A Great Day for Sports Schadenfreude

The Patriots beat the Dolphins yesterday, and though the score was only 23-16, this win never really felt like it was in danger. The Pats were a bit off and the Dolphins gave it their best shot, but in the end, New England is just a much, much better team. It was the type of workmanlike win—complete with a dominant, fourth quarter clock-killing drive to ice the game—that adds to the mounting pile of evidence that the Pats could indeed be of championship timber.

But that was only the beginning of the good sports news locally. Pretty much every team we hate had a hilariously miserable day. Let’s start with the Jets, who managed to tickle our funny bone, even in victory. First, in homage to the greatest play of all time, this guy showed up at the stadium (pic via Deadspin):

Then the Jets and Arizona Cardinals went on to play one of the most embarrassing “football games” of the year. Poor Mark Sanchez threw three interceptions in his team’s first five possessions before being mercifully benched (much to the delight of the cheering New York crowd). With Tim Tebow hurt, third stringer Greg McElroy—previously most noted for describing playing for the Jets as “the first time I’ve ever been around extremely selfish individuals”— came in to save the day, helping the Jets at least score once. New York may have won the game 7-6, barely edging out a team that had lost seven straight games, but I think it’s fair to say that everybody who had anything to do with the affair was a big loser.

Staying in New York, let’s move on the Yankees. News comes out today that A-Rod was playing the end of last season with a tear in his surgically repaired left hip, which means he’ll now need more surgery to get it fixed. He’s likely to miss a solid chunk of the next baseball season, reports the New York Post’s Joel Sherman:

Surgery will be done early in new year, recuperation time is 3-6 months. #Yankees hope A-Rod is back in June as a full player

— Joel Sherman (@Joelsherman1) December 3, 2012

And yes, I know, you’re not supposed to root for injuries. But come on. This is A-Rod we’re talking about. This guy:

Yeah, I thought you’d agree.

And finally, let’s go out to L.A., where the Lakers are embarrassing themselves on a regular basis. Celtics fans despaired when longtime foe Dwight Howard got traded to Los Angeles during the offseason, but, so far, things are off to a pretty awful start. Before last night’s game against Howard’s old team, the Orlando Magic, the ever fickle big man hinted that he may move on from the Lakers once his contract is up at the end of the season. Things got worse once the game started: Howard missed seven of his first nine free throws, on his way to going 9-21 from the line in the 113-103 Lakers loss. With his team dropping below .500, afterwards, Howard declared, “As a team, our effort wasn’t there. We have to start the game with energy and play the whole game the same way.” He then added, “I play hard every night.” I believe that loosely translates as, “Everybody else is the problem.”

Meanwhile, in other Lakers chaos news, Kobe Bryant called out his struggling teammate Pau Gasol, who has lately been getting benched at the end of games: “Put your big-boy pants on,” Kobe said, referring to Gasol. “Just adjust. Just adjust. You can’t whine about it. You can’t complain about it.” I’m not sure that there are enough big-boy pants in all of Los Angeles for the Lakers right now.

So to sum up: the sports teams in New York and LA are in chaos and the Patriots are getting ready for another Super Bowl run. Not a bad Monday at all.