Patriots Daily

There’s this new game I like to play. I call it, “Imagine if Bill Belichick had done that.”

After three straight losses, Mike Tomlin told the media the Steelers were going to “unleash hell” in December. Then they lost to Oakland and Cleveland. Imagine if Belichick had done that.

You get the idea.

Tomlin’s decision Sunday to try an onside kick with four minutes left while holding a two-point lead over the Packers has been called into question by the media, but with nowhere near the fervor of Belichick’s decision to go for it on fourth-and-two in the waning minutes against the Colts a month ago.

In both instances, a respected head coach made a decision contrary to the conventions of the league. In both instances, the decisions failed. And in both instances, the stats geeks later backed the coaches up, saying the numbers supported the choices. The only distinctions? Tomlin won, and Tomlin’s not named Bill Belichick.

Mike Reiss, probably at great risk to his ESPN cred, highlighted the disparity in media outrage to the two calls.

“What became clear this week,” Reiss wrote, “is that the furor surrounding ‘fourth-and-2′ went way beyond that.”

Both Belichick’s and Tomlin’s decisions can be defended, though. The one that made no sense at all was Titans coach Jeff Fisher’s decision late in the game against Miami on Sunday.

The score was tied with 56 seconds left, and Titans punter Brett Kern had just laid down a punt at the Dolphins’ two. Fisher had all three timeouts left, but used none, letting the Dolphins run out the clock. Had he used the three TOs and prevented a Miami first down, Miami’s punting from the end zone with thirty-something seconds left, with possibly the punt return alone putting Tennessee in field goal range.

Instead, they go into overtime, and Miami wins the coin toss. Fortunately for Fisher, a Chad Henne interception saved his skin, and the Titans won on a Rob Bironas field goal.

Fisher’s rationale: ““Our defense had been on the field for two consecutive drives and didn’t stop them. We had a chance to end the game in regulation offensively. At that point, I was not going to take a chance and force his hand and let him take an opportunity to throw the ball down the field.”

Except that once they lost the toss in OT, they were putting their defense in a worse situation, and even more at risk of the Dolphins throwing downfield, with all of overtime and their full allotment of timeouts at their disposal. Fisher had nothing to lose and everything to gain in using his timeouts at the end of regulation. Imagine if Belichick had done that.

It’s the old axiom: when you win, all sins are forgotten.

Of course, there’s another consideration. While these coaches are flouting convention on the field, they’re loathe to do so in the press room. Unlike Belichick, they dutifully cater to the media, knowing where their bread is buttered.

As Reiss noted in his article, Tomlin spoke at length on his decision.

“Plan A didn’t work, but it kind of unfolded the way you envisioned it,” Tomlin said. “We had 30 minutes of evidence that we could drive the ball on them. We also conversely had 30 minutes of evidence to show they could also drive the ball on us. That’s why we took the risk when we did.”

Imagine if Belichick had done that.

by Dan Snapp
dan@patriotsdaily.com

Original publish date  – August 2nd, 2007

(In light of the resurgence of regurgitation by many in the media of this Randy Moss quote following Sunday’s game against Carolina, we’ve decided to bump this article up from the archives.)

The Globe’s Mike Reiss today repeated the celebrated Randy Moss quote “I play when I want to play” in his rundown on the Patriots receiving competition through the first dozen or so practice sessions. But was it in the right context?

Moss’s remarks were in response to a question about who motivates him to play. Here’s PFW on it:

Minnesota WR Cris Carter on teammate Randy Moss’ remarks that he only plays “when I want to play”: “Some of it, did he mean it? Yes. But some of it did get misconstrued? It was not taken totally out of context, but some of it was asked in the sense of: ‘Does Coach Green get you motivated? Do you like playing on Monday Night Football? Do you like playing the Packers? Does Cris have to get on you to make a play?’ And he said, ‘No, I play when I want to play.’”

This fantastic CityPages article also talks about the incident with proper context:

Most notably, there was the flap over his “I play when I want to play” remark. Ripped from the original context (it came in response to a question of how Moss motivates himself to perform), the wide receiver’s off-the-cuff but fundamentally innocuous answer left talking heads sputtering and howling. They said Moss disgraced the game by failing to give the proverbial 110 percent on every down of every game–even though many other receivers do the same, and the legendary Jerry Rice has admitted he does.

