Patriots Get Kicked In The Crystal Balls

What’s worse than going 18-0, averaging 36.8 points during the season, patenting the phrase “19-0, the Perfect Season,” and then getting your ass handed to you in the Super Bowl? Hearing your ex-girlfriend say, “I have a rash, you should get checked,” for one. We’d have to say looking at a backlog inventory of Waterford Crystal footballs with 19-0 on them runs a close second. NFL rules dictate that all the Pat’s sideline victory swag gets donated to charity. All their 19-0 shirts and hats are currently en route to Nicaragua, Romania, and a few other third-world fun spots that could use a few more free tees and a few less land mines. If you spotted a Falcons Super Bowl victory shirt on a trip to Sierra Leone, now you know it wasn’t the malaria talking. The question now is, what the hell do you do with a backlog of $185 footballs? Waterford reps weren’t available to return calls so we don’t know how many are in stock. Get’em before Goodell has them all shipped out to Bosnia or Bridget Moynahan buys the full run, fills them with Stetson cologne and fires them off to her baby daddy. Not that we want to give her any ideas.

UPDATE: Waterford PR gave us a call back. They only make one ball with each Super Bowl team logo for approval by the NFL. The catalog shot on Macy’s is actually a Photoshop image. And the only costs they have to eat this time around come from trashing a few boxes of certificates of authenticity with the Pats emblem. We guess you don’t build a leaded glass empire without figuring these kinds of thing out in advance. That said, we know there’s at least one single Waterford Crystal football bearing a Patriot head and 19-0 lurking around an NFL office. Keep an eye on eBay.