Your defense was an utter disgrace in the 4th quarter. Usually collapses of that magnitude are precipitated by turnovers. Nope, not here. Ironically, the only turnover during the colts' comeback was committed by ...the colts. Go figure. The pats d was so epically bad, it looked like manning was engaged in a scrimmage. It also left your coach with an ugly choice. It should never have got to that point.
    Also, and TMQ touched on this tangentially, so many tactical decisions made by coaches are predicated on the principle of CYA, so that they can duck direct criticism. BB doesnt care about avoiding criticism;he only cares about winning. Gotta respect that. But here's something you have to admire more. In making this tough call and drawing all this criticism, he has taken all the heat off his players. All of the talk this week has been about the controversial call and none of it has been about the colossal choke job by his players. Along the same lines, the colts have received very little credit for the gutsy comeback because the 4th and 2 controversy has taken up all the oxygen.

In my opinion I think Sebastian Vollmer has done a good job protecting Brady. He came in on minutes notice and is starting to get noticed more in the games we have played. I think Vollmers standout game was when we played the colts last week. He did a great job holding off of his defender. Sebastian Vollmer was a wonderful person coming off the bench to protect Brady. His 6'8 frame will be feared in a while.

A few Pats-Jets Nuggets of Note, courtesy of the New England Patriots Media Department:

May all of the holes appear this big to Laurence Maroney on Sunday.

The Patriots, who fell to the Jets at the Meadowlands, 16-9, on Sept. 20, have not been swept in a season series with a divisional opponent since 2000.

New England owns a 41-12 (.774) record in regular season AFC East games since the beginning of the 2001 season, compiling the best intra-division record of any team in the NFL over the last eight seasons.

Since the beginning of the 2003 season, the Patriots are 20-1 (.952) in games following a regular-season loss, including a 2-0 record in such games this season. Over the last five-plus seasons (2003-09), the Patriots have only lost back-to-back games on one occasion (Nov.5 and Nov. 12, 2006).

STRONG IN THE SECOND HALF
The Patriots have traditionally stepped things up a notch as the calendar has flipped to November. Since 2001, New England has done a remarkable job of finishing the season strong, compiling a 71-18 (.798) record after Nov. 1, including playoff games. Additionally, since 2001, the Patriots are 52-10 (.839) in games played after Thanksgiving Day and are 23-4 (.852) in games played after Christmas.

SERIES HISTORY
The Patriots and Jets will meet for the second time in 2009, with the Patriots looking to avenge the 16-9 loss in Week 2 at the Meadowlands. It will be the 101st meeting since the series between the AFC East rivals began in 1960. The Jets are leading the all-time series with a 50-49-1 advantage. The teams split the season series last season with the Patriots beating the Jets, 19-10, at the Meadowlands and the Jets beating the Patriots, 34-31, in overtime at Gillette Stadium.

The Patriots have won 11 of their last 14 games against the Jets (including one playoff game). The Patriots have swept the season series with the Jets in four of the last six seasons. New England is 20-12 against the Jets since Robert Kraft purchased the team in 1994. New England's 49 victories over the Jets (including two playoff wins) are the second most over any single opponent, trailing only Buffalo with 59 all-time wins.

Tully Banta-Cain will hopefully be back to his quarterback-sacking ways soon.

SERIES BREAKDOWN
NEW YORK 50, New England 49, 1 Tie
(Including New England 2, New York 0 in Playoffs)

Home Record, 25-24-1 (incl. 1-0 in playoffs)
- Record in Foxborough, 21-18
- Gillette Stadium, 5-3
- Foxboro Stadium, 16-15
- Record in Boston, 4-5-1
- Record in Birmingham, Alabama, 0-1

Away Record, 24-26 (incl. 1-0 in playoffs)
- Giants Stadium, 17-10 (incl. 1-0 playoffs)
- Shea Stadium, 5-14
- Polo Grounds, 2-2

Seasonal Sweeps, Jets 14 (most recent '00), Patriots 13 ('07)

Bill Belichick vs. N.Y. Jets, 14-8 (13-7 with New England)

DIVISIONAL DOMINANCE
The New England Patriots own a 41-12 (.774) record in regular season AFC East games since the beginning of the 2001 season, compiling the best intra-division record of any team in the NFL over the last eight seasons.