Later in the same piece, it describes how a week later, Moss wasn’t backing down from his original statement:

Last year, a week after the initial furor over the “I play when I want to play” remark, Moss was asked about the quote in a conference call with reporters. Did he want to take it back? Or clarify what he meant? His response: “Hell, no. That shit is what I said.” A second public outcry ensued. But a man from Rand stands by his words. You say what you mean, you mean what you say. It is an anti-image ethic. Whatever else he is, Moss is the antithesis of extremely image-conscious athletes such as his old teammate Cris Carter or, more notably, that most beloved of Minnesota sports icons, Kirby Puckett.

Predictably, Peter King shot first, screw asking questions, later or anytime:

b. You had your chance, Randy Moss, in your interview with Andrea Kremer on ESPN to say you screwed up last year with your I-play-when-I-want-to-play statement. Instead, you said: “It got blown out of context.” Oh. You get the richest contract in NFL history for a wide receiver. You take a chunk of plays in every game off. And you can’t understand why everyone’s so up in arms when you say you play when you damn well feel like it. “When I said that, it might have come out the wrong way,” you told Kremer. Might have? Get a clue, fella.

Why was the onus on Moss to clear things up when the reporters were the ones continually getting the story wrong?

The original quote came from a Nov. 23, 2001 column by the Minneapolis Star-Tribune’s Sid Hartman. Here’s another rundown from scout.com:

Moss was quoted in a Nov. 23 column by Minneapolis Star-Tribune columnist Sid Hartman as saying, “I play when I want to play. Do I play up to my top performance, my ability every time? Maybe not. I just keep doing what I do and that is playing football. When I make my mind up, I am going out there to tear somebody’s head off. When I go out there and play football, man it’s not anybody telling me to play or how I should play. I play when I want to play.”

Michael Silver of Sports Illustrated had a good article on Moss in 2002.

Moss puts one foot on the bench in front of his locker and stares at me. “O.K.,” he says, “shoot.”

I come with this convoluted question-and-a-half: You’re a guy who has said and done a lot of controversial things, and people have formed some strong opinions. Are they getting the right impression of you, and if they aren’t, does that bother you?

“HAY-ell no,” Moss booms in his West Virginia twang. “Why should I worry about what people think? I’ve got everything I need — everything I’ll ever need. It’s not my fault that people don’t know me. Look, I’m going to speak my mind, no matter what the consequences are. The things I do speak might come out different in terms of language, but when I say something, I speak my mind.” The interview lasts a half hour.

We’re not picking on Reiss here by any means. There are few better than Mike. And we’re not suggesting by any means that Moss has simply been a misunderstood choir boy. But would it be fair to say this celebrated quote is rarely put in its proper context?

HAY-ell yes.

By Dan Snapp, Patriots Daily Staff

The best take I heard on Bill Belichick’s now-legendary fourth down call:

You’re Jim Caldwell. In a rare league occurrence (and one Bill Polian’s having the Competition Committee consider for next year), you get to make the Patriots’ decision on fourth-and-two. So your choices are have them punt the ball, with a 100 percent chance of getting the ball back; or have them go for it, with more toward a 50-50 chance. What’s it gonna be, Jim?

By now you’ve witnessed the ocean of opinions flow in about the call. If nothing else, Belichick’s gambit has galvanized the airwaves. The reactions ran the full gamut: some hated it; some loved it; some gleefully added a new “B” entry to their “Boston Misery” Rolodex, to be revisited many, many, many times.

And now as we stretch past two full days of review, in hindsight we discover not only was it a ballsy call, but likely the higher percentage call as well.

As the saying goes, hindsight is 20/20. Consider all the factors going into the decision: the percentages for and against; the fact the tired Patriots defense had given up not one but two 79-yard, two-minute scoring drives that quarter; the concept of giving Peyton Manning 70 yards to go, with two full minutes and a timeout, and four full downs to get first downs; the fact Manning had also thrown up two wounded duck interceptions that half; and the knowledge that your offense has chalked up 470 yards already on this defense.

We’ve had two days to absorb all this information, plus the benefit of the outcome of the play, to then come to the conclusion that at worst, it was a 50-50 call. Belichick had a minute to decide. He made the call decisively, and stood by it afterward.

This isn’t a Belichick-can-do-no-wrong missive. He did plenty wrong: the conservative play-calling late in the game when they could have delivered the knockout blow; the inexcusable waste of their last two timeouts, when the penultimate play of the game would occur outside of the two-minute warning; the uncharacteristically poor clock management; and most damningly, the failure to call a running play on third down when (as Belichick said later) he already knew he’d go for it on fourth down. Running the ball either gets it down to the two-minute warning or forces Indy to use their last timeout; Instead, they pass AND call a timeout themselves. Shameful.

