Posts from the ‘Patriots’ Category

Obama’s In, Cassel’s On His Way

I have never used this website as a political forum, nor do I intend to, but after President-elect Barack Obama’s historic and decisive victory Tuesday night, at the very least I must congratulate my fair city of Boston on it’s seventh major title this decade. This one we can share with the rest of the country.

Speaking of something that at one time seemed highly implausible but has slowly gained steam, let’s talk about the Patriots and their quest for a sixth consecutive AFC East crown.

It’s there for the taking folks, and the steady improvement of Matt Cassel is the reason why.

After a disappointing trip to Indy, we’ll get the negative out of the way first. The Patriots had that game in hand and blew it. Jabar Gaffney blew it by dropping what should have been the defining touchdown pass of the Cassel era thus far.

Bill Belichick blew it by wasting his timeouts. He gave away one on an awful challenge of the number of Colts on the field that would have resulted in a measly five yards if upheld. And he surrendered the team’s last game stoppage when he apparently second-guessed himself after keeping the offense on the field on a fourth and 1 late in the game, trailing 15-12. He sprinted up the sideline in pursuit of the line judge as Cassel appeared to get the first down and was rewarded the timeout retroactively.

David Thomas also had a hand in the demise, as he was whistled for an unnecessary roughness penalty that turned a third and 1 into a third and 16 on New England’s final drive. Unfortunately, because Coach Bill had no timeouts remaining, he couldn’t challenge the spot of the ball before the penalty — which replay indicated might have been a foot or so short of where BenJarvus Green-Ellis actually landed. That could have been the difference between the doomed third and 16 and a far more manageable first and 25.

Mental and strategic mishaps notwithstanding, the Patriots looked good on a national stage against a desperate rival. They had an excellent gameplan — which was centered around keeping the ball away from Peyton Manning — and executed it to near-perfection. The defense did an admirable job of slowing a Colts offense with its full arsenal of weapons. Most important, Cassel was exemplary in leading the offense.

Each week he looks more confident and makes stronger throws. He’s starting to read defenses, as evidenced by his recognizing and calling out the blitzers on a critical third and 8 at the beginning of the four quarter. After alerting the offensive line of where the pressure was coming from, he dropped back and delivered a dart to Randy Moss on a quick slant for a first down.

Cassel is also seeing more of the field. On a third and 4 in the second quarter, after surveying the middle of the field and seeing nothing, he found Gaffney — his third option — on an 11-yard sideline out pattern. Simply put, he’s beginning to understand how to take command of the offense. While he’ll never have the pocket presence of Tom Brady (who does?), he’s more mobile than Brady and has used that mobility to his advantage (34 rushes for 101 yards on the season).

It’s clear that the coaching staff is using the Brady schematic from 2001 to bring the new guy along. Most of what they’ve had him do has been safe and conservative — basic screens, check down passes, quick outs and hooks — but slowly they’re integrating some bolder plays. The gaffed-Gaffney play (a would-be 39-yard touchdown strike that Cassel put in a perfect place on the sideline at the five-yard line) was a glimpse of a what could become a more prolific air attack as he continues to progress.

There’s no doubt Cassel has the arm to get the ball downfield. He’s now starting to show the poise required to do so on a more regular basis, which should soon be paying dividends given the ongoing presence of one Randy Moss.

Again, to underscore the path Cassel is taking right now, look at the numbers from his first half-season: 67 percent completion percentage, 1566 yards, 7 touchdowns, 7 interceptions, 83.4 quarterback rating. That means his projected final stats would be something in the neighborhood of 3300 yards, 16 touchdowns, 12 picks and a rating around 85 (assuming he improves a bit).

Brady’s first season? 2843 yards, 63.6 completion percentage, 18 touchdowns, 12 interceptions and a quarterback rating of 86.5. Obviously Brady entered another realm beginning in the fourth quarter of the Oakland game in the playoffs, but it’s indisputable that Belichick is using the same system to hone Cassel as he did Brady. Whether or not that translates to victories in the postseason remains to be seen. But the Pats have positioned themselves to be there, yet again, and this time without the league MVP. That’s pretty special.

Looking at the AFC East — which is cumulatively as strong as it’s been throughout the Patriots’ reign — it’s evident New England has an opportunity to deal some serious blows to its divisional rivals in the coming games. Over the next three weeks they’ll host Buffalo (5-3) and the Jets (5-3) before traveling to Miami (4-4) for a revenge match with the Dolphins. Two wins will put them at 7-4 with a 3-2 record in the division, and assure them of holding first place going into the stretch run.

Considering how the defense has plugged holes in the secondary and stayed an elite unit, and how the coaching staff has craftily worked around the losses of its top three running backs while bringing along a new field general, it’s starting to look like a throwback year in Foxborough.

Implausible as it may have once seemed, Cassel’s Patriots could well be on their way to an AFC East title.

YES WE CAN!

Rethinking the Patriots

Watching the Pats-Jets game Sunday, it dawned on me that’s it’s been a full season-plus since I’ve needed to take an interest in how the Patriots won, as opposed to by how much. Let’s be honest: the 2007 season was surreal. But it didn’t end with a title. Conversely, what the 2001, ’03 and ’04 campaigns lacked in showy predictability, they made up for in hardware.

Technically, all New England did in ’07 was prove beyond a reasonable doubt that talent alone doesn’t win championships in the NFL. The irony being that they fell victim to the very tenet that they themselves established earlier this decade.

When those Patriots won a record 21 consecutive games from the beginning of the 2003 season through the middle of ’04, their average margin of victory was roughly a touchdown. Their formula for success was simple, yet effective: control the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball, force turnovers and capitalize on them, gain a lead and turn to the ground game to protect that lead, seal the game with one decisive stop on defense.

