By: JJ Lanier

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

The NBA had Bill Russell’s Boston Celtics. Major League Baseball has the New York Yankees. The NFL has the New England Patriots.

Now, before I get too deep into this rabbit hole I’m about to go down, let’s go ahead and get the obvious out the way. After five months and over a few hundred games played, that was the game that is supposed to get us through until September? The only thing less entertaining than the game itself was the halftime show, except for the Big Boi/Sleepy Brown appearance.

Now that those four hours I would’ve rather spent watching Wolf Blitzer doing “Breaking News” segments on Adam Levine’s tattoos have passed, what does it all mean for New England?

As much as it pains me to say, what the Patriots have accomplished over the past eighteen years has to be one of the most impressive feats in sports, if not the most impressive.

The run the Celtics had in the 60’s when they won eight NBA titles in a row, and ten in eleven years, is something I feel pretty confident won’t be happening again anytime soon.

However, it did take place in a period where the level of competition wasn’t quite like it is today. It’s similar to the dominance UCLA had over college basketball for all those years.

The Yankees have been the standard in baseball, but they have a number of advantages that have played in their favor, mainly the market they play in and the lack of a salary cap.

I’m not taking anything away from either of those franchises, but when you are talking about the greatest dynasty in sports history, those type of things matter.

In New England’s case they have achieved unrivaled success over the past two decades in a league that is set up specifically to prevent that type of dominance.

To have done what they have been able to do, with the cavalcade of players over that time frame just adds to the legacy.

Yes, the two constants just happen to the two people who are arguably the best at their respective titles, but it doesn’t dampen it any less.

And look, I get it, I have a hard time saying anything nice about the Patriots. They’re about the most pretentious franchise I’ve seen, and I’m Duke fan for crying out loud.

But if I’m being completely objective, this run they are on- no matter how much longer it lasts- is probably the most impressive run in professional sports history.

This particular victory wasn’t pretty by any means, but it was vintage Bill Belichick. Make no mistake about it, the Rams offensive struggles were not self-inflicted; the Patriots shut down the league’s second ranked offense and made it look easy.

Even though the game gave us all plenty of reasons to turn away, or turn the channel for that matter, New England was the better team, once again.

So here we are, six Super Bowl victories in nine appearances, over an eighteen-year span. As much as Tom Brady wanted to tell us the Patriots are “still here” and that nobody believed in them, are any of us really surprised with the outcome?

It may not have been the outcome most of us wanted to see, but based on history it was the outcome most of us predicted.

And much like the final score and the game itself, we may not be fans of the Patriots, but they are doing something we may not see again in our lifetime.