A slew of coaches, both pro and college, have now come forth in support of the decision. They didn’t talk about any of the manufactured storylines (“What does it say to your defense?” “Manning’s now in Belichick’s head,” “This is just Belichick thinking he’s smarter than everybody else.”). They just looked at it as a play to try to win the game.

What struck me, though, was something Tony Dungy said in the postgame show. “You gotta punt,” he said. “You gotta play the percentages.” Just like that. No consideration of the alternative. A coach as long-tenured and successful as Dungy, and the “safe play” was the way to go. I’d have thought in all the years he’s coached, he’d have seen such an instance and have a pretty good sense of the pros and cons and percentages.

Nope. He gives the same answer as the first-year coach whose first order of business is trying not to get fired: Play it safe. You may still lose, but at least you played it safe.

Now neither Dungy nor any of us knew at the time that Belichick’s percentages were actually pretty decent, and the “safe play” may not have been any safer than going for it, but that’s not the point.

Everyone has accepted as a given that only Belichick would attempt such a thing, and upon attempting it, the only one to get away with such a thing. Were he still coaching, Dungy could get away with it, but he already acknowledged he’d never try it in the first place. Other coaches in the league are either so new, or in such precarious situations, they don’t have the clout to do it, even if they wanted to.

Belichick just did them a favor. The precedent’s set, with statistical backup, and they’re free to make the same call without fear of reprisal.

Even if Belichick knew the odds in his favor, he still had to know it was a controversial decision. He had to know if it didn’t work, he’d be crucified. Everyone who wanted their pound of flesh from him, for whatever multitude of sins they thought he committed (Spygate, Handshakegate, Runningupthescoregate, Whydontyoureturnmycalls?gate), would be coming to collect. He made the call anyway.

And therein lies the beauty of Bill Belichick: he doesn’t give a damn what anybody thinks of him.

Michael Silver described the call as a “setup for ego-driven gratification.” Peter King said it “smacked of I’m-smarter-than-they-are hubris.” “Too smart for his own good,” wrote Dan Shaughnessy, “The sins of hubris.” Michael Wilbon called it “The most arrogant end-of-game decision I’ve ever seen in 40-plus years of watching pro football.” And Shaughnessy asked yesterday, “Why is it so terrible to say that this was a mistake?”

Self-gratifying. Proud. Arrogant. Obstinate.

These guys don’t have a clue. They can’t understand why he won’t do what they expect him to do. They don’t get why he won’t admit to a mistake he doesn’t think he made. Even after the numbers back him up, they still want him to admit it was wrong (“I’m not saying the mathematical theory is wrong; it’s not,” King wrote yesterday. “I just think there’s a certain amount of playing by feel.”).

And they don’t get that neither pride nor arrogance – assuming Belichick possesses both in spades – have any bearing on how he calls a football game. Since he arrived in Foxboro 10 years ago, on the field he’s displayed nothing but a singular focus toward winning. He never let any distractions – Terry Glenn, Drew Bledsoe, Lawyer Milloy, et al – get in the way of the team’s focus on winning the next game. Often, those decisions came at the expense of his own personal reputation. So be it so long as we’re winning – that seemed to be the credo.

Bill Belichick is beholden to none, and that’s a powerful thing. Sure, he answers to Robert Kraft, but Kraft’s lone directive to Belichick is “Win.” That’s like commanding sharks to eat.

Belichick’s responsibility to the players is to put them in the best position to make plays. He doesn’t owe apologies, any more than he’d expect one from a player. Listen to the interviews when they lose. To a man, it’s typically, “Coach expects us to execute the play, and we just didn’t do that.” When’s the last time you’ve heard a Patriots player not repeat the “What’s best for the team” mantra?

Belichick’s responsibility to the fans and the media? Nothing, save for the press conferences and interviews to which all head coaches are bound. He doesn’t owe us explanations. He doesn’t owe us reasoning into every minute detail of team operations. He’s trying to provide us wins, and that trumps every other consideration.

He’s not going to spout off with some pretense of bravado like Rex Ryan, or strut like some popinjay like Jack Del Rio, or play favorites like Brad Childress.

None of these coaches would forgo their reputation like Belichick routinely does. None would risk the wrath of the media, whom they so desperately court. Winning is still important to them, but none are willing to make the same sacrifices.

Michael Silver talks of ego. Ego? Belichick is the most reviled man in the league. If he really wanted to stroke his ego, he’s had countless opportunities to play the game they want him to play. To explain himself, to apologize, to become beholden to them and to us. Belichick won’t do it.

