a note about the pros

Before I get into my picks of the week for the high school season (which ironically are printed above this on the blog and you probably already read them) I wanted to say something I meant to talk about last week.
Of course, it's the New England Patriots.
Full disclosure up front. I used to root for the Patriots (in fact, I used to root for the Red Sox a looooong time ago, but gave that up when I was around seven or eight years old). The Pats were never my favorite team, that has always been the 49ers (sigh). But I cheered for the Pats the rest of the time, and rooted for them back in the Bledsoe/Parcells/Curtis Martin days. (Although my favorite on the team was always Ben Coates. I always have a soft spot for pass-catching TEs).
But over the past decade, since the Pats' first Super Bowl victory when I was rooting heavily for them, I have seen some disturbing things from both the team and the fans. The team needs no explanation as rumors of cheating carry a lot of weight. But I've seen the fans go from the frustrated ones of a struggling or downright awful team to the arrogant ones of a winner that knows everybody is out to beat them, which usually leads to a very defensive attitude, particularly when that winner is not used to winning or being the favorite.
Put simply, Patriots fans last year reached the point of being unbearable. Their arrogance regarding their team was one thing. But their complete ability to not only overlook the character flaws of their own team, but actually celebrate them, was dispicable at times. I hate to generalize this way, because I know some Pats fans who, of course, are perfectly decent, honest, trustworthy and respectful human beings. But what shocked me most was how so many of them could cling blindly to the faith that their team had done nothing wrong, or the dictum that "everybody's doing it",as if that justified cheating.
So, very few things would please me more than to see those fans and players, who took it upon themselves not just to win last year but to needlessly embarrass opponents for the Jets' audacity of rightfully accusing them of cheating, be handed a big plate of humble pie this year. Don't forget that before the Pats were clinging to leads as the pressure of 19-0(TM) built up, they were running scores up on helpless opponents through the first half of the season, and padding their own stats.
And that brings me directly to the one thing about the Pats that might anger me more than their cheating, dishonesty, manipulativeness, arrogance and general offensiveness: the myth of Tom Brady.
We all know how this myth started. Bledsoe, always a QB prone to making bad decisions, gets hurt against the Jets early in the 2001 season. In steps Brady, an unknown player who never saw the starting position at Michigan, and the fans feared another doomsday. But somehow the new QB played smart, didn't make huge mistakes, and the Pats' defense and a man who must be credited as a brilliant coach went on to win the title (whether by cheating or not).
And all the credit went to Brady.
And more was heaped on him as they won again, and again. Suddenly Brady was a sure-fire Hall of Famer, despite never putting up exceptional numbers.
And then comes to town Randy Moss, and suddenly Brady has a weapon like few others, perhaps none other. There is not a better deep route runner than Moss in the league, and the deep ball is one of Brady's skills. And Belichick's system is still designed to force teams to respect the run and short passes, making this a match made in heaven.
Result: 2007, Brady's first spectacular statistical season.
Now, before you think I'm crazy, I'm not saying Brady is not a good or very good player. He is. But what bugs me is the seeming concensus among analysts and fans that, as I heard several times last week, he is clearly the best player in the NFL and is irreplaceable.
Well, we finally get our chance to find out, and I have to say I'm torn. Do I root against the Patriots so their fans and players can be brought back to reality and humbled? Or do I root for Matt Cassel, a guy with eerily similar pre-NFL pedigree to Brady, to once and for all destroy the great football myth of our generation.
My honest prediction is that the Patriots will go 11-5 or within one game in either direction, make the playoffs, and threaten to make the Super Bowl but will be stopped by somebody just a bit better. That is partly because of their cupcake schedule.
But mostly it's because the greatest myth about this team for the past eight years is that Brady was the reason it was successful. True, Brady did better than Bledsoe, because Drew was never a good QB in Belichick's system, or with a team that needed to minimize mistakes to make its defensive effort worthwhile. Brady gave the team the consistency and conservativeness it needed to win.
So can Cassel. While Cassel doesn't have Brady's experience, which admittedly has gotten better through the years, it was evidenced in Week 2 against the Jets that he can stay away from trouble, and the defense can still win.
We'll see. I guess either way I should be happy. I just kind of want to see Tom Brady's legacy shown for what it is, a very good career, but not necessarily worthy of the Hall, with a lot of team success, more than I want to see the team fall off its pedestal.

