January 26, 1986. Tony Franklin kicks a 36-yard field goal and hope catches a spark. Maybe winning three games in the AFC playoffs was a harbinger of something great.

Bears field goal to tie it. Hope is still there.

Bears field goal to take the lead. Hope flickers.

Matt Suhey runs in a Bears touchdown, and the deficit is 10 points as the first quarter ends. Hope is extinguished as the air leaves the room.

January 26, 1997. Desmond Howard? Didn’t he win the Heisman Trophy a few years ago? We waited all game for Curtis Martin to get going, and when he finally does with an 18-yard touchdown run in the third quarter, the kickoff unit helps Howard regain some of his University of Michigan form and slam the door on any comeback.

February 3, 2002. No timeouts, 1:21 on the clock. Short pass to JR Redmond, then another. Incomplete. Another short pass to Redmond.

I’m pacing back and forth in my buddy Joe’s living room.

Incomplete. Long pass to Troy Brown. Are they in field-goal range? They’re close. Short pass to Jermaine Wiggins. Spike it. Spike it!

Are they close enough for Adam Vinatieri? Are they?

It’s good! No time on the clock. Legs give way. Joe hands me the phone. Call your dad, he says.

Adam Vinatieri, front, celebrates with holder Ken Walter after kicking the winning field goal in the Patriots’ 20-17 victory over the Rams in 2002. Associated Press

February 1, 2004. Again with the fourth-quarter drama. At least they have three timeouts this time. It doesn’t matter that Vinatieri has already missed one field goal try and had another blocked. If Tom Brady and the offense gets him close enough, Vinatieri is going to drill it. That’s a mortal lock.

Why can’t the Red Sox do this?

February 6, 2005. Has a close game ever felt less close? The Eagles are wasting seconds as if they’re not finite, like the clock is a never-closed buffet of time.

Of course it’s Rodney Harrison with the interception to seal it. After he ended the Super Bowl last season with his broken arm in a sling, it’s only fitting.

This doesn’t get old.

February 3, 2008. Until the third-and-long pass from Brady to Randy Moss goes incomplete, just beyond Moss’ freakishly extended reach with around 20 seconds left, it had never occurred to me. They could actually lose this game.

And they do. And my stomach ties itself in knots and I don’t sleep, and the knots don’t go away for days.

Days.

I know this isn’t healthy, so I make a decision. If they win, fantastic. If they lose, it’s OK to feel disappointed, for a little while, but let it go, and let it go quickly. Your self worth is in no way tied to the performance of any team.

Staying dedicated to this approach to fandom serves me well in the coming years.

February 5, 2012. Mario Manningham? Who is Mario Manningham? Another Michigan receiver, fantastic. Mario Manningham ain’t nothing but Desmond Howard misspelled.

This time, a possible loss is on my mind well before kickoff. This time, the miracle in the last-minute drive is explicitly implied. When it doesn’t happen, when the Hail Mary pass on the game’s final play falls to the end zone turf instead of into Rob Gronkowski’s oh-so-close hands, it’s not shock followed by anger that overwhelms.

It’s fatigue. Simple run-of-the-mill fatigue.

February 1, 2015. Pete Carroll and his Seahawks coaching staff just made the biggest mistake in Super Bowl history to date, and I’m a stew of ecstatic and perplexed. We’re all learning the name Malcolm Butler. I grab whatever’s nearest to me, which happens to be my 11-year-old godson, Connor.

“Why didn’t they run?! Why didn’t they run?! Thank God they didn’t run!” I shout in the poor kid’s face.

Football coaches have a way of trying to prove they know more than the rest of us. Despite having Marshawn Lynch, who one play earlier would’ve given the Seahawks the lead were it not for a great tackle by Dont’a Hightower, they overcomplicate things and throw the ball right to Butler, positioned perfectly because he knew exactly what was going to happen when he saw the formation.

Ten years later, I still ask, why didn’t they run? The answer is the same. Who cares?

Tom Brady celebrates after New England rallied from a 28-3 deficit to beat the Falcons in Super Bowl LI in 2017. Darron Cummings/Associated Press

February 5, 2017. An hour ago, I was resigned to the fact that sometimes, you just get your butt kicked. Everybody gets a turn being the bug instead of the windshield, the nail instead of the hammer.

But Julian Edelman just made a catch that will go down in NFL lore as an all-time great, snatching the ball just before it hits the ground, with a pair of Falcons falling on top of him. Nine years ago, it never occurred to me until it happened that they might lose. Now, I have no doubt they will pull off this bonkers comeback.

One minute on the clock. James White, touchdown. Danny Amendola, scraping the goal line for the tying 2-point conversion. Overtime. White again.

This team!

February 4, 2018. This defense cannot get off the field. Third downs are turnstiles. Where is Butler?

This team.

February 3, 2019. Nothing happens, then everything seems to happen at once. Brady to Gronk, first down. Brady to Edelman, first down. Brady to Gronk again, down the sideline, and it’s first-and-goal.

Sony Michel, touchdown. I see big things in this kid’s future.

Stephon Gilmore with the clutch interception. Now the win feels inevitable.

Something in the back of my mind tells me to savor this one. These things don’t last forever.

That feels inevitable, too.