RECENT PATRIOTS-JETS GAMES
The Patriots and Jets have played 18 times since 2001, with New England holding a 13-5 advantage in those games. Since 2003, the Patriots are 11-3 against the Jets and have allowed New York to score more than 17 points in a game just two times over that span.

PASSING PERFORMANCES
Tom Brady owns a 12-3 record against the Jets as a starting quarterback including regular-season and playoff games. Brady's 12 overall victories over the Jets are his second highest total over a single opponent, trailing only his 14 wins over the Buffalo Bills.

I think if the Jets want to have a good game this Sunday against us they will have to pressure Tom Brady and play double coverage on Randy Moss. If not we will have a repeat of 2007 against the Jets. Look for Brady to throw towards Baker a lot. When the Brady to Moss doesn'twork Wes will always be catching passes. The offensive line is also improving every week with Sebastian Vollmer. Thats what my predictions are.

 I dont know why All of you guys are insulting me. I am just trying to state my opinion. i know i shouldn't have guessed about the game between the colts and i wont do do that anymore. but i admit some of the things i have said weren't that accurate.

Continue reading this post »

These two original AFL franchises will meet for the 101st time this week, with the Jest holding a 50-49 advantage; there has been one tie.  The Patriots have played the Jets more than any other team in their thirty-nine year history.  Over that time, emotions around the game have rolled up and down from indifference when either team was irrelevant, to something like sympathy as the formerly moribund Patriots found their way to the 2001 Super Bowl and offered hope that the AFC East might find its way back to the elite.  For myself, however, any hint of fellow-feeling was erased by a 2007 trip to the Meadowlands for opening day.  So let me set this on the table:

I hate the Jets.  I hate the team.  I disdain their fanbase.  I will make no bones about it.  This is nothing like the "hate" I have for the Colts.  The Colts you can respect.  The Steelers, you can respect.  The Jets are beneath contempt.  They are the worst of New York, the dregs of the tri-state area and a blight on the face of the AFC.  In Rex Ryan they have found their apotheosis: a loud-mouthed ass who yaks when he wins, whines when he loses, and generally shows his ample hind-parts every time he goes out in public.  Their fans have no relationship with reality, no sense of propriety and zero class.  If this starts a full-fledged flame way, fine.  I don't care.  Don't blame MaPatsFan, who knows better than me. 

I can compartmentalize, though.  I have much respect for Kris Jenkins (injured).  Leon Washington is a threat (injured).  They have a very serious offensive line, led by Alan Faneca, Jason Ferguson and Nick Mangold (who deserves more credit as a top-shelf center).  But the stink that surrounds this franchise is not the fault of the fens which surround it, but rather the barely animate homunculi which drag themselves from the mire to gibber in brainless orgy at the direction of a scabby inebriate whose single lesson in spelling fails to take hold in the webby, vacant brain-pans of those idiots bound by habit alone to drool on this "franchise" in their borrowed stadium.

So no.  I don't like the Jets very much.

Peter King at SI ranks them 3rd (+3):  Bill Belichick won't sleep for the next five days, or maybe five weeks. No time for the coach or the 53 men on the roster to wallow, with the Jets, Saints, Dolphins and Panthers coming up.

Cold Hard Football Facts ranks them 4th (nc):  Last week:  35-34 loss at Indianapolis.  The Defensive Hogs are New England's Achilles' heel, both on the field and in the stat sheet.  They are an un-Patriotic 25th on our index, 21st in yards per rush allowed, 23rd in Negative Pass Plays forced adn 21st in third-down defense. 

Vic Carucci at NFL.com at NFL.com ranks them 4th (+1):  It will be interesting to see how quickly the Patriots can put aside the devastation of what happened vs. the Colts and focus on getting some redemption vs. the Jets.

What If Sports ranks them 5th (-1)

National Football Post ranks them 5th (-1):  The “call” by Belichick will be questioned all season long—until the Pats meet the Colts again in January.

The Sporting News ranks them 5th (+1):  They will not be the AFC's No. 1 seed, but maybe they will see the Colts again in the playoffs. 

ProFootball Weekly ranks them 5th (-1):  Timeout ­fiasco even worse than going for it on fourth.

CBS Sports ranks them 5th (-1):  They are still in control of the AFC East, but don't lose this week against the Jets. Then it's another story.