one more Super Bowl note

A friend reminded me, and I've been hearing some other talk today, about a key moment in the first half yesterday. At the time I had fully taken notice of it, but I forgot about it in the excitement of the fourth quarter and afterglow.
It was the 4th-and-13 play the Patriots faced at the New York 31-yard line late in the half. Obviously, the 48-yard potential field goal attempt was within kicker Stephen Gostkowski's range. His career long is 52 yards as FOX noted. But in that moment it was apparent that the Patriots felt more confident going for fourth-and-long in a close game (7-3 lead at the time) rather than trying to kick the field goal indoors. Now, I would guess that Belichick in part wanted to put a stranglehold on the game, go into the half with a lot of momentum and be able to put the game away early in the second half (along the lines of my last blog about past champs). But if he had an automatic guy like Adam Vinatieri there still, my guess is he takes the guaranteed points.
Looking at Gostkowski's stats (http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/players/stats?statsId=7867) for the season, he made 21 of 24 field goal attempts for 87 percent. That's a great number. But a closer look reveals that he attempted only 5 from forty yards or more and is 6-0f-10 in his career. He had none over 50 yards this year and made his only 50-plus attempt in his career last season. Gostkowski only had nine field goal attempts all year of 30-39 yards, kicking ten of shorter distances than that.
Clearly, the Pats, often choosing to run up scores even late in the game, did not use Gostkowski much during the regular season and perhaps did not trust him to kick beyond 40 yards. 48 would have been a very long attempt for him, even indoors. And at a key moment in the game, without even being there, Vinatieri's legend grows.

an upset for the ages

Wow. I have a lot to say about Super Bowl XLII. So let's get right to it.
First of all, I felt that midway through the third quarter the debate as to whether these Pats were the best team ever was already decided... and they clearly were not. Consider the playoff and Super Bowl results of all the other teams in the discussion (excepting the 72 Dolphins who most football analysts would agree were not the greatest team either). The best teams of all time have not only won the Super Bowl, but put the games out of reach before halftime for the most part.
The '85 Bears, with inarguably the best defense ever, dominated the Patriots 46-10. The '89 49ers, the best of their dynasty teams, overpowered the Broncos 55-10. The '92 Cowboys put away the Bills, in their third straight Super Bowl, in the first half and went on to score 21 points in the fourth quarter and win 52-17. The team in the year after, which I would argue is the best team ever, outscored the Bills 24-0 in the second half to put away a 30-14 victory. The '94 Niners, maybe the best squad that franchise ever had, coasted to a 49-26 victory over the Chargers.
Flash forward to the Patriots, struggling to put away an upstart Giants team, which had to pull off three legitimate upsets just to get to the game, which had numerous glaring weaknesses such as its defensive secondary, which had next to no playoff experience, and which was a 12-point underdog. And ultimately the Patriots paid the price for not getting the job done early. They left an opening and Eli took it.
Not to take anything away from the way the Giants have played of late, but they were not nearly the team the Pats were. Shouldn't the best team ever win the biggest game of its season? Shouldn't the best offense ever score more than 14 points against a defense with a gaping hole?
Enough said. Let this argument die now. These Patriots simply were not the best team ever.

