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New England Patriots Links 2/10/10 - Saints Provide Blueprint For Beating The Colts

By Marima
<em>Would FA Deion Branch fit into a Patriots uniform again? With a different number, of course.</em>
Would FA Deion Branch fit into a Patriots uniform again? With a different number, of course.

Mike Reiss wonders if the Patriots would duplicate the Saints plan when playing the Colts.

The Patriots have adopted a similar plan against the Colts in recent years. In 2009, for example, they played mostly with a 4-2-5 package (with lighter defensive ends), which is a minor tweak to what the Saints adopted. The premise was still the same, however, by lightening the box against the run and giving yourself more flexibility on the back end of the defense against the pass.

In the end, the feeling here for the Patriots is that the next game against the Colts will be less about scheme, and more about getting better playmakers on the field (e.g. Jonathan Wilhite on Reggie Wayne is not a favorable matchup).

Jerry Thornton admits, "If hating the colts is wrong, I don't want to be right."

...one of the claims I keep hearing is that Peyton Manning’s epic failure doesn’t improve Tom Brady’s legacy at all. And this coming from the same columnists who had been arguing for weeks that Manning’s inevitable second championship was going to propel him ahead of Brady as the best QB of his era. So did it? Did it add one victory to Brady’s win total or give him another MVP Cadillac? No. But sports is like school. We grade on the curve. You might do all right on a test, but if some guy in the class skips the drunken bubble hockey tournament to study and does better, your grade doesn’t look so hot. Coming into this year, Brady was the valedictorian of his QB class. And Manning’s ill-advised throw widened the gap even further. Ron Borges and Dan Shaughnessy might not be happy about it, but I sure am.

So does that make me a bad guy? Does enjoying the suffering of other teams and their fans make me a bad Christian? More so than a lifetime of swearing, drunken debauchery, surfing dirty websites and stealing office supplies? Does it make me no better than Homer Simpson, resenting Ned Flanders’ happy homelife and rooting for the Leftorium to go belly up? Honestly, I don’t know and I don’t care. All I know is it’s fun. Not as much fun as actual winning, but it’ll do. After all, even in Boston not every team wins every championship every year. And we’ve got to do something to pass the time in between titles. So if I have to wait another 12 months to see Brady and Belichick hoisting the Lombardi, then taking pleasure in Peyton Manning’s pain is as good a way as any.

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