The first Sunday without Patriots football...

Sunday was interesting. It was the first Sunday without football since September, so I just found myself a little lost and confused. NFL Sundays are like a weekly ritual. Football always has to be watched at the beginning of the week in order for it to be a good week, so the first Sunday of the offseason is always a little … dull. It’s like when you binge-watch a show on Netflix, and then you finish it. What are you supposed to do now?

However, the first Sunday of the offseason is always the Queen’s favorite Sunday of the year. It’s the first Sunday in months in which she can actually hold a coherent conversation with me because I’m not mentally connected to the TV for the entire day. So how did we spend this national holiday? By getting our taxes done. By noon, instead of sitting on the couch drinking Arnold Palmer, and maybe a beer or two, while enjoying some NFL action, I was sitting in an office, scrolling through Twitter and waiting patiently while my taxes were filed.

Was it exciting? Not at all. I missed football.

And then we got back home and I remembered something … the Celtics were playing the Cavaliers, and it was the day Paul Pierce’s No. 34 was going to be raised to the rafters of the TD Garden. A very big day for the city of Boston.

Photo by Brian Babineau/NBAE via Getty Images

So as it turned out, I still ended up sitting on the couch and watching a game anyway. It just wasn’t a football game. And I wish it would’ve been, because it turned out to be arguably the most depressing Celtics game of the year. The C’s were downright embarrassed by LeBron and the Cavs. They couldn’t make a shot to save their lives. The team’s two up and coming youngsters, Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum, shot an abysmal 6-20 from the field and 1-7 from three. Boston lost 121-99, and that was when it officially hit me that as good as they are, the Celtics really just don’t have it in them to reach the Finals this season. They just aren’t a tough enough team yet. I spent the first four months of this Celtics season trying to convince myself otherwise, but I had to face the truth eventually, and that time has come. The Eastern Conference Finals is the ceiling for this team, at least this season.

And unfortunately, this all had to happen while Paul Pierce was sitting courtside, waiting for the atrocity to be over so his No. 34 could be honored and officially retired. And to make it worse, he wasn’t the only former Celtic there. Kevin Garnett, Rajon Rondo and Doc Rivers were also sitting courtside. Even though their tenures in Boston weren’t that long, they will forever be a part of Celtic lore, with each of them being central figures in that magical championship season in 2008. And yet while they were all in the house ready to celebrate on Sunday, the Celtics were getting ramrodded like they were playing for a lottery pick. That wasn’t fun to watch.

So, yeah. Football season is over, and I spent the first Sunday of the offseason getting my taxes done and watching what looked like a middle school basketball team attempt to play against the Cavaliers. It’s safe to say that I’m ready for the 2018 Patriots season so that my Sundays can get back to normal, and I can watch Tom Brady on my television every week.

Basically, I need my Sunday rituals back. Hurry up, September!