Nonetheless, with that perfect record on the line, I would consider this the second biggest Super Bowl upset of all time, behind only Broadway Joe's infamous guaranteed win in SB III. Many fans nowadays forget or never realized how big it was for the AFL, arguably the equivalent of a minor league, defeating the top NFL team. Imagine the Canadian football champion beating the Giants, or Patriots, next week. That game insured that the merger would work, would last, and gave the league a chance to exist as it does now. It also was a 17-point spread, so the linemakers at the time saw it as a bigger upset than this one too.
I would consider this one of the five best SB's of all time on the field as well. There may not have been a lot of offensive flash, but there were certainly defensive plays galore, and when crunchtime came both teams made plays with the ball in their hands.
I still like the Titans-Rams game more, if only for the fact that there was more offense, and that the game came down to one unforgettable play as time expired, with defense ruling in that moment.
After that I think I would put the Patriots-Panthers game of a few years ago. Poorly played defensively, but constant excitement down to the wire.
This one gets lost in that jumble of Niners-Bengals, Giants-Bills, and Patriots-Rams. But I'd definitely put it top five with the upset implications added on.
NOTE: I was not alive for the early SB's, so I can't really speak for them. It's entirely possible that there were some thrilling games there which have sadly been lost from the public consciousness, and my own.

Moving on, how about Eli Manning? The guy goes from New York pariah to Super Bowl MVP in about a month. He was the better quarterback on the field Sunday night, making countless plays, pinpointing difficult throws and remaining calm in the closing minutes.
Meanwhile, Tom Brady ends up the goat for the Pats. Despite the phenomenal stats he put up, the Golden Boy left numerous throws short, high, long and wobbly. He looked, for the first time in his NFL career, like a sixth-round draft pick. And don't just blame the offensive line for this. Yes, Brady was rushed, but he missed on a lot of wide open opportunities without any pressure. He just didn't bring it tonight. Maybe the pressure finally got to him. I honestly never thought I would see, or say, that.

I watched the game in a crowded, small room with mostly people I don't know at all. Several of them were personally acquainted with Giants wide receiver David Tyree, who made a ridiculous drive-saving catch in the final minutes on a play in which Eli had no right to still be on his feet. These guys come from the same hometown as Tyree and could hardly contain themselves with each big play he made.
I would honestly rate that play, from Eli's elusive scrambling, to the throw, to the on-the-helmet catch setting up the winning touchdown, as the greatest play in Super Bowl history. And I can't really think of another that stands out in terms of scope, difficulty, shock factor, or significance.
Congrats, Eli/Tyree.

Finally, I want to take a stab at comparing this game to another great sporting event of recent years, which would not escape my thoughts as the final quarter ticked down. This game, in my opinion, was the football equivalent of Game 7 of the 2001 World Series, in which Arizona improbably beat the Yankees. Forget for a second the fact that Arizona was quite arguably the superior team and there is no question this win was an upset. Forget that the Yankees were not their most dominant. There are clearly differences.
But, look at it this way. There was a team that had been a dynasty in recent years, trying to close out another championship. The Yanks had won four of five Series, while the Pats had won three bowls in four years not too long ago. And in the final game it came down to that dynastic team merely needing to hold a lead, which, coincidentally, is what each of them do best. The Pats simply don't lose close games in the fourth quarter. The Yankees, and Mariano Rivera, were lights out in the ninth inning.
And then, weird things started happening. Rivera gave up a hit, and afterwards made a rare fielding mistake, throwing wide of second base instead of getting the easy out at first. Asante Samuel drops a game-clinching interception, one that he makes any other time. Eli slips away from a sure sack (how did he get away?). And an unknown player makes an improbable catch to keep the drive alive, and set up the win.
And in the end, it wasn't a flashy play that won it. Luis Gonzalez bloops it over the drawn-in infield. Plaxico Burress slips away from Ellis Hobbs to catch a floating ball all alone when all he must have been thinking was "please don't drop this".
Of course, the Yankees haven't been quite the same since. Though they've made the playoffs in every season, they have not won a championship and have been eliminated in the first round of the playoffs four times in six years. Is this the end of the Patriots dynasty? Who can say, but despite the overwhelming talent they have and should continue to have, the NFL is a strange beast, and winning a title in any league is clearly never a guarantee. For that matter, Spygate will not seem to disappear, and it is not inconceivable to see drastic things happening in the coming weeks and months.

Congratulations, Giants fans. Your team, which looked like the worst in the league after two weeks, is now the NFL champs. Sorry, Boston. Not this time.


"We're only going to score 17 points. Is Plax going to play defense?"
- Tom Brady, Super Bowl media day, on Plaxico Burress' prediction of a 23-17 Giants win