BTW- I woke up this morning and realized I forgot one item from last night. -
I recently read that the Jets GM won the pro football writers association Executive of the Year. My immediate reaction, was "why not, he did a good job rebuilding a very bad roster", certainly as good as anyone." Later PFT gave out its awards and of course there were no Patriots players, executive, or coaches mentions. Now it it isn't surprising. It is easy to take for granted the work that is done by the Pats profootball operations team, especially when there isn't an officially designated GM to account for.
But when you think about all the work that is done to build this team and maintain it so consistently through THREE iterations it is astounding. I guess it is so astounding it gets ignored, since you can't give it to them every year.
Think about this. The Pats WON a superbowl and then proceeded to dismantle their entire CB group and lost their top 4 guys. All of whom were starters, and 2 were all pros, yet somehow they managed to put together a secondary that was every bit as good as last year's even after losing their #2 guy to the IR early in the season. And yet they are one game away from going back.
They only have ONE offensive lineman that is playing the same position as he did in last season's superbowl, and HE missed more than half the year. And yet they are one game away from going back.
They LED the league in plays going on IR, starter games lost to injuries, and have 16 players listed as Questionable on the injury report going into today's game, yet are almost universally favored.
I look on in amazement when I hear the mediots marvel at the fact that the Pats are going to their TENTH AFCCG in the last 15 years. Where were they when the the number was 9 or 8 or 7. All those would be immortal accomplishment for most teams
Somewhere there should be a clue that what the Pats are doing every year to build their roster is pretty good. The last 5 years (which is about the length of a generation in NFL term) they have been drafting between 28th and 32nd. That is a huge disadvantage not being able to at least have a shot at a elite prospect. Since 2oo1 the Pats have had only one draft pick in the top 10, and that was Mayo at 10. They have had only ONE draft pick from the teens (Solder at 17) in the last 15 YEARS. All there other draft picks they have been picking in the 20's and 30's.....and that is in EVERY round. AMAZING!
Football is supposed to be cyclical - Teams go on runs and then they slip for a year or two, even the so called elite franchises. Look at the Ravens who couldn't even get to the playoffs after their superbowl win. Look at the Steelers, Niners, Saints, etc Only the Niners of the Rice/Montana/Young years come even close and they operated under a completely different set of competitive circumstances.
OK I'm rambling again. But the bottom line is I hope we as fans appreciate what an amazing organization we have building our team each year. Kudo's to Nick Caserio and all his staff and thank you Bill Bellichick for creating this football utopia, and allowing us to come along for the ride.
If we lose this game or the next our haters will surely get on our case, and I guess I can understand why. But really they are whistling in the wind, since they have so little and we have so much. And the real scary part is, that with 18 IR guys coming back to compete with the 53 that is likely to take us to the Superbowl, NEXT year's team should be stronger, deeper, and more experienced than this one.
Does Roger Goodell really think the loss of our first round pick is going to end his annual nightmare. All it really does is make my April less interesting and make a very frustrated man because of the injustice of it all.