With Tom Brady running a smart and efficient offense, the Patriots were able to set a new standard for winning. As spectacular as the Patriots were last year, they didn’t resemble anything close to the team that went three out of four.

Upon learning that the league’s MVP would be sidelined for the year, it became immediately clear that if the Pats are to have success this year, they’ll have to revert to “the sum is greater than its parts” mantra.

With that in mind, let’s break down New England’s Week 2 performance in a way that hasn’t been necessary in a long time.

Offense

Considering Matt Cassel hadn’t started a game at quarterback since high school, he did a formidable job of leading the offense. He clearly has the intellectual capacity and longevity to handle the system. However, two of the most critical aspects of the quarterback position — pacing and field vision — are skills that can only be honed through live action.

There’s little doubt that Brady is the standard-setter when it comes to managing the clock and seeing the whole field. Cassel did those things well Sunday. He consistently got the unit up to the line of scrimmage in the face of a bloodthirsty crowd, and didn’t hesitate to use a timeout when the play clock was winding down. Much of the game plan was centered around short, quick passes to Wes Welker and the running backs, which Cassel executed with crispness and precision. He exhibited good field vision in the red-zone on third-and-6 of the Patriots’ final drive. Out of the shotgun with three receivers to his left — including Randy Moss in the near slot — Cassel saw tight end David Thomas on his right slip past the coverage and head to the corner of the end zone. He made the adjustment and tried to hit Thomas but the ball was tipped. A good sight adjustment nevertheless, considering the play was meant for Moss.

As for the running game, the four-headed monster of Laurence Maroney, Sammy Morris, Kevin Faulk and LaMont Jordan was up to the task of assuming the brunt of the offense. Maroney missed a good chunk of the game with a shoulder but returned at the end and took a big hit in stride. Morris got the tough yardage and scored the unit’s only touchdown. Faulk had 66 total yards (including receptions) out of the backfield. And a revitalized Jordan came in on fresh legs late in the third and assumed the “clock-killin’ Corey Dillon” role, churning away at the fatigued Jets defensive front for 62 yards on 11 carries.

Defense

Lots to address here, all good. The D-line was stout in the trenches, with the immovable Vince Wilfork anchoring a run defense that will undoubtedly be tops in the league this year. Richard Seymour, who was just never right last year, finally appears to be healthy. Whenever plays end and Seymour is strutting back to the line of scrimmage from the backfield, twitching his left shoulder pad, it’s a sign he’s feeling good. In nine games last season, he recorded 15 solo tackles and 1.5 sacks. He had two solo tackles — including a huge tackle for a loss on the goal line — and a sack Sunday.

For the second week running, rookie Jerod Mayo played every defensive snap and was among the team leaders in tackles. Ellis Hobbs had two passes defended and seems ready to undertake the duty of number one corner. Brandon Meriweather snatched his first career interception. Then there was Adalius Thomas, who made the play of the season thus far, sacking Brett Favre along with his blocker, Leon Washington for a 20-yard loss that iced the game on the Jets’ final drive. The man is a freak. You will be seeing that play on the 2008 highlight reel come January.

Special Teams

Stephen Gostkowski, who is suddenly a much bigger piece of the offensive equation than anyone could have imagined, did his job in spades Sunday. He was a perfect 4-for-4 in field goal attempts and booted a few of his kickoffs into the Hudson River. And Kevin Faulk returned three punts, each one into Jets territory, for a combined 53 yards.

Conclusion

It may have been a bit unnerving and new, but Patriots 19 Jets 10 was a Patriots victory. There was no Brady-to-Moss, but there was Moss saying this after the game: “The New England Patriots [are] 2-0. We got one in the division, so all you haters keep hating. We’re coming.”

Week 3 Picks (Home teams in CAPS)

ATLANTA over Kansas City
CHICAGO over Tampa Bay
NEW ENGLAND over Miami
TENNESSEE over Houston
Detroit over SAN FRANCISCO
DENVER over New Orleans
Jacksonville over INDIANAPOLIS
BUFFALO over Oakland
Carolina over MINNESOTA
NY GIANTS over Cincinnati
WASHINGTON over Arizona
SEATTLE over St. Louis
Pittsburgh over PHILADELPHIA
Cleveland over BALTIMORE
GREEN BAY over Dallas
SAN DIEGO over NY Jets

Last week: 9-6

Overall: 19-12

Life After Brady’s Knee

I’m a die hard Patriots fan. I live in New York. Ever since the sun came up on February 4, 2008, times have been rough.

For six straight months I tried my best to duck all talk of football, the perfect season, the miracle catch, Eli Manning, the Giants. For six moons I attempted to convince myself that Mercury Morris was nothing more than the insolent next door neighbor on a short-lived sitcom.

I walked the streets of Gotham with my head down. I pretended I didn’t understand street vendors whenever they pitched me a Giants championship T-shirt. I changed the channel every time I heard the words “Relive the historic season of the New York Giants”. I playfully — and painfully — feigned amnesia when coworkers and acquaintances broached the topic. I abruptly dismissed any chatter amongst my friends; sometimes through threats, others through a mere slow shake of the head. Please guys, just spare me.

For 219 days I waited, uncharacteristically hushed and vulnerable. I — like many out there — patiently loafed in the wake of Super Bowl XLII.

For all Patriots fans, those darks months helped us come to grips with the fact that what was done in that game couldn’t be undone. Yet that empty feeling was accompanied by a renewed, albeit reserved, swagger. Time might have stood still since 00:00 of the Super Bowl, but days were passing. Redemption was brewing.

Whether our suddenly fragile fan complexes would allow it to surface or not, the fact was that a part of us was waiting to see who dared beat the Patriots again. Another perfect season may not have been expected, but the notion was stuck there in the basement of our consciousness, idling like a custom softail in neutral.

September 7 was the day Tom Brady would finally throw that Harley into gear and see how far it could carry us through The Season After Imperfection.