The team’s got some problems. They can’t run when they need to, nor rush the passer when needed. Either may prove a fatal flaw. Still, they had the Super Bowl favorite on the ropes for 56 minutes. Just because they didn’t win doesn’t mean they’re not good enough to do so.

The fact they’ve got a coach willing to make the tough call, who’s decisive in doing so, and unwavering in the backlash after it fails – well, that’s only an asset to the cause.

by Dan Snapp, Patriots Daily Staff
September 27, 2009

Two years ago, I wrote a piece saying Pats fans were entitled to root for the team in whatever manner they pleased. In hindsight, I was high.

Some people are just too stupid to be football fans. They should switch to one of those games in which the outcome is never in doubt, like wrestling or politics.

The Patriots entered Sunday at 1-1, an element which – in concert with a New Moon and Jupiter in retrograde – apparently signals the onset of The End Times. That is, if the fans are to be believed.

Mike Reiss has long had to deal with the unhinged in his weekly Globe mailbags or in responses to blog posts, but now these people seem to be everywhere.

Callers to WEEI suggested rookie receiver Julian Edelman needs snaps at quarterback, that the departed Jabar Gaffney is the x-factor the team’s missing (guess his gaffes have been forgiven), and that it’s all over anyway so the Pats should trade as many players as possible now for draft picks. One pointed out “Brady has lost two of his last three games,” and who can argue when facts are brought into the mix?

Which reminds me, two of the three major cogs of “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson” are dead; is Doc Severinsen next?

On the Globe, it was a wall of stupid. Tom Brady’s to blame, to be certain, but what caused the precipitous drop in his play?

“It’s so obvious, Tom’s top priority is not football anymore,” said one commenter. Another tells Brady, “You are not playing well because you’re walking around like a zombie instead of being a motivational quarterback.” Others point to Giselle, because it’s well known that supermodels weaken knees with a force mere mortal Moynihans just can’t summon.

The fans in Tom’s court instead pointed to play-calling. “The Pats have no offensive coordinator this year. This is a big problem.” But would that really help? As “Eric” pointed out, “The offensive coordinator is gutless,” which makes sense, because a non-existent OC would logically possess non-existent guts.

The Pats this week traded for a backup linebacker, Prescott Burgess, which offers new grim portents.

“I guess that means Mayo is out for the year,” was one conclusion. “Who? What? Isn’t Derrick Brooks sitting at home?” said another, among many who count name recognition as a clear sign of ability. Others keyed off on the Burgess name, including one strange chain of references leading to the revelation that Candice Bergen played the Penguin on the old Batman series. Don’t ask me how.

Comments Topple Two
In a not-so-rare occasion of form meeting malfunction, the Boston Globe held a live chat during the game last Sunday. Chad Finn and Chris Forsberg gamely moderated the affair, which promptly surrendered reason as the game devolved.

Among the highlights:

“good call on dumping Seymore.”
“thought this offense was suppose to be better then 07”
“Is it me or is Moss barely breaking a sweat in this game?”
“NE has no hope. Giselle has done Brady in. He no longer has any motivation”
“toms terriFIED”

Lo and behold, there’s no chat scheduled today.

Lose today to Atlanta, and they’re gonna need sentries along the Tobin to dissuade potential plungers. Or with a nod to Darwin, they could direct them to the launch points that offer the best return on investment.

So who are these people, and why are they so breathtakingly stupid? I’ve got a theory.

My freshman year, finding a good place to watch the Patriots proved an obstacle. With the Pats fresh off their Super Bowl appearance with the Bears, the dorm lounges were crowded. Add to the mix a bi-polar resident, an ape who toppled furniture every time Irving Fryar fumbled a punt. Given Fryar’s flair for flub, no sofa was safe.

Fortunately, I got an invite from a friend in an all-girls dorm. A few present were into the game, while others watched because they thought Tony Eason was cute (“Take your helmet off, Tony!!”). The commentary was killing me.

“Why are they giving the ball back? Didn’t they just get it?”
“They got a touchdown on that play. Why don’t they just do that play every time?”
“Why does he give him the ball between his legs? Couldn’t he just hand it to him?”

Temptation beckoned this way for the better part of a half, but I held strong. Finally, I could hold it in no longer. One girl asked, “Why do they fall down after going two yards?” I laughed, and that was the end.

“You make us feel stupid,” they explained as they threw me out.

I’ve always wondered what happened to those girls, but now, mystery solved. They’re right there, plain as day, in the comments section for the Globe and Herald, chatting with Bill Simmons (Yup, these are his readers), or calling in to WEEI; Dumb, dumb girls, pining desperately for Tony Eason to remove his helmet.

