If you can tolerate reading this for three minutes, I’m going to do something very, very unpopular.
I’m going to brag on the New England Patriots.
I know, I know. “Drew, are you f**king crazy?”
No, I’m not.
And I’ll also admit that I’m writing this just after the Ravens lost in the most inexplicable way possible. To the Jaguars. At home. So, yes, perhaps as I craft this piece for RSR, I’m doing so with more than a twinge of jealousy. New England is 9-0 – the Ravens are 2-7. It’s bothersome, to say the least.
I’m writing this today because something struck me as I watched Tom Brady and his offense squeeze out yet another win in a game they really didn’t deserve to win when they skipped down the field in the final 1:47 and beat the Giants on a last-second field goal on Sunday.
What struck me is this (and yes, this is VERY hard to write):
I like the way the Patriots play football.
(I told you this would be hard to tolerate…you can stop reading now if you want – but you know I’m right.)
Whether or not you like Tom Brady (I think he’s the best quarterback that I’ve ever seen – in his prime – and I didn’t see Johnny Unitas, so save the snide remarks about how Brady isn’t better than #19 because I was two years old when Unitas was good), you have to admit there’s no one in the game over the last 15 years who has been better at his craft than Brady.
And with that, I also believe Brady is the MOST VALUABLE football player the league has seen since 2000. I know that encompasses a lot of high-quality players – we had a couple in Baltimore…they wore #52 and #75 – but none of those guys ever meant to their team what Brady has meant to the Patriots. Yep, I remember the year he got hurt and Matt Cassel led the Patriots to an 11-5 record. Where’s Cassel been the last six years?
I remember once I was doing a radio show with former Ravens’ center Mike Flynn after he was retired, and off the air we got to chatting about his brief experience in New England playing for Belichick and working with Brady.
“He’s just…I don’t know man…he’s just a genius at playing the position of quarterback,” I remember Flynn saying about Brady. “It’s hard to explain, except when you’re around him, you just know he’s on a different level than anyone else you’ve ever played with.”
I thought Tommy Boy and the Patriots were finally blemished on Sunday afternoon in New York/New Jersey with 1:25 to play when he faced 4th and 10 on his own 23-yard line, but he somehow found Danny Amendola in the seam for 12 yards and on down the field they went.
That was ALL Brady, with some help from his shifty receiver, who actually ran a 4th and 10 route about two yards PAST the first-down marker, something the Ravens no longer believe in, apparently.
You know what else I saw from New England on Sunday? They just played football. No hopping around after every big play like they’re a stunt double for Kevin Bacon in the movie “Footloose”. They just play the game. They make a tackle on defense and they get up and go to the huddle. They make a play on offense and there’s no ball spinning or jumping around like they’re on their sixth snort of Red Bull. They’re just playing football.
Now, I’ll also admit they have a lot more to play for these days than the normal, run-of-the-mill team does. They’re playing for immortality. They’re playing for perfection. They don’t have time to act the fool, they’re trying to win a game and keep someone, anyone, from beating them. They’re more focused in warm-ups than the Ravens are during the sixty minutes of regulation football. True that.
Here’s the thing: I’m not a Bill Belichick fan. I’ve often thought he was overrated, honestly. Without Brady, he’s Ken Whisenhunt. With Brady, he’s arguably one of the top five coaches in the history of the league. What I WILL say, though, is Belichick’s players rarely act like imbeciles during the game. They’re too busy playing football. That, in contrast to what we see from our beloved Ravens, is what happens when the coach demands discipline and the players provide it in spades.
I know all about the various scandals. Some of them, frankly, were probably a tad overblown, including the embarrassingly out-of-control “DeflateGate” last spring. There isn’t a quarterback in the league who hasn’t tampered with the air pressure of the footballs. Hell, in the days after the story broke last January, Aaron Rodgers was quoted saying he over-inflates the footballs and then hopes the refs don’t catch it. No one seemed bothered by Rodgers’ admission that he cheats. But Brady…holy hell, it was like he got caught counting cards at the final table in the World Series of Poker.
Taping other team’s practices and walk-throughs? Shameful. Completely wrong. “The Tuck Rule”? That wasn’t Brady’s fault that the league had (and still does, in my opinion) a dumb rule in place back then. He didn’t make the call – he’s just the guy who was involved in the play.
I only bring up that stuff to deflect the inevitable “f**k those guys, they’re cheaters…” grenades that will be lobbed at me shortly. Some of that cheating was, definitely, cheating. The deflated football thing had about as much to do with New England winning games as the water pressure does in a team’s locker room. It became a witch-hunt.
I sat there and watched the final 1:47 of Sunday’s game with the Giants and, while it was happening, I have to admit I was hoping New England would lose. There’s nothing worse than Boston sports fans having a moment of glory, and their level of obnoxiousness grows with every Patriots’ championship.
But, as Brady drove them down the field and it became apparent he was going to pull another rabbit out of his hat, I took a second to appreciate the way he rises to the occasion and finishes the job at hand.
Unlike our Ravens this year, who couldn’t finish a meal if free dessert were being offered, New England puts themselves in position to win and, more times than not, they get the job done.
And for those of you who have sat through this and are now saying, “What on earth is this horse’s ass doing writing about the freakin’ Patriots?” I’ll only ask you this:
Would you have rather read a piece from me about how the Ravens gave away a game to the Jacksonville Jaguars, at home, when they had the ball – first and 10, mind you — inside Jacksonville territory with under three minutes to go in the game?
Right.
I didn’t think you’d want to read about that.
So I wrote about a winning team instead.