Then it was over. Brady — along with the mission — crumpled up in a heap on the Foxborough grass not a quarter into the first game of the year. We all thought back to June, when Paul Pierce appeared to tear apart his knee before the NBA Finals had even warmed up. We comforted ourselves with the hope that the script would be rewritten for Brady, that he’d come jogging back onto the field to the tune of Rocky sometime later in the game or the season.

Not this time.

This time, in a town that has experienced unparalleled winning this decade — but is historically conditioned to expect the worst — the worst was apparently meant to be.

Now we must turn back the clocks to another day, a day when the Patriots were a team actually competing in a sport, passably at best. Lest we forget that’s how the true identity of this team was forged. Not through multiple titles, offensive records and devious behavior, but through an ironclad and all-consuming concept of “T-E-A-M”. Those were the Patriots the nation grew to love, the ones that came storming out of the Super Dome tunnel as one.

If you’re desperate for a silver lining, that’s just it. This is an opportunity for the Patriots, a chance to hearken back to a time when the men in red, white and blue were as blue collar as the people cheering them on. When neutral fans came together in support of them, and not against them. Although they became a steely juggernaut, the Patriots used to symbolize hope and overcoming the odds.

That’s how they must move forward without their leader.

As mighty as the Patriots have been this decade, it doesn’t matter how you slice it: the two most catastrophic plays in the history of the franchise happened within 10 minutes of one another. The combined impact of The Helmet Catch and Brady’s Knee will be felt for years to come. Their place is already permanently lodged in the annals of NFL history.

History. For now, that’s what the Pats are.

For the first time since 2002, the playing field is level.

Week 2 Picks (Home Teams in CAPS)

Green Bay over DETROIT
NY Giants over ST. LOUIS
Tennessee over CINCINNATI
CAROLINA over Chicago
SEATTLE over San Francisco
New England over NY JETS
San Diego over DENVER
KANSAS CITY over Oakland
Indianapolis over MINNESOTA
New Orleans over WASHINGTON
JACKSONVILLE over Buffalo
TAMPA BAY over Atlanta
ARIZONA over Miami
Pittsburgh over CLEVELAND
Baltimore over HOUSTON
Philadelphia over DALLAS

Last Week: 10-6 Overall: 10-6

18-1

Football has a knack for defining its most indefinable in the simplest of fashions. The Catch. The Drive. The Fumble. The Tackle. Minus the article, each exists merely as a single inherent, fundamental aspect of the game. Add the article and you get four of the of the most miraculous happenings in NFL history. The Catch propelled the 49ers to the first of their four Super Bowls led by Joe Montana. The Drive and The Fumble, endured by the Browns at the hands of the Broncos in successive AFC Championships, still haunt the city of Cleveland. And The Tackle of Tennessee’s Kevin Dyson at the 1-yard line by Rams linebacker Mike Jones, solidified “The Greatest Show on Turf”. Other than The Immaculate Reception, I can’t think of one history-changing play that stands out both in significance and formal historic title.

I guess what I’m trying to say is before this week I’d never really understood why football always seemed to qualify its most cherished and improbable moments in such a nuts and bolts kind of way. Then, in the five days following Super Bowl XLII, I found myself waking up everyday thinking about one thing–That Play. I would see Jarvis Green and Richard Seymour with Eli Manning in their mitts, see Eli yank himself away, cock back and throw–knowing that with all that time the Giants receivers must have gotten behind the Patriots secondary–then see Rodney Harrison actually there. There to make a play that he makes, almost snapping the back bone of David Tyree as he wrestles him to the ground. Yet somehow the ball rests between Tyree’s hand and his helmet; the only part of his person not in violent contortion as a result of Harrison’s hit. Everything hits the ground. Except the ball. The catch has been made. That Play has happened. Except it doesn’t strike me. It doesn’t compute. Everything we’ve been through. Everything they’ve been through. It all vanishes with one epic play.

Only when I was able to comprehend That Play itself did I finally realize why football needs no poetry to capture its greatest happenings. They capture themselves. That’s the beauty of the NFL Playoffs, of the game of football: It’s simplicity. One chunk of sixty minutes will determine a winner and a loser. There is no championship series; no losing home field but still having a shot on the road; no regrouping after a total brain fart. In football, tomorrow exists not as another opportunity but as a finality. It’s hard to believe that on the first “tomorrow” after the 2007 NFL season, the perfect-Patriots were suddenly the defeated-Patriots. It took them 18 games and five months to gain monolithic status, something that could only be substantiated by their unprecedented 18-0 record. And it took sixty minutes to wipe it all away.

The writing was on the wall. Books by the Boston Herald and Boston Globe chronicling the historic 19-0 Patriots. A victory parade in the works for Super Tuesday (Boston.com story). A celebrity girlfriend in attendance. An ankle injury dismissed as another insignificant speed bump in the slow but sure trek to immortality. By the time the confetti was falling in Glendale, all had become terrible omens. When the confetti arrived, the book disappeared. So too did the map of the parade route. And while we won’t ever know for sure just how ominous Gisele’s presence was, or more importantly, how severe Brady’s ankle injury was, we fell into the trap. Might as well call it the perfect trap.

I remember hearing about the book and the parade sometime during Super Bowl week, and how briefly, a chill ran down the back of my spine. I recalled how during the Patriots first Super Bowl run, the Steelers were handing out Super Bowl tickets before the AFC Championship and St. Louis was planning championship festivities before they had even lined up against New England. I remember how I scoffed at the time. The parallels between the 2001 Patriots and 2007 Giants (not to mention the teams they were facing as well as the grandeur of their fan bases) had already been well established. You know where the parallels ended? At Brady and Belichick’s perfect 3-0 record in Super Bowls as the platform on which 18-0 stood. Thus the trap had been set.

