Starting to Root for My Old Nemesis, the New England Patriots

Yesterday I found myself awkwardly rooting for my old National Football League nemesis, New England, as they faced the Houston Texans.  Normally the Patriots are my least favorite of all the teams...mainly due to the fact that they have been consistently successful winning the same division in which "my" Miami Dolphins reside.  But now that they have finally lost at least once this season (an undefeated Pat season had started to become a scary possibility) and have already clinched their AFC East Division (in which the Dolphins are still struggling just to get out of the cellar), I found myself in a situation where I was pulling for them to win a game.  For the Texans, at 6-6, were barely leading their AFC South Division over 6-7 Indianapolis and 5-8 Jacksonville (after the Jags ran up the score on the Colts in an earlier afternoon game, 51-16).  Since Jax now has a shot at winning this weak division, I wanted Houston to also go to 6-7 to close the gap between them to just one game.  So yes, yesterday I was cheering on ol' Tom Brady, the Gronk, and that pesky Patriot secondary. Happily, they won and the Jaguars are still thick in the playoff hunt.  This might not be the last time I root for New England in a game this season, though...

The Carolina Panthers, a team I generally like...in no small part because of their quarterback Cam Newton...are currently 13-0 and on track to enter the playoffs with an unblemished record.  Should they reach the Super Bowl, the most likely team they'll be facing is...those same New England Patriots.  And here is where another factor comes into play for me: the 1972 Miami Dolphins are the only team in NFL history to run the table and go undefeated in both the regular season and the playoffs.  In subsequent years, there have been some teams, like the 1985 Chicago Bears and the 2007 Patriots, who have come perilously close to duplicating this feat that I...as well as those from that '72 Dolphins team...want to remain exclusively the property of Miami.  So as unlikely as it might have seemed just three weeks ago, I might just find myself holding my nose and rooting in the upcoming Super Bowl for the one team that I really, really dislike...