There’s a great line from the classic comedy movie *Step Brothers *where Will Ferrell’s character says “I swear, I am so pissed off at my mom. As soon as she is of age, I am putting her in a home.”
That line perfectly describes how I’ve felt about Patriots coach Bill Belichick for the past two-plus seasons. After an amazing stretch from 2001-2007, where every decision seemed to be the perfect one, the future Hall of Fame coach seems to be slipping up more often and in the biggest moments. Just like in the 2007 Super Bowl, where he had 5’7” Ellis Hobbs cover 6’5” Plaxico Burress by himself, and in 2009 with fourth-and-two against the Colts, 2010 has one particularly costly play that has to leave Patriots fans with a disgusted taste in their mouths.
The decision to try and fake a punt with less than two minutes in the first half and from your own 38 is a profane one. Some football people will try and shift the blame from Belichick to the punter, Zoltan Mesko, saying it’s Mesko’s call to punt or fake. Well if those people think that Bill Belichick would trust his rookie punter to make the call in a tightly-contested playoff game, I think they’re mistaken. And if Belichick did in fact let Mesko make the call, well Belichick is more far gone than I thought.
Some pepole are going to jump on Tom Brady’s back, and he deserves some of the blame, sure. But the Patriots defense was playing well. Mesko set the rookie record for punting average this season. I would have taken my chances that the Jets weren’t going to make a sustained drive with a little over one minute left in the half, because the Patriots downfield coverage was good all afternoon and the Jets couldn’t get anything going in the running game until that final Shonn Greene touchdown late in the fourth quarter. But Brady completed more passes (29) than Sanchez attempted (25), had two touchdowns and one dropped touchdown from Alge Crumpler, and the interception he threw was early and turned into zero Jets points. Both quarterbacks had a completion percentage of 64. The Jets defense was just able to cover the Patriots receivers for that extra second or two it takes to throw Tom Brady off of his game. The Patriots defensive line wasn’t able to get to Sanchez before he could make the easy throw to LaDanian Tomlinson, the everyone-knows-it’s-coming third down slant to Braylon Edwards, or the next miracle catch by the clutch Santonio Holmes.
The bottom line is that Mark Sanchez did not have to work for what he got yesterday, and Tom Brady worked extremely hard for what little he got. For the Patriots, last night began a long offseason. They’ve got seven picks in the first four rounds of the upcoming draft, where they should be able to secure a real pass rusher and another good cornerback. Then September will roll around, and New Englanders will (hopefully) have a new NFL season to get excited about.
For the Jets? They’ve secured themselves a date in Pittsburgh, the team’s second visit this year, after a 22-17 victory over the Steelers in week 15. A win in that game, and coach Rex Ryan’s prediction that the Jets would be a Super Bowl team would be a reality. We all know what the next prediction would be , and after Joe Namath guaranteed and won Super Bowl III, we know it’s not above the Jets to pull something like that off.