There was to be no wavering. The outcome, although most critical, seemed most obvious. It was obvious because of 3-0 and 18-0, because of the swagger that went along with those unblemished marks, because of the bitter feelings of resentment that had stemmed from CameraGate, because of the fact that anyone tied to the Patriots was up against everyone else. In Week 2 a line was drawn in the sand. On one side were the Patriots, led by Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, followed by their supporters. On the other side was everyone else, led by Eric Mangini, Mercury Morris and (evidently) Arlen Specter. As time passed and wins mounted, the divide only grew wider; the respective feelings only became harsher.

Like it often does in football, it all became personal. It still is. Will always be. However, That Play happened. That Play threw history off its axis. At this moment past and future mean nothing. Right now, the Giants are champions and the ’72 Dolphins are the only perfect team in football history.

As for everyone on the “enemy side” of that line in the sand–coaches, players, fans, writers alike–it is now bitingly clear that for all of us, pride came before the fall. The 2007 Patriots finished 18-1 and will be remembered as the greatest failure in football history.

Super Bowl Thoughts and THE XLII PICK

I rarely moan and groan, and when I choose to do so it is always about one thing. Access. Or my general lack thereof. Regrettably, being founder, editor, and sole writer of Ballgamespoints.com doesn’t qualify me for access to Super Bowl Week. There were approximately 5,000 media credentials issued for Media Day XLII, going to everyone ranging from a 9-year-old kid probably skipping a test on the times-tables to a striking Mexican TV reporter sporting a wedding gown and using the platform to propose to Tom Brady. And every other conceivable character in between. Nothing for me though. Bollocks. So here I am again, digesting the buildup to the big game from my cove in Brooklyn. But don’t stop reading; I’m not about to unleash a thousand fuming words illustrating my displeasure. I’ll spare you the tirade awash in vitriol and sulk. Just know it’s in there, festering. That makes me feel better.

What I will use this column as is a way of figuring out what exactly I’m going to do for the game, which I haven’t yet decided. The field has been narrowed to two choices. I can either A) go to Boston, watch the Pats with my Boston friends on a 62-incher, and pour into the streets of Beantown after the rebirth of a dynasty, or B) go to Staten Island, watch the game on a TV of comparable girth with my New York crew, and run the risk of being maimed. True, the answer seems obvious enough, but don’t jump to premature conclusions. There are pros and cons that go with each scenario.

Boston first. No doubt, being in Boston for a championship is wicked awesome. I was there for the Patriots’ second Super Bowl triumph. The venue was my buddy’s apartment at BU. After Vinatieri kicked the game-winner, we joined a couple thousand BU kids in a march down Comm Ave toward Kenmore Square, the de facto centre of celebration post-Boston championships. When we got there we were met by tens of thousands more, who we joined forces with to turn the gateway of Fenway into a massive rave of champions. Small fires produced pockets of primitive light, surrounded by boozed-up Bostonians and college kids. Lamp posts were climbed and conquered by the boldest; these revelers relished their moment above the masses by firing up cigars and belting out unintelligible cries of victory. Chants of “Let’s Go Red Sox” echoed from North Station to Copley Square. But the real party raged in the shadows of the edifice that had left Boston feeling hollow every autumn for 86 years. With the Red Sox (at the time…) continuing to tear the hearts out of their faithful, watching the Patriots had become a therapeutic practice for all us starving New England sports fans. They helped us channel our passion and anguish. In the almost-four months subsequent to the Grady Little-Pedro-Game 7 debacle, the Patriots didn’t lose once. Hence the culmination in Kenmore.

So how can I possibly find a “con” in that scenario? For better or worse, the sports fervor in Boston undoubtedly boils over when a team wins a title. And the night I’m referencing pretty much started that trend. By the time the waves of SWAT personnel occupied the bridge over the Massachusetts Turnpike (which separates Fenway from Kenmore), it was clear that dispersing the masses of people in the square, all full of bravado and cheap beer, would be a challenge. The cops, clad in their riot control gear, stood at attention. The masses continued to taunt the law until our collective sinuses informed us that a huge cloud of pepper spray (or some irritant of the kind) was hanging overhead. Then the SWAT line started its advance. Move or be moved. Most moved. Some were moved. I woke up the next day feeling exhilarated and relieved. Exhilarated that my Patriots were again world champs; relieved that I wasn’t one of the few hundred to spend a bruised-up night in the clink. Wild times. Times that I relived the next year when the Sox finally won the World Series. So you see? I’ve been there, done that, and at the time had that cloak of invincibility better known as college student-status.

Now I’m knee deep in the “real world”, attempting to make it in the field of sportswriting. And I’ll tell you something. The only thing better than having been in Boston for those two defining moments was being in New York for the 2004 ALCS (Games 4-7 that is). I gained an immense amount of perspective into the psyches of the sports fans in this city, because for once, they revealed something other than obtuse superiority (yes, I’m speaking to you, Yankee fans). Even better is the fact that with multiple teams in each sport, cross-sport affiliations aren’t set in stone. I have one buddy who is a Yankees/Giants fan; another who supports the Mets/Jets combo; another yet who bleeds Mets and Giants; and rounding out the bunch, one guy who has undying love for the Yankees and whichever team Michael Vick will be on come Madden 2010. An eccentric bunch, these New Yorkers.