WEEI ranks them 5th (nc):  The Patriots can take a lot of positives out of the loss to the Colts. For the most part, they dominated the game. The offense has struggled in the red zone all year and it came back to bite them against Indianapolis. If they can solve their red zone troubles and learn from the mistakes they’ve made, the Patriots can be the best team in the AFC, which they proved by their performance against Indy.

USA Today ranks them 5th (nc):  Colts' 35 points were the most they allowed all season.

ESPN ranks them 5th (+1):  The AFC road to the Super Bowl is going through Indianapolis, thanks to Bill Belichick's fourth-down decision.

Fox Sports ranks them 5th (+2):  The true shame of the Bill Belichick controversy is that his much-discussed fourth-down call gone bad has distracted us from noticing how much of the game the Patriots dominated at Indy. Pity the defense that held Peyton Manning to just 14 points in the first three quarters before giving up a trio of fourth-quarters TDs. The new-look Pats D still ranks third in fewest points allowed and has forced two or more turnovers in five straight games — something they only did four times in all of 2008.

Don Banks at SI ranks them 5th (-1):  Just for symbolism sake, I wanted to drop the fourth-ranked Patriots back two spots after their heart-breaker at Indianapolis. (Get it, fourth-and-2?) But I just couldn't talk myself into going for it. I couldn't rationalize bumping the Steelers ahead of New England. Pittsburgh lost at home to the No. 5 Bengals. The Patriots lost on the road to the No. 2 Colts. That's a win of sorts for New England.

Yahoo! Sports ranks them 6th (+1):  Does this hairless thug who threw down an NFL Films cameraman while escorting Bill Belichick to the locker room think we live in a repressive Third World country ruled by a ruthless dictator – or does he just think the NFL is its own, sovereign nation? *

AVERAGE RANK:  4.79 (+.14)

* File this in the not-what-it-appears department.  According to Ian Rapoport, the contact was inadvertant, as the cameraman ran out of cable and was yanked backwards just as Belichick and security were running off the field.

I wanted to post this Tuesday morning, but a slight knee injury has pre-occupied me even more so than the Colts thrilling win over the Patriots. And no, I did not injure the knee jumping up from my coach and screaming when Reggie Wayne caught Peyton Manning's game-winning TD.

I would just like to say thank you to the Patriots fans here for being such great fans. I have been on the other end of a game like the one Sunday Night, and most of those loses were to your Patriots. Yet, I highly doubt I acted with the same maturity and class many of you guys did. While such words are rarely used to describe Pats fans, I think this site bucks the trend. You guys have a damn fine football team to root for, and that team has some damn fine fans backing them up.

I hope you enjoyed MaPatsFan and I switching side in the week leading up to the game. In all likelihood, our two teams will meet again in the playoffs. It seems only fitting for the best rivalry in all of sports. 

Thank you Pats fans. Now, go beat the crap out of the Jets, please.

The endless criticism and the piling on Bill Belichick has received about the 4th and 2 call has now reached a fever pitch. From coast to coast, pundits, fans, former players, former coaches and others have fallen all over themselves to attack the choice to go for it instead of punting. But the intensity and the sheer number of stories, column space, bandwidth, and on-air time devoted to this play call--one play call among the thousands made in the NFL this weekend--is not just limited to criticism of the call or of Belichick. Rather, it taps into, springs out of, and reflects a much deeper, longstanding hatred of the Patriots and their leader.

We've seen similar crescendos of Patriot-bashing like this three times in recent years. In 2007, the first wave was touched off by "Spygate," which dominated--I mean absolutely DOMINATED--the sports world for the week after the story broke, and never fully died down the rest of the season. Just as it was starting to fade came the utterly baseless John Tomase story (writtten and, incredibly, published without a shred of evidence to support it and later completely discredited and retracted) on the eve of Super Bowl 42 about New England's alleged videotaping of a Rams Super Bowl walkthrough practice in 2002. That story coupled with the Patriots' stunning loss to the Giants ushered in round two of the "pile on the Patriots" as people gloated while mocking the Pats, and bashing the team yet again. And now, after the fateful call and the reversal of fortune that happened Sunday, there is once more an undertone to the howls and rants being directed at Belichick and the Patriots this week. Welcome to the third wave of Patriot-hating---fast becoming the NFL world's favorite pastime.