We need to lay down some rules for membership. Not unlike the character in “Diner” who made his fiancé take a Baltimore Colts quiz before agreeing to marry her, we need to know we’re dealing with some modicum of understanding of the game

So here are a few basics:

1. On occasion, your team will lose.
2. On occasion, your team will call run plays. Use the down time as an opportunity to wonder what is wrong with Brady.
3. It’s a business. Management and the players already get this. Best you do, too. Craziest thing, some other things you enjoy come from businesses as well! Doritos – made by a business. Guitar Hero – made by a business. Breast implants – made by a business. Sports radio – made by a business.
4. “Two Words” is not an argument. “Duane Starks” is something Michael Felger teaches his parrot. Don’t be a parrot, unless you’re crapping on the Globe.
5. The player you know isn’t necessarily better than the one you don’t. Four words: “Drew Bledsoe Tom Brady”
6. Second-and-six is an acceptable first-down outcome.
7. Choose: more experience or more youth? “Experience” and “youth” are opposites, like “Jets fan” and “no priors” or “Charlie Casserly” and “employed as a GM.”
8. You can’t call a game better than the offensive coordinator, even a non-existent one. So put down the pipe, Mouse; the run-and-shoot is dead-and-buried.
9. The refs will make crappy calls against your team. Crappy ones for your team, too. Get back at them by refusing to spot Hochuli at the gym.
10. There’s a reason a guy is fourth string. Despite the omen of having in the middle of his name the name of the guy Simmons thought drowned in Lake Pontchartrain, BenJarvis Green-Ellis isn’t the answer at tailback.
11. Supermodels have no bearing on an NFL game’s outcome. Pitchy country singers, on the other hand…
12. You can’t trash a guy when he’s on the team, then yearn for his return when he’s gone. Nor can you yearn for a guy on another team, then trash him on yours when he’s only been here a month.
13. Two games do not equal a season. Pace yourself. You’ve got at least 14 more to which you can overreact.
14. If a player isn’t living up to your expectations, there’s a small chance he’s living up to the Patriots’ expectations.
15. Just because a guy was a good contributor here 5, 10, or 15 years ago does not mean he:
    a. wants to come back here and be a position coach;
    b. is in any way qualified to do so;
    c. should have his number retired.
16. When someone says Belichick is withholding information, ask yourself, “Is he censoring what channel the game is on, or how to get to Foxboro?” No? Then you have all the information you need to be a fan.
17. People doing pre-game shows aren’t good enough to run a team (see Casserly, Charlie).
18. Let the dynasty die. Jerod Mayo was a red shirt freshman the last time the Patriots won the Super Bowl. Let him, and his teammates, create their own legacy.

I’d suggest these fans need some sort of football 101 refresher, but if they haven’t learned a blessed thing after a decade of Belichick, what hope have they got? A decade of the best football any of us have seen in our lifetimes, and this is the best they can do?

Colleague Scott Benson put it best this week: “The enduring thanks of a grateful fanbase. I feel like we should warn the Steelers or something.”

by Dan Snapp, Patriots Daily Staff
September 10, 2009

I sometimes wonder if I’m watching a different game than everybody else. When did football become about making sure everybody’s happy? Since when did approval ratings trump winning?

Yes, it sucks for Richard Seymour to be traded to Oakland, and yes, he just built a house, and yes, he now has to uproot his family. This may sound callous, but that’s life. In the game he chose to make his profession – one in which he’s worked hard and was handsomely rewarded – this was a possible outcome in the scheme of things.

Seymour’s entitled to feel however he feels about it, but the Patriots owe him nothing beyond respect and gratitude for his contributions to their success.

The transaction garnered a predictable response from the usual suspects: Dan Shaughnessy called us toadies for rooting for the laundry; Ron Borges urged Vince Wilfork (again) to sit out; and former Seymour slammer Michael Felger shrieked that his departure was the first sign of the pending apocalypse.

It’s really no wonder Bill Belichick is so tight-lipped. He comes within minutes of the league’s first 19-0 season, loses his MVP quarterback the next year yet still leads the team to an 11-5 season with a QB who hasn’t started since high school, and that’s not enough? They want him to be Dick McPherson, as well? Hugs all around. Cold cuts and doughnuts in the pressbox. Christmas bonuses and personalized holiday greetings. “Best wishes for a swell 2010 to my favorite cub reporter. You’ll get me one of these days. Love, Bill.”