Which brings us full circle, back to “Super Bowl Scenario B”. All of the previously mentioned characters will be at Cotter’s (aka Mr. Mets/Giants) domicile on Staten Island, where a fully stocked bar and an assortment of Chinese appetizers are promised. Not to mention a sporting experience that will clearly shape the near future. If the Giants win, I will never, ever, ehhhhhhhhver hear the end of it, so I might as well be there for the beginning. And if the Patriots win, after dusting off the shards from the plate glass window I get jettisoned through, I’ll have to find a way to exit good ole S.I. without incurring further damage. Either way, it’s a story waiting to be written. And while the story of taking in a title in Boston will never get old, I’ve already lived it twice, and have just written about it. So I think the debate is resolved. For XLII, it will be the Island of Staten. As for the game itself…

THE XLII PICK

For the record, I’m 7-3 this postseason. More importantly, I’m 4-1 in games which involved the Patriots and Giants, with my first “L” coming after I picked Green Bay in the NFC Championship. (As for that someone who’s 5-0, please make yourself known; I’ll give you your own paragraph.) Because I live in New York and love the Patriots, I can count on one hand the number of combined Giants/Patriots games I’ve missed this year. Which is to say I know these teams, know them better than any two teams in the NFL. I will allow that before Week 17 I made a gross misstep in my assertion that Tom Coughlin would be crazy to risk injury to his starters by playing them against the Patriots in a meaningless game. While they did lose three key guys in the loss, that game unequivocally lifted the team to a higher place, beginning first and foremost with Eli Manning. There is simply no other way to explain and/or justify winning three road games and dethroning three NFC division champions in the playoffs. That is the G-Men’s claim to fame summed up. They almost beat the Patriots, used the loss as a watershed moment in which potential was realized, and have steamrolled the competition ever since. They are prepared, focused and confident. They have walked the walk.

Unfortunately for the Giants, in Super Bowl XLII they will not be facing the 2006 Colts or the 2003 Patriots or even the 2000 Ravens (who dismantled the last Giants outfit to make the Super Bowl). Those are three of the great championship teams of the last decade. Three title-winning teams that may have seen their own destinies altered if they ran into these ’07 Giants. No, they’re not playing one of those teams. They’re playing the 2007 Patriots, the first group of professional football players to sit at 18-0; the first squad to be both undefeated and slighted; the only team that could claim to be on a mission that trumps the mission of these G-Men. In its NFL standings section this year, the New York Post stuck an asterisk next to the Patriots name every week, which correlated to a phrase at the bottom of the page: caught cheating. The Patriots are determined to maintain that asterisk forever, except with a different phrase to interpret it: only 19-0 team in football history. Damned if the Colts, Eagles, Ravens, Jaguars or Chargers were going to thwart them. Same for the Giants a month ago. Like those before and after them, the Giants smelled blood, Patriots blood, but couldn’t seal the deal.

There’s only one way the Giants can hope to put themselves back in that position: get to Brady. Get to him early and often. Get to him in the huddle, before the snap, after the whistle. Get to him in his sleep Saturday night. If the Giants want to stand a chance, they better understand that anything short of a total incursion on Tom Brady will lead to their downfall. But let’s face it. That won’t happen. The Patriots have come too far. They’ve had a vendetta to settle since their collapse in the AFC Championship last year in Indy, since Eric Mangini blew the whistle on CameraGate in Week 2. Each victory has gotten tougher, but so too has their resolve. When other teams have sniffed blood, the Patriots have sniffed immortality, yet refused to let it faze or distract them. They are out to prove Mangini is a traitorous rat. They are itching to huff and puff and blow down the neighborhood of Mercury Morris and the rest of those loony ’72 Dolphins. They have played 18 one-game seasons to get here. Football may be a business, but winning football games has become the business of the New England Patriots. That job ends Sunday night.

Patriots 30 Giants 24

Stretch Run for the Patriots

And so the rat returns to face the perpetrator. Now it’ll get interesting.

Or perhaps not.

The Patriots are 13-0, one win away from joining the ’72 Dolphins as the only team to win fourteen regular season games without a loss. Unforeseen nail-biters against Philly and Baltimore are in the rear-view; so too is a dispatching of the Steelers, formerly billed as “the last hurdle”. All that’s left to tackle (among an assortment of Jets, Dolphins and Giants) is history. The formality of formalities.

While Patriots-speak forbids peering down the road at what may be, it’s nearly impossible not to see the finish line taking form. On Sunday against the Jets, be it rain or shine, well predicted-Nor’easter or meteorological hype, the Patriots are going to hand Mangini’s boys a beating. It’s going to be fun, for sure, but interesting? All the media wants to know is what will ultimatley be icier: the conditions on the field in Foxborough or the post-massacre handshake between coaches. While Coach Bill would never reveal a goal loftier than winning one football game that’s next on the schedule, the eternally curt-Belichick gave writers and fans a singular slice of something other than humble pie during his midweek press conference leading up to the Jets game.

The questions were naturally focused on how “the handshake” would go down, to which the monotonous guru responded predictably: “Right now my focus is on getting ready for the New York Jets.” Mmm hmm.

Anything else, coach?

“High-fives, I haven’t really thought too much about that,” he continued. “Cartwheels.”

Whoa, rewind that. Was that (gulp!) humor emanating from the robotic minister of Patriots information? Did the coach’s inner comedian suffer a Freudian slip? Uh, no. Judging from the wily smirk that followed the quip, in a moment that brought brief but distinct animation to an otherwise insipid public persona, it sure as heck seemed like Bill was temporarily deviating from the token replies established by his personally accumulated guidebook to press conferences, “Belichick Media Responses 1A through 999Z”. In a split second Bill delivered a one-two punch that left the press corps reeling. First a joke…then a grin??

Since it is common knowledge that at the podium Belichick doesn’t so much as scratch his nose without calculation, one could only wonder what he was really trying to say. I mean we are talking about a guy whose total number of recorded smiles in his Patriots-tenure could be counted on one hand.

Was he foreshadowing a rehearsed post-game routine that would involve pirouettes and would thoroughly rub bitter defeat in the face of his protege-turned-squealer? Nah, Bill’s never really been the melodramatic type. More probable is the possibility that he was using some media-driven triviality to express his general feelings about the state of Patriot-affairs at this point in the 2007 season. Because from a Patriots point of view, things are looking so downright peachy these days, apparently a smile was in order.

