SI:Don Banks-Patriots will be driven to handle unfinished business

[tedster822]

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/don_banks/05/03/patriots.superbowl/index.html

ted

 

[spacecrime]

I agree with him. I have been thinking that the loss last year may have been good for the long-run health of the Pats.

If we had held Indy off in hte second half, would BB/SP have gone on thier FA feeding frenzy?

I think what we did in the long run, the change in attitude, will make the Pats better for years to come, and cement them as one of the greatest teams ever, once they collect a total of five or six Lombardis over a 10 or so year stretch.

 

[theONLYJerseypatsfan]

lets just hope the salary cap doesnt cause problems.......

 

[BelichickFan]

If we play this right, it sets us up for another 6 year run before Brady retires.

We'll need to draft well and do a good job of getting as many of the upcoming FA signed - even if that means letting Samuel go so that we can re-sign Wilfork and Warren. But with a good group of young veterans and 5 first day draft picks next year . . . if the front office does a good job, we should be legit contenders until Tommy retires.

 

[Pat_Nasty]

I agree with him. I have been thinking that the loss last year may have been good for the long-run health of the Pats.

If we had held Indy off in hte second half, would BB/SP have gone on thier FA feeding frenzy?

In a word: yes.

If we gave up 30+ points in the second half but still won the game, do you think BB/SP wouldn't have realized that our defense needed speed and coverage skills at LB, and therefore passed up on getting a guy perfect for our system who was willing to take 30% less per year to come here instead of San Fran?

Do you think scoring 4 more points in one game would change BB/SP's opinion over whether our receiver corps needed major additions, an opinion culled over a season+ of practices and games? Would he have turned down guys like Stallworth + Washington, who were willing to come here for a year for peanuts? Would he not recognize Moss for $3 mil and a 4th is a steal?

I don't think this year's off-season represents any departure in philosophy, and I certainly don't think BB operates in such a knee-jerk manner as to go on a spending blitz because his team came up the tiniest bit short.

 

[MoLewisrocks]

In a word: yes.

If we gave up 30+ points in the second half but still won the game, do you think BB/SP wouldn't have realized that our defense needed speed and coverage skills at LB, and therefore passed up on getting a guy perfect for our system who was willing to take 30% less per year to come here instead of San Fran?

Do you think scoring 4 more points in one game would change BB/SP's opinion over whether our receiver corps needed major additions, an opinion culled over a season+ of practices and games? Would he have turned down guys like Stallworth + Washington, who were willing to come here for a year for peanuts? Would he not recognize Moss for $3 mil and a 4th is a steal?

I don't think this year's off-season represents any departure in philosophy, and I certainly don't think BB operates in such a knee-jerk manner as to go on a spending blitz because his team came up the tiniest bit short.

Think again. Those who know him and who are close to the players say the flight home from Indy was one for the ages. Had they lost in SD it would have been one thing. Too many season long deficits and tough breaks to overcome. But to be up big in the first half on the road, and make it to within a minute of another superbowl with a team featuring a rag tag assembled on the fly WR corps and ill or injured RB's save the FB, and rotating PS defenders subbing for OLB's only to come up 1 conversion or stop or pass not dropped short really stung these guys from Kraft to the towel boys. Finding out they almost could have squeeked by, and faced a Bears team that wasn't in their league under the worst of circumstances, galvanized this FO to become agressive as a means to insure they never miss an opportunity like that again.

We've held teams off and squeeked by in the past and it didn't trigger anything approaching this. Losing by a hair is what triggered it.

 

[BelichickFan]

Think again. Those who know him and who are close to the players say the flight home from Indy was one for the ages.

I don't remember anything about this, can you go into a little more detail ?

 

[Pat_Nasty]

Think again. Those who know him and who are close to the players say the flight home from Indy was one for the ages. Had they lost in SD it would have been one thing. Too many season long deficits and tough breaks to overcome. But to be up big in the first half on the road, and make it to within a minute of another superbowl with a team featuring a rag tag assembled on the fly WR corps and ill or injured RB's save the FB, and rotating PS defenders subbing for OLB's only to come up 1 conversion or stop or pass not dropped short really stung these guys from Kraft to the towel boys. Finding out they almost could have squeeked by, and faced a Bears team that wasn't in their league under the worst of circumstances, galvanized this FO to become agressive as a means to insure they never miss an opportunity like that again.

We've held teams off and squeeked by in the past and it didn't trigger anything approaching this. Losing by a hair is what triggered it.

So which moves don't we make if we didn't lose by a hair?

 

[ClevTrev]

Being anointed the Superbowl favorite is a ball and chain. While it's the price of success, I liked it better when the Pats could do it with stealth. We'll be hearing this ad nauseum until they're knocked out or they win it. You can believe that Belichick will not be buying any of this, and the media hasn't even begun to experience the depths of his gruff demeanor.

 

[threepeater]

We've held teams off and squeeked by in the past and it didn't trigger anything approaching this. Losing by a hair is what triggered it.

