Definitely this:
I would watch the Patriots every Sunday throughout the 90s with my Dad, even when they sucked. The Bledsoe super bowl against GB was something we knew they couldn't win, and then obviously they got the shit kicked out of them. Still, we returned every Sunday during the Carroll years, hoping they could make it back. Guys like Robert Edwards would get injured, Terry Glenn would get caught up in extracurricular activities. The Pats would, reliably, be mediocre or bad or, worse, boring. We kept watching anyway.
Then Bledsoe got injured. I was a freshman in college. My dad and I talked later that day and he said "This kid Brady came in, he wasn't bad. Maybe that'll turn the season around." They were 0-2. We didn't expect much. Then they kept winning and winning. I came back home to watch the Super Bowl with my dad, neither of us believing that the tuck rule happened, or that we'd just dominated the Steelers in all three facets of the game. Surely they couldn't win the Super Bowl, right?
We watched together on the edge of our seats, waiting and waiting for the Patriots to choke, as had been their MO since my childhood. It never came. We were stunned. We both looked like Brady in this picture. This was before the Sox won and it was the first Boston title in my memory (too young for the 80s Celts). We hugged for a while in celebration and felt insane amounts of joy from such a silly sport. It was such an awesome feeling and such a cool moment to share with him. I was so happy I'd taken the bus back from NYC.
He died a few years later, after we'd gotten to see them win a couple more, but the first one is the one I'll cherish the most and the memory - that Sunday, on the couch with him, eating Nachos, focused on the game, talking about all of the possibilities - will stick with me until I go. That is the reason to love sports and it's all neatly summed up in the picture above.