The goal of Belichick’s Patriots since he took over the team in 2000 has always been the same: get to the games that matter, the games in December and January, and enter those games as the stronger and more meticulously prepared team. When the weather gets colder and the season is already 12-odd games in the books, it is schemes, game-planning and the mental toughness to go sixty minutes that come to the forefront. Under Bill, with countless different inserted-working parts over the years, it is in those circumstances that the Patriots have thrived.

Since 2001, New England has gone a combined 38-7 (.844) over the last month of the regular season and through the playoffs. Belichick and Brady are 12-2 in the postseason together. Translation: this is their time. So what does this have to do with one smirk from Belichick in relation to a very specific topic? In this sportswriters opinion, everything.

What Belichick now sees, even if he’ll never come close to admitting it, is the perfection he’s sought since before this latest Jets game, before CameraGate and even before the start of the ’07 campaign. It all began back in Indy last January, in the AFC Championship. The Patriots were supposed to win that game. Belichick knew it. Brady knew it. Josh McDaniels and Scott Pioli and the Kraft’s knew it. We all did. The Patriots were up to their old tricks: they were beating a team with superior talent on the biggest stage simply by being mentally and physically tougher, by being better-coached, by making fewer mistakes, and by collectively knowing that they’d make the one game-changing play required to advance or win a championship.

But they didn’t. They couldn’t. For once it was the Patriots’ opposition that was able to make the adjustments. For once it was the other team making the championship-clinching play. For the first time since Belichick and Brady hooked up, the “inferior talent but superior team” factor that had defined the glory of their improbable triumphs against the Rams and Steelers and previous Colts’ outfits had finally come back to bite them in the rear. Against Indy, they were again outmatched skill-wise, but the difference was this time they actually lost the game.

Thus commenced an entire shift in the modus operandi of the Patriots’ brass. Never again would a lack of talent thwart the Patriots in their quest to become the franchise that redefined NFL-history. So in trotted Adalius Thomas, Randy Moss, Wes Welker and Donte Stallworth. Perfection was the un-divulged goal from square one. However, before this new team even had a chance to come together, Eric Mangini broke an unspoken coaches code–throwing kerosene on a fire that had started burning in Indy last year–and morphed a New England goal into a Patriot-vendetta.

No one said it would be easy, and as much as Belichick and his team believed it could happen, perfection would still have to be earned. After storming back against the Colts and surviving the Ravens, the Patriots have shown they are up to the task.

Yes, they still have six more games before goals can be achieved and vendettas settled. But the point is, this is their time. Games against the lowly Jets, the hapless Dolphins and the Giants jayvee squad will formalize a perfect 16-0 season and put the Patriots exactly where they want to be: in Foxborough with two games at Gillette for the right to return to the Super Bowl.

Indeed, I gleaned all this conjecture from a single smirk. But I’ll ask you this: if we’ve already seen Belichick crack a smile this season, a happening that in past years has only been witnessed after an Adam Vinatieri title-winning kick, what could still be to come?

I for one have a feeling he’s saving the cartwheels for Phoenix.

Patriots vs. Vegas/Week 11 Power Poll

Vegas always wins. That’s one adage to live by if you don’t happen to reside in the top one percent of gamblers. There’s a reason the Vegas Strip is so gaudy, the casinos are so flashy and the sportsbooks are so ethereal (so to speak). It’s because you’re leaving your money there. Duh. The point of this piece is not to rant about the ploys and allure of casinos, because there are tons of spots around the country where you can get screwed at the blackjack table and have it sanctioned by the state legislature. However only in one locale can you happen upon the aforementioned, otherworldly venue called a sportsbook, and wager on any sporting event you desire. That would be Las Vegas (and the rest of the barren state it’s a part of, Nevada).

The reason Vegas always wins when it comes to sports wagering is because, quite simply, it’s smarter than the vast majority of people making bets. Vegas has professional analysts, cutting edge computers and some of the most shrewd statisticians, all working in accord to assure it comes out on top. The logic behind Vegas gambling lines (or “point spreads”) is simple. The goal is to set a line that will attract an equal number of wagers on either side. In other words, if 1000 people are each going to bet $100 on a specific game, oddsmakers ideally want 500 of those wagers to go on the favored team and the other 500 to go on the underdog. Considering for each bet the gambler must pay a ten percent wager-fee (colloquially called “the vig”), if oddsmakers succeed in balancing the bets, the house takes in its ten percent on all bets made, and wins. Of course the strategy is far more complex than that, but in a nutshell that’s the essence of a Nevada sportsbook.

So how does this tie into the Patriots? Put bluntly, the Patriots are seriously threatening to fleece Vegas like no sports team in my memory (and possibly of all-time). The answer to how and why the Patriots (read: those people gambling on the Patriots) are systematically beating Vegas is two fold. First is the the sheer talent and capability of this team relative to the rest of the league. They’re better than the field, and everybody knows it. Second (and more importantly within the context of Vegas) is CameraGate. Post-CameraGate, Bill Belichick has his team so bloodthirsty and vengeance-seeking, even Vegas can’t account for it. Traditionally in professional sports, wins and losses are more or less all that matter to teams (meaning average margin of victory isn’t very significant). Unlike college, where writers and coaches vote to determine how teams rank in relation to one another (which is why forty and fifty point blowouts are common in the NCAA), professional sports boil down to “Ws” or “Ls”. In addition, Vegas has always benefited from the concept of professionalism within pro sports. That is to say that these guys are, at the core, part of a business, and while habitually competing against one another, they are nonetheless colleagues in their respective professions.

The Patriots are nobody’s colleagues but their own. You can throw “professionalism” into a bucket with “running up the score”, douse it with lighter fluid, add a lit match and toss it right out the window. The only way this team interprets the notion of professionalism is by playing sixty minutes of butt-kicking football every week. This is the conundrum Vegas has found itself trying to solve. Here are two constants that Vegas must cope with: 1) on any given Sunday, any team in the NFL can beat any other team; 2) the Patriots are winning football games by an average of 25 points.