From what I've read the only major difference between this off-season and previous ones is that the Pats' targets actually accepted their offers. We went hard after Drew Bennett and Joe Jurivicious in past years. We thought we could wrap it up with Deion for a big extension. If those or any one of a number of other moves had worked out -- instead of the player going someone else for more money -- we would all be saying "oh, this is just a typical offseason full of headline deals for the Pats."

But none of the other big moves worked. Why? Not because of how the season ended, but because of the salary cap. This is the first off-season where the full effects of the new salary cap are completely apparent. So Beloli went hog wild - again. This time they just did it with a bit more money, so it worked.

To me, that has much more to do with the offseason moves than losing by a hair to the Colts. You know what Belichick always says: "we look at every option to make the team better." This isn't just empty BB rhetoric, this is actually true. But prior to this year it didn't work out quite as well.

 

[patsox23]

In a word: yes.

If we gave up 30+ points in the second half but still won the game, do you think BB/SP wouldn't have realized that our defense needed speed and coverage skills at LB, and therefore passed up on getting a guy perfect for our system who was willing to take 30% less per year to come here instead of San Fran?

Do you think scoring 4 more points in one game would change BB/SP's opinion over whether our receiver corps needed major additions, an opinion culled over a season+ of practices and games? Would he have turned down guys like Stallworth + Washington, who were willing to come here for a year for peanuts? Would he not recognize Moss for $3 mil and a 4th is a steal?

I don't think this year's off-season represents any departure in philosophy, and I certainly don't think BB operates in such a knee-jerk manner as to go on a spending blitz because his team came up the tiniest bit short.

Perfect post. EXACTLY. Thanks for expressing it so well.

 

[patsox23]

Think again. Those who know him and who are close to the players say the flight home from Indy was one for the ages. Had they lost in SD it would have been one thing. Too many season long deficits and tough breaks to overcome. But to be up big in the first half on the road, and make it to within a minute of another superbowl with a team featuring a rag tag assembled on the fly WR corps and ill or injured RB's save the FB, and rotating PS defenders subbing for OLB's only to come up 1 conversion or stop or pass not dropped short really stung these guys from Kraft to the towel boys. Finding out they almost could have squeeked by, and faced a Bears team that wasn't in their league under the worst of circumstances, galvanized this FO to become agressive as a means to insure they never miss an opportunity like that again.

We've held teams off and squeeked by in the past and it didn't trigger anything approaching this. Losing by a hair is what triggered it.

Disagree. The Patriots actually having a LOT of cap-space played a WAY bigger part in the moves than any reaction to "losing by a hair." That's silly. The fact that an LB like Adalius Thomas came free was a fluke, extremely rare and a HUGE need for the Pats and their aging LB corps. A bit of a perfect storm, but nothing to do with a tough loss and a tougher flight home, IMO.

 

[spacecrime]

So which moves don't we make if we didn't lose by a hair?

We won three superbowls by a total of what? 9 points?

All close wins. There was nothing like this done after any of those three. Losing hurts. Losing to a team when all we needed was just to hang on and clean Chicago's clock had to be painful. It was much worse than the Denver loss.

You can say that BB's attitude after losing in the last minute is the same as it would have been if we won, but I don't believe it. I think he thought, "BS! This will not happen two years in a row!"

Did you read Bank's article? Do you disagree with the concept of a team almost making it and being driven the following year? Or just disagree with the idea that BB was upset enough after losing to go out and take measures?

Certainly we would have reloaded, we do every year. But to lose as we did still stings a lot of Pats fans. Think about the coach who came so close.

I don't think he said, "Oh well. You win some, you lose some?"

We'll never know, and you could be right. I jsut think otherwise.

 

[spacecrime]

The fact that an LB like Adalius Thomas came free was a fluke, extremely rare and a HUGE need for the Pats and their aging LB corps. A bit of a perfect storm, but nothing to do with a tough loss and a tougher flight home, IMO.

The pats have had money before. They had a ton of money last year. They didn't jump out of the box and sign a fistful of FAs the first two days of Free Agency. BB swears it is business as usual but it wasn't. BB has never done this. Even when he got Colvin he waited until the market cooled down.

 

[Pat_Nasty]

The pats have had money before. They had a ton of money last year. They didn't jump out of the box and sign a fistful of FAs the first two days of Free Agency. BB swears it is business as usual but it wasn't. BB has never done this. Even when he got Colvin he waited until the market cooled down.

The Pats had a ton of money last year, it's true -- a good portion of it was ear-marked for resigning Branch, and acquiring Ty Law. We also were talking w/ the Saints about trading for Stallworth. Well, the Eagles had a spare LB to trade, so we lost out on Stallworth, Ty Law waited as long as he could for a bigger deal and ultimately signed with KC, and we all know what happened with Branch.

The net result is that we have even MORE money this year. And this off-season, Thomas chose to sign w/ us right off instead of playing the field like Law did, Kyle Brady also signed our offer without looking elsewhere, Stallworth and Washington took less than they were offered to come here, and the Moss trade fell into our laps.

