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And when he abandons his irrational agenda he still is one of the better reads football columnists in the business... Some snipets from a long read that is worth it...
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – With Tom Brady gone, the New England Patriots don’t overwhelm these days, they envelop. Like a dense fog, they slowly swirl around their emboldened opponents, blinding them to the game’s most critical moments until it is too late and they have driven off the road to victory. Once the fog lifts, they find themselves defeated but lamenting what might have been.
It is now the way the New York Jets feel after losing 19-10 to a team led by a quarterback whose last start was in high school nine years ago.
That is how they’ve done things in New England since the moment their dynasty first began seven years ago. With Brady out for the year, it is very likely how they will do it all season. They will make the plays others do not. They will let you beat yourself but will not, or at least not very often, contribute to their own defeat.
If there was a statement made Sunday afternoon at the Meadowlands it was simply this: If you want to beat the Patriots, you’ll have to do it yourself.
The Jets should know better to think they would defeat the Patriots even without Brady if in a game with eight penalties they were going to commit six of them.
The Jets should by now also know better than to stand in defeat in their locker room after the game and talk about how the opportunity for victory was there but they had not seized it. This may have been true but it is the same thing they and so many of their peers have said without yet realizing this is a pattern not an accident.
Done in part by the Jets own hand and in part as a result of the pressure the Patriots put on their opponents, pressure both mental and physical. Pressure that, in the end, only they seem able to handle.
“We left plays on the field,’’ groused Jets’ guard Alan Faneca. “You are not going to win a game like that against a team like that by doing that. We were hurting ourselves too much out there.’’
They may have hurt themselves but not without the prodding of a Patriot team that has been doing this for seven years – grinding down opponents with their refusal to beat themselves and their adeptness at realizing the moment a play must be made and most often making it.
When it is all finally over and the fog has lifted, one team feels it could have won. The other knows it just did.
WEEI 850AM Sports Radio - No Excuses: Patriots Refuse to Beat Themselves
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – With Tom Brady gone, the New England Patriots don’t overwhelm these days, they envelop. Like a dense fog, they slowly swirl around their emboldened opponents, blinding them to the game’s most critical moments until it is too late and they have driven off the road to victory. Once the fog lifts, they find themselves defeated but lamenting what might have been.
It is now the way the New York Jets feel after losing 19-10 to a team led by a quarterback whose last start was in high school nine years ago.
That is how they’ve done things in New England since the moment their dynasty first began seven years ago. With Brady out for the year, it is very likely how they will do it all season. They will make the plays others do not. They will let you beat yourself but will not, or at least not very often, contribute to their own defeat.
If there was a statement made Sunday afternoon at the Meadowlands it was simply this: If you want to beat the Patriots, you’ll have to do it yourself.
The Jets should know better to think they would defeat the Patriots even without Brady if in a game with eight penalties they were going to commit six of them.
The Jets should by now also know better than to stand in defeat in their locker room after the game and talk about how the opportunity for victory was there but they had not seized it. This may have been true but it is the same thing they and so many of their peers have said without yet realizing this is a pattern not an accident.
Done in part by the Jets own hand and in part as a result of the pressure the Patriots put on their opponents, pressure both mental and physical. Pressure that, in the end, only they seem able to handle.
“We left plays on the field,’’ groused Jets’ guard Alan Faneca. “You are not going to win a game like that against a team like that by doing that. We were hurting ourselves too much out there.’’
They may have hurt themselves but not without the prodding of a Patriot team that has been doing this for seven years – grinding down opponents with their refusal to beat themselves and their adeptness at realizing the moment a play must be made and most often making it.
When it is all finally over and the fog has lifted, one team feels it could have won. The other knows it just did.
WEEI 850AM Sports Radio - No Excuses: Patriots Refuse to Beat Themselves