Now because the goal of a sportsbook is to get action on both sides of a point spread, and given the historically-tested “any given Sunday” theory, Vegas is wary about pushing NFL lines into the 20s, no matter how obvious a perceived mismatch there is. It screws up that balance they’re looking for, and usually teams don’t keep pouring it on with three touchdown leads. Except Bill’s boys, driven by superior talent and fueled by retribution. For the record, the Patriots are either 9-0-1 or 9-1 against the spread this year (the line against the Colts fluctuated from -4 to -5.5 and the Patriots won by four, so some gamblers who utilized the four point spread conceivably pushed their bets that week, neither winning nor losing.)

That said, non-compulsive gamblers likely steered clear of the Colts game, simply because Pats-Colts has proven a tall order to predict. To put all this in perspective, imagine you were in Las Vegas before Week 1 of the NFL season and put $100 on the Patriots. If each week, minus the Colts game, you let it all ride (ie reinvested your initial bet plus what you profited into another Patriots-wager), today you would be sitting on $46,080 (or $51,200 – $5,120). The little more than five grand would be the ten percent you owe to the sportsbook for placing the bets.

Allow me to be the first (or millionth) to inform you: you’re not supposed to be able to turn a hundred bucks into fifty thousand. Vegas is supposed to curb that streak waaaaay before it gets going. If you went on a run like that at the blackjack table the casino powers would have you set up in a luxury suite before you turned your first ten grand. Yet here we are, two-thirds through the 2007 NFL season, and the Patriots have already dealt a severe blow to the sports gaming monopoly residing in the western desert. Believe me, there are many serious gamblers out there riding the heck out of this Patriots wave. Sure, in the grand scheme it may only be a pin prick through the monstrous moneymaking enterprise that is Vegas, but rest assured, it’s a pin prick straight through the heart of the beast.

How’s that for a different take on the Patriots’ dominance? Now here’s my latest power poll, highlighting the cream of NFL mortals…

NFL Top Five Power Poll: Week 11

1. Patriots (10-0) The Pats are early 22 point favorites this week against the Eagles. Now someone tell me they’re surprised.

2. Cowboys (9-1) For the first time since I’ve been an online sportswriter (which isn’t terribly long, but still) I have an NFC team in the top two. My logic here is that with the Colts losing twice and the Cowboys standing at 9-0 against everyone but the Patriots, they deserve the ranking. The Tony Romo to Terrell Owens combo has been jaw-dropping of late. Since their loss to New England in Week 6, the Boys have run off four straight, and Romo has found T.O. eight times for touchdowns. The defense has played markedly better as well. After giving up 48 points to New England, the Dallas D has shut down opposing offenses to the tune of 18.5 points per game.

3. Packers (9-1) What more can you say about Brett Favre and the Pack? Green Bay has won in Denver, in Kansas City and in New Jersey against the Giants. Favre’s quarterback rating of 98.6 is the highest of his career since 1995 (99.5), when he was embarking on a streak of three-straight league MVP awards. He’s already thrown more touchdowns (19) than he did all last year (18). What was unquestionably the team’s greatest weakness, its running game, appears to be solved. Ryan Grant (who? an undrafted free agent from Notre Dame, that’s who) has busted onto the scene, and averaged over 90 yards rushing in Green Bay’s last four games, all wins. Assuming the Packers win on Thanksgiving Day in Detroit (never an easy task), home field in the NFC will be on the line Thursday night November 29, when the Pack travels to Dallas.

4. Colts (8-2) The Colts are having a season in ’07 similar to the ’06 Patriots campaign. They’ve battled key injuries throughout (most significantly, Marvin Harrison) and struggled to win games. But they’ve continually found ways to post victories and look like a 12-4 team that will be contending for the second bye in the AFC. Still the Colts must get healthy if they want to even gain a rematch with the Patriots, let alone entertain notions of defending their crown against the Pats.

5. Giants (7-3) Earning a spot in the top five for the first time, the Geeeeeee-Men. As in “geeee this team loves laying an egg after a 6-2 start”. Yes, the Giants probably did lose the division by shooting themselves in the feet multiple times two weeks ago at the Meadowlands against Dallas. Down two games in the standings (which is basically three because the Giants lost both matchups with the Cowboys), the New York football Giants better get used to winning on the road, because that’s what they’ll have to do (again) come playoff time. The good news is with a fairly kind schedule (Minnesota, at Chicago, at Philly, Washington, at Buffalo) down the stretch, the G-Men should be 11-4 entering the season finale at home against the Patriots. Barring a Cowboys-implosion or a Patriots-loss, this game will be very interesting because neither the Giants (who will have the top wild card locked up) nor the Patriots (who will have home field secured) will have a lot to play for. Which means this game will officially qualify as “most playoff-like game with least on the line” status.

5a. Steelers (7-3) Let’s not mince words. When you lose to a 1-8 team you probably don’t deserve to be in the top five, no matter what your record is. Luckily the Steelers have the football tradition, not to mention a top-five running back and quarterback as well as one of the league’s elite defenses. That said, each statement the Steelers have made this year has been a losing statement (see: Arizona and the Jets). To date, their biggest win was a 38-7 trouncing on a Monday night of a Ravens team we all know would be better off with USC’s offense. After they beat the Dolphins and Bengals, Pittsburgh will see where it truly matches up on the proverbial measuring stick. On Sunday December 9, the 9-3 Steelers will travel to Foxborough to meet the 12-0 Patriots.

Pats and Colts: Then and Now

This time around, it was the team with red trim to complement its white and blue that made the plays when they counted most. It was only Week 9, but the Patriots proved beyond a reasonable doubt that they are again kingpins of the NFL.