Give up the ghost, guys. It’s never gonna happen. And yes, fans do prefer wins over keeping players past their primes. Seymour’s still in his prime, but the Raiders’ compensation was so over the top, the Patriots would be fools not to take it. All the pundits agree on this. The ones outside Boston, anyway.

Shaughnessy made an interesting analogy Monday, ostensibly as criticism, imagining Belichick’s moves helming the late-80s Celtics:

If the 1980s Celtics had been managed by Belichick you can be pretty sure Kevin McHale would have been traded. Maybe Robert Parish, too. The Big Three would not have gotten old and broken down on Coach Bill’s watch.

If he’s saying that’s a bad thing, the Celtics of the ’90s don’t help his cause much. If a Belichick figure could have parlayed an aging McHale into a Shaq or Mourning two years down the line, would you have taken it?

Borges, ever the union man, bemoaned Wilfork’s lack of leverage as a rookie, saying he had no choice but to sign the six-year deal which he has now obviously outperformed. His remedy, as always, is for the player to sit out . But what’s management’s option when a player underperforms a contract? The 49ers in 2005 signed rookie Alex Smith to a megadeal, then were stuck with him when he foundered. It’s not like they were going to get their money back, and if they cut him his sizable bonus would have ballooned their salary cap. Where’s Ron’s crocodile tears for that injustice?

Seymour and the Patriots were equally loyal to one another. When not liking his  situation, Seymour twice sat out and was rewarded. His last deal made him one of the highest paid defenders, and it’s arguable whether he performed up to that stature. The Pats paid him at the first two impasses, and traded him this time, well within their rights.

Both parties treated football as a business, and both took risks associated with that decision. By sitting out, Seymour risked just this kind of transaction occurring the next time his contract was coming up. And the Patriots are taking a risk now in not having Seymour’s services for the year.

The price for being a successful team in the salary cap era is that you can’t keep all your good guys, and your roster is constantly in flux. The media seems shocked that only four Patriots remain from a Super Bowl that occurred eight years ago, in a league where player careers average half that.

What’s more impressive is that 14 Patriots from the 2001 season were still playing football in 2008, eight of whom were still Patriots. By contrast, the 2008 Rams had four players left from their 2001 roster, the 2008 Colts had six, and the Steelers and Ravens each had four.

Tell me, which team is most loyal?

Hating losing Seymour as a Patriot and loving the Raiders deal are not mutually exclusive events.  As fans, we’ll continue to have the memories to cherish, and can even be so magnanimous to actually wish the best for somebody wearing a Raiders jersey.

But at the end of the day, we’re loyal to the guys wearing the laundry.

E-mail Dan Snapp at dan@patriotsdaily.com

“Falling on a Knife” must have been a real health concern in Oscar Hammerstein’s old neighborhood. Whenever the legendary librettist needed a quick character exit, but without implicating another, falling on a knife was the literary device of choice. Jud Fry? Billy Bigelow? Both dead by self-shiv.

The point being, as an NFL starting quarterback, JP Losman has a great future in musical theater.

The adjective doesn’t exist to truly describe the level of incompetence beheld in that one play Sunday, when Losman mindlessly fumbled the game away against the Jets when most any other option would give the Bills the win.

It was mind-boggling, incomprehensible, unbelievable, and yet so dramatic and so brutally idiotic, it felt predictable.

Right after the play, Pats fans expressed their disgust, collectively thinking we knew we couldn’t count on the Bills. And a Bills fan buddy told his wife moments before the play, “Watch. We’re still going to lose this game.”

There are these times in sports when we forget what we’re watching is live, and more prone to havoc than we realize. We watch football games with an expectation of order, that the game should go in an orderly fashion according to plan. Plays should be executed as drawn up, and any result outside of that plan – fumbles, interceptions, special teams touchdowns – are shocks to the system, even though we see these things in every game we watch. The irony is the unexpected is what keeps us watching every week.

Compound that with the sports movie glory collections in our heads (Jimmy Chitwood making the last-second shot, Roy Hobbs hitting the home run in the ninth – author Bernard Malamud had him striking out, incidentally), and it’s a wonder our synapses know at which points during a game they should fire.

The end product is a muddle where any result is one we saw coming.

So Losman’s fumble, then, was both a surprise and par for the course. Bill Belichick would probably describe it as a “football play.”

What’s more difficult is apportioning blame. Losman gets a lion’s share, of course. You don’t go that many years in the league with as much as experience as he’s had to blank out in execution.

