Agreed. First post here, been lurking for a while but this whole 'running the score up' crap has gotten my blood boiling so I figured I'd come out of hiding.
A few things I wanted to say: 1) I do believe the Patriots are not taking the classic 'running the clock down' approach of other teams, despite consistently lopsided scores. Part of this, in my opinion, is that Belichick might not have confidence in Maroney's ability to stay healthy. If they could run the clock out with a bruising, rock solid back, I think they'd do it. With the running backs on the this Pats team, you either can't be sure they'd get through the game uninjured (Maroney), don't think they could handle that kind of workload (Faulk) or believe it would be 3-and-out, thus defeating the purpose of running out the clock (Evans, Eckel). 2) I also believe that Brady throwing late in the third/early in the fourth in a 38-0 game would and should rub people the wrong way--as a Pats fan I have no problem with it, but it's obvious that non-Pats fans would despise that sort of play.
That said, what are they supposed to do? Here are the scores at halftime, and then at the end of the third, of every game they've played this season:
@NYJ: 14-7 1st HALF; 28-14 3rd Q
SD: 24-0; 31-7
BUF: 17-7; 31-7
CIN: 17-7; 24-10
CLE: 20-0; 20-3
DAL: 21-17; 31-24
MIA: 42-7; 42-7
WAS: 24-0; 38-0
Averaging that out, you're looking at a lead of 22.4-5.6 at the half, and 27.1-7.3 at the end of the third. In fact, take out the Dallas game and you're looking at averages of 22.5-4 and 30.6-4.9. So they're outscoring their opponents by 17 at the half, 20 at the end of the third quarter...this is, quite simply, unprecedented. NOBODY does this, not the 85 Bears, the 04 Colts, it simply hasn't happened. So are they supposed to put in their second team and run up the gut at the start of the 3rd EVERY SINGLE game? If anything, this is not fair to the Patriots players; granted they're getting some extra rest every game, but when you have to take your foot off the gas pedal after 30 minutes of football how do you improve as a team?
All that said, here are some scores from the 1985 Bears:
45-10 over the Skins
44-0 over Dallas
36-0 over Atlanta
37-17 over Detroit
Those are the only games I would consider blowouts (during the regular season, that is...we don't have to bring up the postseason). One in every 4 games. Here's the 2004 Colts:
35-14 over Oakland
49-14 over Houston
41-10 over Chicago
41-9 over Detroit
51-24 over Tennessee
So 5 times in their 16 regular season games. By the way, look at some of those scores...looking through the box scores, and going a bit off memory, they DEFINITELY had some games that were just as blanant, if not more so, than any the Pats have had (I'm thinking in particular of the games against Houston, Detroit, Tennessee) and I didn't hear a peep about the Colts running up the score...granted they did alot of second half running, but they had a solid running back who averaged 4.6 yards a carry, they had the luxury of comfortably running, getting some first downs and actually 'running the clock out.' Oh, one other point about that 2004 Colts season and the 2007 Pats: Manning threw the ball 497 times in his record breaking season; Brady is on pace for 458...just saying.
Things like this 8 game run DO NOT happen, teams are not supposed to be this much better than the rest of the league. The whole 'weak schedule' gets pretty blurry at this point, considering they now have blowout victories against teams that are 6-0 (Dallas), 4-2 (Washington), 4-2 (Cleveland), and 3-3 (Buffalo, and they should be 5-1 if it weren't for some awful late game collapses)--all of those taking out the losses to the Patriots, of course.
Anyway, my point is that what the Pats are doing is unprecedented, and for that reason there's no way of knowing what they should and shouldn't be doing in all of their blowout victories.