Each of these three waves has been intensified by a fierce, deep-seated hatred--I don't think that's too strong a word--for the Patriots and Belichick. You can't get upset by things or people for which you have no feelings. And if the Patriots were your generic, run-of-the-mill NFL team, the kind that has a fan base but that never causes fans of other teams to foam at the mouth with rabid hatred, each of these waves would have been much smaller, much less intense, and would have petered out on the shore of the football world and washed back out to sea in the same newscycle. (Seriously, is there anyone out there who sits up at late at night cursing and thinking up new ways to hate the Jaguars? or the Lions? or the Seahawks? Of course not, why would you?).

But the Patriots are different and these great volleys of animosity coming their way now (as during "spygate" and the Super Bowl loss) are visceral and emotional, the products of a well-stoked, long-held agressive hatred of the Flying Elvii and the one in the hoodie. The intensity and the sheer amount of the hating, coming fromso many angles, leads me to wonder why the Patriots and their coach inspire such vitriol. To put the question most simply, why do so many people hate the Patriots?

There are good friends of mine--people who are rational and smart and sophisticated, people who hold down demanding professional positions, have homes and marriages and children, people who are delightful, charming companions and trusted friends--who get almost literally twisted up with rage if I mention the Pats or Belichick. These are people who aren't violent or dangerous, who are kind and decent, who probably don't have mean things to say about too many people. But when I talk about the Patriots suddenly the anger rises and  and they become transformed. 

So, again, I ask why do people hate Belichick and the Patriots? I'm a historian, not a psychologist, so I have no special training or insight to answer this question but I'll take a stab at it and offer a few possible reasons and invite readers to do the same. Here goes:

• Envy of their won-lost record and championships When the Pats upset the Rams in Super Bowl 36, they were the cute underdogs, not the bully on the block. But then they came back and won another title and then another and then went 16-0. Even when they lost Tom Brady and half their starting defense, they still went 11-5. It's almost unthinkable that this team could ever pull the occasional 4-12 record like most teams. Somewhere along the line, the Patriots went from underdog to top dog and then stayed at or near the top. And that's not an appealing quality when fans of most teams see their hometown favorites rise and fall and settle near the vast middle of the NFL. The fact that the Patriots just win and win and win makes them hard to love (for most) and easy to hate.

But the Colts always go 12-4 and have for years and who hates them? There's no better, more intense rivalry than Patriots-Colts but I don't think we Patriots fans hate the Colts (the Jets, maybe, but not the Colts). Who does? Now, it could be that because the Colts have that whole Eagle Scout/Sunday school picnic image going for them,or because they've only played in one Super Bowl and won only a single title (in Indy), they seem less threatening than the Patriots. Still, the Patriots' record and titles alone can't entirely explain the Patriot hatred or there would be such a thing as Colts hatred, too. So, perhaps it comes down to:

• Resentment of their secrecy and methods Now we're getting closer. The Patriots are notorious for witholding information and for shrouding their entire operation in secrecy. Getting inside that wall, I'm told, is nearly impossible and the Patriots never, ever, ever air their dirty laundry in public. There are no leaks in this organization and what happens in Foxboro seems to stay in Foxboro. Beyond that, the Pats seem not to care what people think of them. Their public image is not a favorable one and it must drive haters to distraction that the Pats don't seem to care that people don't like them, that public hostility and hatred bounces off this team. Call them the Teflon Patriots--no criticism sticks to them. They probably feed off of that and turn it to their advantage. "Never complain or explain," could be the the organization's motto, and they've won games and championships without opening up their locker room or their organization to outsiders, keeping all they do veiled under a thick blanket of secrecy and mystery.
  

Again, most teams try not to reveal much but the Patriots go to extraordinary lengths to withold even the most basic information. The sense that they're keeping something to themselves, that they're so stingy with something as straightforward as who's calling the plays, probably strikes many as proof that the Pats are up to no good. Secrecy added to pre-existing suspicion adds up to conspiracy in the eyes of many. The Patriots feed this with their hyper-closed method of operating, never caring that their stony silence is being misconstrued or that it feeds the hatred many have. If it does't help them win games--and popularity with fans or the sports media never does--the Patriots don't care, and a team that operates with such little regard for public opinion is bound to be the object of scorn and hatred of those who would like to think their (low) opinion would have an effect on the Patriots.