Many want Bills coach Dick Jauron’s head on a platter as well, a sentiment emboldened with the news his contract was extended. But the call really wasn’t that bad. The two-minute warning was going to stop the clock anyway, so all Jauron was doing was trusting that the guy he had throw 32 times in the previous 58 minutes would know what to do in this situation.

The play has drawn comparisons to the notorious Joe Pisarcik fumble, except fans are clamoring that the Bills should have called the same play now that got Pisarcik in trouble in ’78. No play is 100 percent safe. Belichick probably would have described the Pisarcik gaffe as a “football play” as well.

This was nothing more than Jud Losman falling on his own knife. Unfortunately for the Patriots, it increased the chances the fat lady would soon be singing.

Dan Snapp’s ‘Direct Snapp’ appears weekly on Patriots Daily. He can be reached at dan@patriotsdaily.com.

My daughter said the F-word last week. Here we were Thursday, happily watching the game, and out it blurted:

“Daddy, did the man just say, ‘Brett Favre’?”

Oh dear. We knew this day would come. A little bit before I expected, but here we are. Deep breath.

No, honey, there is no Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy is just bribery so you won’t freak out at the blood, and the Easter Bunny? Well, I have no earthly clue what the Easter Bunny’s supposed to be about. There’s also no pot of gold at rainbow’s end, and Mickey Mouse is actually just some girl sweating her butt off in a mouse suit in the Florida sun.

And yes, sadly there is a Brett Favre.

Turns out Brett Favre is one friend’s favorite player, and being so thrilled to hear the name on TV (yeah, just wait, honey), my daughter had to tell her best friend about it.

“Brett Barf?” he responded. Whether a character judgment or an allusion to Favre’s Vicodin days, I must say, prescient lad.

Actually, I come to praise Brett Favre. No, really.

In the Jets’ win against the Patriots a week ago, Favre had one of his most impressive days ever. Certainly not statwise, paling in comparison to a number of games. But he played a nice, efficient game, checking down to secondary receivers, not forcing balls, and generally taking what the Patriots defense gave him.

In stark contrast to his legend, he wasn’t drawing up plays in the dirt, he wasn’t winging it, and he actually seemed to grasp the concept of nickel defenses. It even looked like he just wasn’t having fun out there.

[Read more...]

by Dan Snapp
Dan@patriotsdaily.com

Tell me you didn’t think it. 

Tell me, as Adam Vinatieri’s unexpected (to put it mildly) 52-yard field goal sailed through the uprights Sunday night, you didn’t hear in your head the retired, red-nosed, paper-shuffling anchor with his most tiresome of bromides:

Why can’t we get players like that?

Fortunately, we did. In fact, the Patriots had their cake and ate it, too: they had Vinatieri for the bulk of his possibly Hall of Fame career, and then replaced him with somebody younger, cheaper, and – for the past two-and-a-half years, anyway – better. And remember, it’s not like the Patriots cut Vinatieri loose; his leaving was of his own choosing.

Like Larry Bird’s Indian Summer game against Portland in 1992, there was a nostalgic aspect to Vinatieri’s renewed vigor, even though it came at the Patriots’ expense. It was good to see the old man still had it in him.

But Vinatieri’s kick was the exception, not the rule. The 52-yarder was his first over 50 yards in two years (he had two over 50 in the 2006 playoffs), and he went all of the 2007 regular season without hitting anything over 40 yards before finally connecting on a 46-yarder against San Diego in the playoffs. And quite the irony that a good tailwind at Lucas Oil Stadium came to the aid of a man hoping a dome would extend his career.

Vinatieri’s time as an elite kicker is over. He had a glorious year in ’06 with the Colts, including a five field goal performance against the Ravens in the divisional round. But his average has dropped each year, as well as his range. At 35, he should be around for a while; it’s not unusual for a good kicker to play into his 40s, as Jan Stenerud and Gary Anderson did. But he’s no longer the Adamatic of old.

In the meantime, we have Stephen Gostkowski, who was recently named October’s Special Teams Player of the Month. He’s raised his average each season, from 76.9 percent in ’06 to a sterling 95 percent this year.  He showed he could hit the big kicks, like the game-winner against San Diego in the waning minutes of the ’06 divisional playoffs, or the two fourth quarter field goals against the Colts in the AFC championship. And of course, there’s the value of his kickoffs, with nearly as many touchbacks in eight games as he had all last season.

At the time of Vinatieri’s signing with the Colts, Peter King claimed Adam alone would be the reason for three more wins for the Colts, and ostensibly by extension, three more losses for the Patriots. Three more wins for the Colts would be a pretty mean feat, seeing as how they had just gone 14-2 the previous season. Let alone the ludicrous idea that a kicker, even one Canton-bound, could change two teams’ fortunes so dramatically.

