Memo to the 31 who feel buttsore:
When you play against a team coached by brainiac football dorks who have been studying every minute of your game tape since the dawn of time, and against players who are specifically coached to study their opponents' tendencies, and you fail to change your game plan or play calling, it is going to feel a lot like that team is reading your playbook and bugging your locker room.
But don't let Paranoia get the better of you. They don't need to steal your play sheets. Your plays are already on public record. That team is just working way harder than you are.
If you give this team the same weak-sauce formations that you gave the Jets last week and the Packers the week before that, they will jump your routes and blitz your back and stuff your reverse like they knew it was coming. And they did.
Lazy man will say they must have cheated, because lazy man can't imagine the amount of film study and coaching that went into learning your minute tendencies--maybe better than you know them yourself. But it isn't cheating. They are just better at this than you.
And realize this. You can watch as much film on the Pats as you want, and you'll never know how they'll come at you next, because every week is a different game plan. Every week they reinvent themselves and show entirely different tendencies.
The league has been outclassed by Belichick. He has created something in Foxboro that is unique and historic, and oh so hard to emulate.
Hate on that.
