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After a week’s worth of heated trash talk that exposed the disdain between the Jets and the Patriots, Rex Ryan’s pack of alleged bad boys humbled Bill Belichick’s pack of alleged choirboys 28-21.
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Not since 1988’s “Catholics vs. Convicts” clash at Notre Dame Stadium has football staged the kind of cultural confrontation we witnessed Sunday at Gillette Stadium.
Jets-Pats was more than a typical NFL divisional playoff contest. To some degree, it was a battle for the heart and soul of the league.
“It’s all about a system with (the Patriots),” a Jets executive told me in the postgame locker room. “With us, it’s all about the players.”
Rex Ryan’s New York Jets are America’s No. 1 reality TV show. They’re loud, talented, in your face and occasionally wildly irresponsible (Sex Ryan’s foot-fetish videos, Antonio Cromartie’s baby-mama fetish, etc.). In the buttoned-up, Roger Goodell-disciplined NFL, the Jets come off like the NBA’s Miami Heat.
If you had to compare Bill Belichick’s Patriots to a basketball team, only the WASPy, boys-next-door Duke Blue Devils fit the description.
In winning three Super Bowls early in the new millennium and consistently fielding outstanding regular-season squads, Belichick perfected the art of choosing overall team character, locker-room chemistry and adherence to rules of media secrecy over loading up on individual talent.
In places such as Kansas City and Atlanta — where former Belichick-trained executives have power — the “Patriots Way” has a pronounced influence. In other cities, the Belichick influence is more subtle.
The Patriots Way is rejected in New York by Rex Ryan. The Jets say what they want, do what they want and they’re completely unafraid to call bull(crap) on Belichick and the Patriots.
To the Jets, the Patriots Way is Spygate and hypocrisy. The Patriots cheat and they’re phony. They’re Eddie Haskell. The locker room America bought as filled with All-American, high-character good guys is really filled with Wes Welkers, the New England receiver who made the game’s most critical error days before kickoff when he littered a pregame interview with foot jokes about Rex Ryan and his wife.
“I’ve never seen anything like that,” LaDainian Tomlinson told me. “She’s off limits. You don’t talk about that man’s wife. (Welker) better be glad he didn’t say anything about my wife.
“This is how I feel: When it happens to them, it’s classless. When they do it, it’s a different story.”
Welker, who was benched by Belichick for New England’s first series, crossed a line. It’s one thing for the media and fans to joke about Ryan’s personal life. The players and coaches are peers. They shouldn’t participate in anything that embarrasses one of their peer’s family members.
Welker handed the Jets the emotional advantage.
“I felt that it motivated a lot of guys,” said Mark Brunell, New York’s veteran backup quarterback. “It was inappropriate.”
New York fullback Tony Richardson, another longtime veteran, added, “That was personal. Guys will take shots at other guys. But that was personal. There was no reason to bring his family into it. Rex has a son in 10th grade.”
The lone stupidity challenge to Welker’s blunder was Belichick’s strategic blunder late in the second quarter.
Trailing 7-3 with 74 seconds left in the half and facing fourth and 4 at the New England 38, Belichick called for a fake punt. Defensive back Patrick Chung dropped the direct snap and the Jets tackled him for a 1-yard loss.
The Jets capitalized, scoring a quick TD to take a commanding 11-point lead.
The fake was ignorant. There was no reason to force anything at that point. The Pats were getting the second-half kickoff. New England panicked. The alleged “smartest” team in football played a dumb football game.
They fell for Rex’s and Cromartie’s trash-talk bait, and when New York’s superior defensive personnel and flawless game plan stopped Tom Brady and Co. from gliding up and down the field, the Patriots turned amateur with their strategy.
Down 10 points in the fourth quarter, Brady chewed up nearly eight minutes of clock with a 14-play, 48-yard drive that featured seven running plays and the Pats sauntering in and out of the huddle as though there would be a fifth quarter.
CBS cameras appeared to catch Belichick complaining about his team’s offensive play-calling.
It’s now fair to question everything about the Patriots.
They haven’t won a Super Bowl since Spygate. Judging by Jay Glazer’s FOX Sports pregame story, Belichick and the Patriots were building special-teams, sideline-tripping walls long before the Jets.
Yeah, the Jets won the culture war.
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I for one am not interested in a league where the only team that gets noticed, talked about or put on TV is the one who talks the loudest and is the most trashy.
That's not the NFL. That's not what got it to this point and if it's going to be that way moving forward, maybe a lockout isn't such a bad thing.
As for Whitlock's point, I know a few people who fell in love with the Jets during Hard Knocks and by mid season they were disgusted.
__________________ Celebrating the wonders of the ignore list.
Wait so they lose one game and its "now fair to question everything about the Patriots"? Whitlock can die in a fire. The Jets haven't won **** over the last 42 years, whats their excuse?
Last edited by TriplecHamp; 01-17-2011 at 02:26 PM..
This is the biggest load of horsecrap I've seen spewed all day. The Jets won a football game that's it. The Jets and Ryan have been saying all sorts of crap about Brady and Belichick and the Patriots in general, but Welker says some humorous subtle little jokes and he crossd the line. So LT doesn't like anyone saying anything about someone's wife. Welker never said anything about Ryan's wife or even mentioned Ryan's name. What about Ryan saying his wife was a Supermodel too. Isn't that saying something about someone elses wife? Tomlinson is a major hypocrite and always will be.
And bringing up Spygate again. Steve Scarnechia, who was involved in the Broncos videotaping scandal, and who was with the Patriots from 2000-2004, was also a NY Jet employee from 2005-2007. You know that if he was involved with videotaping in New England and Denver, then he was doing it for the Jets. We all know they were stopped from taping during the 2006 playoffs against the Patriots. Patriots won that game, did they also win the culture war that year.
If the Patriots are so bad, why do the Jets keep trying to steal their players and coaches. You mostly see guys going from the Patriots to the Jets, very rarely do you see them coming the from the Jets to the Patriots (Danny Woodhead excepted).
When you see that the Patriots are in contention year in and year out, you have to beleive the Patriot way is the right way. The Jets are built to win it all this year. They are not built for the long haul. Once they blow their wad, they will go back to futility and the Patriots will continue their winning ways.
Wait so they lose one game and its "now fair to question everything about the Patriots"? Whitlock can die in a fire. The Jets haven't won **** over the last 42 years, whats their excuse?
its like the trash talk. if you lose, you are going to every illogical thing out there and cant say anything thats all.. crumpler catches the TD, its a different ball game.
Jason Whitlock is a complete and utter tool. The J000 won a football game in January against the Patriots. Nothing more, nothing less. I don't get this culture war mentality some people are on. We are better than that.
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Patriots winning just a game used to be cause for major celebration.
The Jets actually won a football game, and nothing more. Jason Whitlock, like most of these idiots, is nothing more than a guy who doesn't like Belichick and will use every chance he gets to trash him. He will also tie Pioli into this somehow, and try to run him out of town.
The logic of "We talk crap about you and it's ok, you talk about us and it's personal" boggles the mind.
My world, I have learned recently, is pretty much a morality play where I see things in very black or white. And this whole thing falls into the "Wrong" catergory for me. It is wrong that the Jets won. It is wrong that ***** talking, brash, c0cky, arrogant, loudmouthed crybabies, reigned supreme last night. Wrong isn't even the right word. There isn't a word in English to describe how messed up this all feels.
It's sickening. And when will we get a chance to right that wrong?
Whitlock: Jets Also Won "Culture War"
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