This is how dynasties fade away, The key player(s) get old and become less effective. The old strategies don't work as well because they were designed with better players in mind. Eventually the main guy goes away and the team is suddenly very ordinary. Not signing Wes Welker was the stupidest move of Bill Belichik's career.
Lets hope that when Brady fades, they go 6-10 and not 2-14. The last thing we need is for the Pats to be like the Colts and replace one legendary qb with another potentially legendary qb.
They still made to 2 Superbowl after they got caught and won a bunch of play off games. Their loss today was understandable. They lost against a very good team. If and when Brady retires, the playing field will be more leveled. Bellichick is a good coach and his teams won't be 2-14 , 3-13 teams. His teams will range between 7-9 and 11-5 depending on who they find as a QB.
From the CBS piece cited above: "Breer brought up the injury in the context of Brady dealing with a stomach bug, which kept him out of practice earlier in the week." Pawr Tawmy, he had the wicked shits.
Brady was one uncanny QB - but that doesn't mean Patriots were a good team. Their defense eroded into oblivion decades ago. Had it not been for Brady, that team would have been exposed much earlier. I seriously don't think Belichick is all that great coach either - I mean, we bitch about how Rex Ryan's defense doesn't hold up here and there in spite of the stud DL and whatnot - but in case of Belichick, he has spent a lot of high draft picks on defense, and the result is mediocre at best. It didn't show much simply because of Tom Brady. If I could have it my way, I would go with Rex Ryan any day of the week over Bill. [Yeah - you all can laugh at me for it. Go ahead.] Really, do you wanna bet on how many Ryan could have gotten with a top-of-the-line quality QB play? When he made it to 2xAFCCG, he had Mark Sanchez playing QB for him.
As much as I hate the Pats, they had no right to even get this far and once again find a way to win with F' all tools. Credit to the Pats organization.
This. I bleed green but you gotta respect what BB and Brady have done this year. Can't blame Brady when his weapons goes from Gronk/Hernandez/Welker to Edelman/Amendola/Dobson. LeGarrette Blount was severely overrated for this game which caused a lot of talking heads picking the Pats, overlooking the fact they're defense was depleted by injuries. Great season for New England but this is Peyton Mannings year to get another ring and show why he's the best QB of all time
Just stop it, the team they had they shouldn't have been a playoff team let alone a chance to reach a SB. Amazing job by NE this year.
Belichik's greatness revolves around two things: 1. Understanding that his team is built around Tom Brady and maximizing the contribution that Brady makes on the field. Belichik fell down on that front this season because of the TE's going away and because he thought Wes Welker was a replaceable part in the offense when in fact he was a key cog. 2. Keeping everybody but a few stars on tenterhooks for their entire careers, never knowing if the next game will be their last as a Patriot. He squeezes more value out of the non-stars than any other coach in the business. Parcells used to do this also. I'm guessing there are going to be a lot of prematurely gray ex-Pats in a couple of decades.
In their two AFCCG victories after spy gate they struggled against Norv Turners Chargers that had an injured LT on the bench and Rivers playing with a torn ACL, and needed a dropped TD and missed extra point length FG. Hardly overwhelming evidence of sustained greatness. Surrounding those victories were losses at home against the Jets and twice to the Ravens, and a loss to the Colts when up by nearly 30. Their playoff victories were against such playoff juggernauts as the Jacksonvile Jaguars, Houston Texans, and the Eric Mangini Jets. They have one good playoff win in that period, at San Diego, in which Brady threw the game ending interception if the Chargers simply kneel down instead of trying to run it back and then fumbling. A game the Chargers pretty much controlled until the end. The Patriots have had very successful regular seasons but haven't been as good in the playoffs. In that time only one team in their division have even won a playoff game - the Jets - which has to be considered when judging their regular season success in conjunction with their playoff struggles. They struggled against an extremely easy schedule this season. Sure they got a victory against the Colts, a team that gave up 40 points in both playoff games and let an average back like Blount run all over them, who only ran for 6 yards yesterday. When you look closer, their playoff body of work isn't that impressive.
Of course they should have been a playoff team. They were the best team in a weak division, which is all you need to be. They also played 10 games against teams under .500. All they needed to be was better than their average to poor competition. And they were. I'd hardly call squeaking out wins against the Browns, Texans, Jets, and Falcons by 3 points or less as an amazing job.
New England, got some "gifted" wins this year as some Jets fans like to phrase them. New Orleans Cleveland We easily could have swept them (thanks Gates 10 drops :up: ) Denver blew a 24-0 halftime lead to lose in overtime, Houston lost a tight one and Buffalo could have beat them in the first meeting. Pats easily could have been 8-8 this season, not the same dominant team on the field. Do you think Gronk will be ready to play next season? how many times can they rebuild him? :gpc: is coming, the gap is getting smaller every season.
At this point Gronk might be better off if he put in the good-faith effort on his contract and then retired. The injuries are beginning to become chronic with him and at least one of them (the infected arm) was potentially life-threatening if unlikely to actually kill him.
Exactly. They deserved to be in the playoffs but were lucky as well. Having an extremely easy schedule and a few bullshit calls go your way in key situations doesn't make their regular season record an amazing accomplishment. What it does is put that record and the loss yesterday into context. They were the worst team left in the playoffs and fortunate to be there. But overall this was a pretty average team.
even with the refs not throwing flags for all the blatant holds and PI's the pats defenders were committing, tom brady couldnt score until the broncos started just defending against the big play. color me unimpressed.
