You can see that my apparent criticism of Brady is not really about Brady at all; it is really about the coaching staff and whether an overly pass-happy offensive philosophy truly sets Brady up for playoff success. Evidence accumulated over the past 7 years indicates it does not.
My nephew is too young to remember the titles before 2005. Watching the playoffs with him in recent years has been truly gut-wrenching. He has endured excitement, yes, and the satisfaction of some remarkable team-accomplishments. However, there is no denying the impact of these stomach-punch losses on him. I would like to see the Pats win one for him, and my criticisms have that one aim in mind.
We all would like to see this happen. Frankly, I think the two recent SB losses are more painful for the group who watched the first three - we have that burning desire to see those three validated in the eyes of our detractors since spygate. Some on this forum - guys like Deus or Mo - have the perspective, self-control to not let the haters bother them. I was not given that gift.
I recently said to a friend of mine - who is a diehard Sox fan and actually agreed with me - that the urgency and unhealthy obsession I have with the Patriots getting another in this Belichick/Brady era is like a condensed, pressure-cooked version of Sox nation's desire to break the 86 year curse. It just feels like something we need to witness as Pats fans who underwent the spygate crap - and there's a clock on this one that doesn't include our individual life spans.
We've all looked for reasons why this team has not been able to mirror its playoff success in the first half of the decade with the last - but SB46 is just further evidence that the discrepancies to the two come down not to performance by its players, but randomness.
Tuck rule. Kasay kicking it out of bounds. McNabb vomiting on himself in the same situation in which Manning stole two Super Bowls from us.
Contrast with Helmet Catch. Asante drop. Pierre Woods blowing a fumble. Welker-Brady misconnect. An injured Gronk vs. Blackburn on the Brady INT. Two NYG fumbles with no Patriots around.
These are the reasons the Patriots have gone ringless of late. Not because of the makeup of the team.
Just imagine for an instant that the Patriots won none of the first 3 Super Bowls - imagine how incredibly possible that was and how close that was to happening.
Now imagine the Patriots winning the last two Super Bowls, in addition to the one they would've won over the Bears had the Colts not won a freakish game wrought with terrible officiating in the 06 AFCCG. That's three Super Bowls on this side of the equation.
Imagine how easily the Patriots could've gone ringless until 2006, and have won three since. All it would take would be one play in each Super Bowl (or the one AFCCG I reference) and everything is reversed. Brady would be 10-2 since 2006 in the playoffs with three titles. Just think of that huge difference - and how without the offense performing any better or worse, that could have been realistically achieved.
Look - we'd all rather have a better defense and a better run game. But we don't have the personnel for it yet (I think we could on the defensive side now). Maybe Shane Vereen is the answer. Who knows. But there isn't a team in the league that has won the Super Bowl imposing its will on another team in the run game in a long time. The Super Bowl has been won by the team with the most offensive firepower in the passing game - Belichick caught on, the Patriots have excelled.
The fact that they haven't won - it's not worth drawing conclusions about. Let's look at Brady specifically. He threw a pick in the endzone vs. Carolina in the 4th yet it'd widely be considered his best SB game b/c of the numbers he piled up.
If the Patriots had won SB46, had Welker held on or if Brady throws that pass better, I would argue that game, with a record setting number of completions, with the longest TD drive in SB history, would've been his strongest performance. Yet now we remember it as more proof of the Giants owning him.
SB42, Brady drives down to take the lead against the Giants chewing up most of the 4th quarter clock to seal 19-0. If Asante catches the INT several plays later, that goes down as one of the all-time great drives. Now, it's nothing - a meaningless effort that serves no purpose but to painfully remind Patriot fans how close we were to something special.
The fundamental truth we've learned: in this era, unless the teams are really disparate in talent, Super Bowls have some real randomness that can play a huge role in the outcome. Get in and hope for the best.
Let's just hope the Pats get back and things fall their way.
). Just like WE did 3 times I might add. The surprising evolution of our offense has outpaced the D. Ideally, now we should be PRESSING with the D, lengthening the amount of plays our O gets. Yes, the points we give up on D will have more variation (to them, AND back to us as the result of TOs + field position), but play for play, we should overall have the larger advantage for the entire game. In defense of the Defense, you have to play to your personal, but that doesn't change the overall theory. I think BB has recognized this, and I fully expect that we will see a different D this season, has BB attempts to utilize a healthy squad with new faces more suited to attacking style. As even though it was painful sometimes to watch, it HAS been a rebuilding phase (nice time to be a Pats fan), and this should be the last piece of the puzzle and more importantly properly timed as well IMO.