Every off-season, the team has a lot of irons in the fire, and initiate talks with a lot of players' agents. It's to the players' advantage to drag things out and play teams off one another to drive bargains up -- if the players choose not to do that, things can happen quickly. That's what I think happened this year.

I'm not trying to be rude, but I'd like to repeat my original question:

Which of the moves we've made this year would we have done differently in previous years?

 

[Pat_Nasty]

We won three superbowls by a total of what? 9 points?

All close wins. There was nothing like this done after any of those three. Losing hurts. Losing to a team when all we needed was just to hang on and clean Chicago's clock had to be painful. It was much worse than the Denver loss.

You can say that BB's attitude after losing in the last minute is the same as it would have been if we won, but I don't believe it. I think he thought, "BS! This will not happen two years in a row!"

Did you read Bank's article? Do you disagree with the concept of a team almost making it and being driven the following year? Or just disagree with the idea that BB was upset enough after losing to go out and take measures?

Certainly we would have reloaded, we do every year. But to lose as we did still stings a lot of Pats fans. Think about the coach who came so close.

I don't think he said, "Oh well. You win some, you lose some?"

We'll never know, and you could be right. I jsut think otherwise.

I read Banks' article, and I think it's total B.S., really... at least the part about the "unfinished business" theory. In fact, on another board, I ranted against this theory last May when he used it to support picking the Colts...

...and though he turned out to be right, I think I'm not alone on this board in the opinion that had the Pats not been down to their 4th and 5th string safeties, lost Seymour + Colvin to injury during the game, or had two PI calls gone differently, he wouldn't have been.

The fact is, there are a bunch of teams every year than can be said to have "unfinished business." The Seahawks, Panthers, Broncos and Pats can all be said to have had unfinished business going into the '06 season. Basically, all the "unfinished business" theory is saying is that the team the wins the SB is one of the previous year's playoff teams.

Well, duh. Teams don't often go from missing the playoffs to SB victories -- that's what makes teams like the '01 Pats exceptional. Most often, the team that wins the SB has spent a year or two as a contender before getting over the championship hump.

My main problem with Banks' theory, however, is that it basically posits some wishy-washy intangible notion as being a bigger factor in the next NFL season than nuts and bolts stuff. I think the Pats are the SB favorites because they were good enough to win last year, and then they made some serious additions on both offense and defense.

Maybe Brady $ co. being more "on a mission" because last year's loss stung will have something of an effect, but not enough to be worth arguing over personnell and x's and o's.

 

[PatsFanSince74]

In a word: yes.

If we gave up 30+ points in the second half but still won the game, do you think BB/SP wouldn't have realized that our defense needed speed and coverage skills at LB, and therefore passed up on getting a guy perfect for our system who was willing to take 30% less per year to come here instead of San Fran?

Do you think scoring 4 more points in one game would change BB/SP's opinion over whether our receiver corps needed major additions, an opinion culled over a season+ of practices and games? Would he have turned down guys like Stallworth + Washington, who were willing to come here for a year for peanuts? Would he not recognize Moss for $3 mil and a 4th is a steal?

I don't think this year's off-season represents any departure in philosophy, and I certainly don't think BB operates in such a knee-jerk manner as to go on a spending blitz because his team came up the tiniest bit short.

I almost completely agree with you. I just suspect that coming within a First Down of a trip to the SB made their sense of urgency all the greater and maybe they wouldn't have made every move. Thomas, Stallworth, Welker, Washington and Meriweather (whom you don't mention), for sure. Moss? Not so sure. But otherwise, you are right on IMHO.

 

[Pat_Nasty]

I almost completely agree with you. I just suspect that coming within a First Down of a trip to the SB made their sense of urgency all the greater and maybe they wouldn't have made every move. Thomas, Stallworth, Welker, Washington and Meriweather (whom you don't mention), for sure. Moss? Not so sure. But otherwise, you are right on IMHO.

I didn't mention Meriweather because he wasn't exactly an off-season "move." We had the #24 pick in the draft, and we used it. Doesn't really tell us much.

One thing, however, that supports my theory that BB + SP aren't changing their philosophy because of last year's loss -- does a team determined to win in '07 at all costs trade a late 1st round pick for a 4th and a 1st in the following year?

 

[Oswlek]

The pats have had money before. They had a ton of money last year. They didn't jump out of the box and sign a fistful of FAs the first two days of Free Agency. BB swears it is business as usual but it wasn't. BB has never done this. Even when he got Colvin he waited until the market cooled down.

Last year they thought that they had a realistic shot at both Deion and Law.

The year that they got Colvin he was within the first week of FA. Rodney and Poole were in the tail end of the FA rush.

 

[PatsSteve1]

Lots of people talkj about the D failngs in the 2nd half of the Colts game but if the O hadn't had 2 - 3 and outs and another drive where they got a 1st the 1st play and then went 3 and out, the Colts may not have had time to comback. I don't thin Brady is frutrated because of the defense. He's frustrated because the O couldn't seal the game away and he knows it's because they didn't have good enough weapons.