The outcome? The Colts went 12-4. The Patriots, 10-6 in ’05, went 12-4.

There are a handful of personnel shortcomings since ’05 for which we could critique the Patriots. Replacing Vinatieri with Gostkowski isn’t one of them.

by Dan Snapp
dan@patriotsdaily.com

You never know what memories of a football game you’ll stash away long after the contest’s completed. The big plays typically get top billing – the bomb, the interception, the game-ending sack – but often, it’s less-likelier suspects that resonate. It’s a subtle part of the game’s beauty.

Early in the fourth quarter Sunday, after the Rams went up 16-13 on the Patriots, an old familiar feeling washed over: the Patriots are going to win this.

There was no particular rhyme or reason for it at the time. The Patriots had just consummated an abysmal third quarter by giving up an onside kick, two interceptions, the ball on downs, and ultimately the lead. Moreover, their first possession of the fourth featured two dropped passes, a sack and punt.

Didn’t matter. The feeling persisted.

And it was familiar not from last year, when a different kind of “They’re going to win this” feeling would hit, usually in the first quarter. No, this was a feeling returning from 2003 and 2004.

Despite their matching 14-2 records those two years, the Patriots were often undersold as a league power, as they rarely blew anybody out. A common win would be them holding an 8- to 11-point lead early in the fourth, and then watching the opposition use up most of remaining regulation getting one of the two scores they needed.

To beat the Patriots back then, you had to knock them out early. If they were lingering, they were going to win. That old feeling said as much.

[Read more...]

by Dan Snapp
dan@patriotsdaily.com

Remember the halcyon days of yore, when people routinely compared Tom Brady to Joe Montana? These days we’re left resurrecting the Ghosts of Patriots Misfortune Past.

Who does Matt Cassel remind you of most? Drew Bledsoe holding onto the ball too long, Tony Eason turtling under pressure, or Hugh Millen losing his bearings on fourth down? Is Deltha O’Neal the worst Pats corner since Duane Starks, Antonio Langham, or Chris Canty? And is Richard Seymour turning into Kenneth “Game Day” Sims before our eyes?

As our eyes tell us, and as the stats back up, the Patriots just aren’t a very good team. We suspected as much during preseason, but were willing to brush that off as just that – preseason. Surely with Brady back for the opener, they’d revert back to the dominance of ’07.

But the blowouts to Miami and San Diego taught us something else: with or without Brady, this team has serious issues to resolve. Former areas of strength now loom as gaping holes. Positions neglected in drafts and free agency are exploited as vulnerabilities.

For Bill Belichick, it’s the perfect storm: His MVP quarterback out for the season, his old standby vets with too many steps lost to make the plays, and a couple of years of tepid drafting leaving nothing in reserve.

Ehh, but forget about all that. Let’s talk about the quarterback, as it’s so much easier to blame it on the guy handling the ball.

[Read more...]

by Dan Snapp
dan@patriotsdaily.com

Troy Brown says he’s a Patriot for life. We need to hold him to that. Hear that, Troy? You can’t leave.

“If you love the game so much,” his son Sir’mon tearfully asked during the retirement press conference, “Why are you retiring?”

Excellent question, and the answer is he’s not. We won’t let him.

Consider this: The franchise’s unprecedented success ran concurrent with Brown’s career; they made five Super Bowls with him as a member of the team, and lost the two he was inactive. Coincidence?

He was a tremendous player, but perhaps it’s more than that. Maybe he was our good luck charm all along. Maybe it’s just good karma to have such a man on our sidelines. As the saying went, good things happen when Troy Brown touches the ball.

Bill Belichick likes to say he treats all players equally, but I think Troy should be the exception. Surely the man who allowed Vinny Testaverde to keep his yearly touchdown streak going and who let Doug Flutie try the first drop kick in decades, surely he could find a way to sneak Brown onto the squad come playoffs each year. Put him back at gunner. Have him hold for kicks. Teach him to punt. Hell, he’s done everything else in his career.

Of course it’s only a pipe dream, thinking someday we could peel him off the BINGO circuit to come on all Nate Scarboro-like into a playoff game. We can be sure that Brown, unlike say Brett Favre, has put a lot of thought into this decision. Knowing the man he is, there’s no doubting the permanence of it.

This week, Patriots Daily has examined Troy Brown’s greatest moments, the turning point of his career, and his lasting place in our hearts and memories. Now we’re left to ponder his legacy.

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