Eagles cheerleaders were hot.

Published on February 6, 2005 at 12:00 pm