For the time being, after a 24-20 defeat, the still-defending champion Colts are number two.

Until matters are settled once and for all in January, the Colts will have to live with the fact that the script got flipped in this rivalry. Again. After all, when you’re playing at home in the fourth quarter holding a 10-point lead and you happen to be Peyton Manning, the script is usually yours to pen. Especially in light of the demons the Colts were able to slay last January in that same Heat Dome.

In the 2006 AFC Championship Game, the Patriots played 40 minutes of superb football before collapsing to a superior Indianapolis team. Despite playing so well for so long, the game came down to two plays for New England: a failed third-down conversion at the 2:17 mark, which gave the ball back to Manning; and on the ensuing Colts drive, the inability of linebacker Eric Alexander to cover a sideline flag pattern run by tight end, Bryan Fletcher.

The impact of those two plays on the depleted and exhausted Patriots was season-ending. The third down that would’ve iced the game was ill-fated because of an unprecedented miscommunication between Tom Brady and Troy Brown. Mr. Old Reliable simply ran the wrong route. The 32-yard strike to Fletcher, which accounted for the bulk of the Colts championship-winning drive, was inevitable. Alexander, starting his first NFL game at linebacker, was nowhere near nimble enough to contend with the down field presences of Fletcher and Dallas Clark (who singlehandedly torched the Pats linebacker corps and secondary).

In that game the Patriots out-schemed, out-executed and thoroughly outplayed the Colts for the majority of three quarters, but it wasn’t enough. Two more plays and it would have been.

Lest we forget, that was then and this is now. What a difference an offseason makes.

Subsequent to that defeat the Patriots went on a talent-feeding frenzy, making it clear that lack of viable personnel would never thwart them again. As fast as you can say “Randy Moss for a fourth rounder plus CameraGate”, the entire mindset of the team and its fans morphed. No longer would games be played merely to win, they’d be played to conquer.

What we knew before Week 9 was that the Patriots could pretty much systematically destroy any opponent, and show no mercy in doing so. Any opponent, that is, but the Colts. What we discovered after this regular season’s Pats-Colts installment was that these Patriots still remember how to win close games in the fourth quarter, which used to be the team’s m.o.

Playing consistent sound football was also a requisite of past-Patriots teams; that’s how they won an NFL-record 21 games straight between the 2003 and 2004 seasons. Many of those games were won by Brady leading a late go-ahead drive or the defense making a game-saving stop. Their average margin of victory was just a shade over a touchdown. However those teams didn’t have a receiving corps of Randy Moss, Wes Welker and Donte’ Stallworth. But these new Patriots do, and last Sunday against the Colts they showed they’re capable of beating the best even while playing almost their worst.

Let’s be honest: the Patriots had no business winning this football game. They were down 20-10 with 9:42 left. The first fifty minutes were sorry. Tom Brady had thrown not one, but two interceptions (although the second was a “play of the year” pick by Gary Brackett), only his third and fourth of the season. The noise level in the RCA Dome was so high the only way the coaching staff could get plays to Brady was via signals, and it’s evident that Brady himself had to call at least a handful of plays.

The defense was suspect too. At the end of the first half it allowed a check-down play to Joseph Addai to go for a 73-yard touchdown, and the Patriots lost the lead. The severity of giving up an uncharacteristic big-play in quasi-kneel time was augmented by the defense’s lack of discipline. The unit was penalized four times for 30 yards, and that doesn’t even include two pass interference calls (one mediocre and one terrible) on Asante Samuel and Ellis Hobbs that tallied 77 yards. Each one placed Indy on the doorstep of the Patriots goal line. Within character, the D tightened when manning the red zone against Peyton, and the Colts were only able to add a few “3’s” onto the scoreboard.

The Colts continued to let the Patriots hang around and they paid for it. It took all of four plays (a Moss 55-yard catch setting up a Welker 3-yard touchdown and a Stallworth 33-yard reception setting up a Kevin Faulk 13-yard score) over two successive fourth quarter drives for the dynamic Patriots offense to turn a 10-point deficit into a four point lead.

And just like that it might as well have been 2003, because this lead–unlike typical ’07 Pats leads–had to be protected. Protect it they did, as a team. The one play the defense had to make came at the 2:34 mark: it had to prevent Manning from converting a third and nine from midfield. Rosevelt Colvin accomplished that and more, charging Manning from his outside linebacker position and strip-sacking the helpless quarterback. Then the offense needed to gain one more first down before the two minute warning, and Brady found Welker on a quick-out (or the Troy Brown special), sealing the deal.

While CameraGate is due its fair share of credit for inspiring the Patriots to grind teams into the ground over sixty minutes, the concept itself is longstanding in Foxborough. The teams in ’01, ’03 and ’04 won Super Bowls because every time they took the field they were ready to fight for all sixty minutes. They lost the AFC Championship game last year because they didn’t have the talent and stamina to go the distance. This season they have both, and ever since CameraGate turned a philosophy into a vendetta, the Patriots have been downright nasty. Over the first eight weeks, they played from start to finish every Sunday and won each game by an average of 25 points.

Then they returned to the house of their demise last year; the place where they were taught the harshest of lessons, lessons that would’ve been many touchdowns harsher had that ’06 squad come out the way the Patriots did Sunday. While cumulatively the most recent sixty minutes they played was a far cry from their collective performance over the first eight games, the common thread of finishing what was started remained. That’s clearly been the message this season. It was the same message the 2006 Patriots couldn’t heed. But that team didn’t have a Moss. It didn’t have a Welker or Stallworth or Adalius Thomas. It didn’t have CameraGate.

This team has all those things, and apparently, a little bit of each can go a long way. Even against the best.

NFL Top Five Power Poll: Week 9

1. Patriots (9-0)

2. Colts (7-1)

3. Cowboys (7-1)

4. Packers (7-1)

5. Steelers (6-2)