But it's hard to sustain an intense hatred for an large organization or for an ever-changing roster of players. To grow and flourish and sustain itself, a great wave of hatred needs a single, fixed, constant target. And if that single target is both wildly successful and maddeningly secretive, misunderstood and not the least concerned with correcting those misunderstandings, and completely dismissive of public opinion, all the better. Further, if that single target also regularly flouts conventional wisdom in a game as driven by conventional behavior as football, then this target becomes almost the holy grail--or, if you prefer a different metaphor, a perfect storm--of rage and animosity. And so, the third reason for the intensity of Patriot-hating:

• Bill Belichick's utterly unconventional methods and actions, coupled with his other-worldly success and secrecy, and the way it leaves many more conventional people deeply threatened I think this is the real key, because each of the three waves of Patriot-hatred are personally tied to Belichick. "Spygate" was about his coaching practices and although he apologized, took full responsibility, and paid a staggering fine, many believed that he wasn't "contrite" enough, that he didn't apologize sincerely, or that he was thumbing his nose at the conventional NFL establishment which has long tolerated stealing signs and snap counts but seemingly draws the line at high-tech taping--blue-collar crime is acceptable but not white-collar crime, as several have noted. The Super Bowl loss was also tied to Belichick and the loss was nearly overshadowed by the media furor over his leaving the field with a second left on the clock (after he congratulated the Giants coach), an act which was again deemed an affront to all that was good and decent and, once more, was deeply unconventional by NFL standards. And Sunday night, the current wave of hatred was kicked off with his statistically probable yet convention-defying decision to go for it on 4th and 2. In each instance Belichick did things his way, dared to defy the conventional wisdom of how coaches should coach or conduct themselves. Add to this the other things that make Belichick so clearly a breed apart from the vast majority of people who have had the title of NFL coach: he doesn't look like the stereotypical tough-guy coach, he went to college at Wesleyan where he majored in economics, and he never played pro football. And yet here he is, a deeply unconventional man long at the pinnacle of his profession, one dominated by people who are ruled by convention, who always do things by the book, who would never even think about, say, going for it on 4th down deep in their own territory. The fact that Belichick is so successful despite challenging nearly every bit of conventional behavior or wisdom--the fact that he dares to be so different and cares not at all what anyone else thinks of him--is a thing that could only threaten and anger those whose lives depend on following the conventions and caring only about what others think of them.
  

So this latest wave of Patriot hatred grows from at least three related sources, all of them united by the man in the middle of the storm and embedded in each of the causes. This is the latest outbreak of the intense Patriot-hating that we've seen before. It will ebb, but then it will rise again at some point in the future, whenever the Patriots win another big game, or another championship, or whenever Bill Belichick defies conventional wisdom in the arch-conventional NFL. Patriot-hating has been with us for awhile and it isn't going away anytime soon. All we can try to do, as fans, is to understand the sources from which it springs and learn to shrug it off--just like the guy in the hoodie does.

After Sunday Night's loss I think it's become pretty clear that BB is trying to do too much on the field by himself.

After Romeo and Charlie left, he's hired people that are smart coaches but who do not have the experience with him to challenge him or really provide an equal level of expertise to offer in a situation.

I was thinking of two things, one I like a lot more then the other but:

BB needs to hire experienced coaches to at OC and DC - or at least one of those positions.  At this point perhaps you can even offer the Assistant HC position with BB eyeing a GM/President role in a couple years ala the Bill Walsh and George Seiffert era of San Francisco.

The problem as I see it now is that BB has been out coached too often and the 2nd half adjustments just aren't as exceptional as they have been in the past.  Granted other teams have picked up on Patriot tendancies, but there is no way you should be losing a game like that on Sunday night, or the Superbowl, or the AFC Championship game in '06.  There are just too many big games, and little games, where coaching has become the difference on a negative side.

I don't think you can get Weiss or Crennel to comeback, that's too much pride for either of them to swallow - but a few options that would intrigue me:

Al Groh as DC.  He's just about kicked off campus @ UVM, is part of the Parcells/BB tree and has enough experience to take some pressure off BB and provide good counsel.

Offensively, tougher to find but in a similar vain though I can't think of anyone to help, if Groh is the DC, then I'd like a young mind who could step in as HC in 2-4 yrs eventuallly.  Would have been great for them to counter the bronco's offer to McDaniels with this in mind.

The ultimate questions though is if BB realizes this is an issue, and can put his ego aside enough to bring in help