What’s Luck Got To Do With It?

logoby Dan Snapp
dan@patriotsdaily.com

So now the Patriots are lucky? Lucky they don’t have to face the big, bad Colts again in their path to the Super Bowl?

Luck certainly didn’t help the Colts much. Ninety lucky horseshoes (one for each side of the helmet) didn’t work. Their lucky ref’s feet, the ones imbedded deep into Bill Polian’s back pocket, nearly did the trick. But overall, as they say, no such luck.

The better team advanced. The big, bad Colts aren’t big or bad anymore, and they showed that Sunday. Unless they could pull a rabbit out of a hat, they would’ve gotten creamed by the Patriots. The Chargers saved them the embarrassment.

Let’s not sell San Diego short. They’re a tough, talented team that showed grit on defense and resourcefulness on offense. They earned their trip to Foxboro.

Perhaps they’re not as difficult a matchup for the Pats as the Colts would be, but I’m not so certain. Consider the obstacles they overcame: winning on the road, in front of a hostile crowd, in an (let’s be honest) artificially loud stadium; overcoming a multiple MVP quarterback and a team of refs cowed by the hometown GM; playing with a gimpy star tight end; hamstrung by a coach more willing to give the ball back with a minute and a half to the multiple MVP than pass on third down; and losing both their starting QB and running back in the interim.

Either the Colts are that bad, or the Chargers are that good. Maybe a bit of both.

Which Blueprint Would You Print?

Anyone who played a wind instrument as a child may be privy to the concept of “circular breathing”. In theory, the player continues expelling air while inhaling through his nose, enabling him to sustain a continual note. In practice, results are mixed.

“Circular reasoning” is similar in concept, but more open to hyperventilation. To do either, you pretty much have to blow.

Which brings us to Jets beat man Rich Cimini. A month ago, Cimini glommed onto a popular theme late in the season: proclaiming that your team - providing they stayed within ten points - in defeat supplied the “blueprint” for beating the Pats.

Cimini took a novel approach, which is what makes it my favorite of the faulty blueprint claims. He basically suggested Belichick was hoisted with his own petard:

Bill Belichick devised a brilliant plan that slowed down the high-scoring, quick-strike Bills in Super Bowl XXV. Instead of the usual 3-4 scheme, Belichick employed a two-man line — a 2-4-5 alignment. The strategy came with this unorthodox charge: If Thurman Thomas rushes for 100 yards, Belichick told the defensive players, we’ll win …

…On Sunday, Mangini used Belichick’s strategy against Belichick, and it kept the Jets in the game against the heavily-favored Patriots. The Jets wound up losing, 20-10 … but they may have uncovered a way to beat the undefeated, history-seeking Patriots.

Essentially, “Make the Patriots run the ball.” But Cimini’s theorem came with this proviso:

If the Jets had any offense whatsoever …

And so collapses the house of cards. Belichick plans for the team they’re playing, not the one they’re not. So the Jets’ lack of offense likely factored into their game plan. Moreover, when given the opening to run, the Pats - in contrast to say Mike Martz - ran, did so successfully, and won the game by two scores.

Cimini’s blueprint blew. Actually, all of them did. They were nothing more than basic football truisms trussed up as something revolutionary.

The Colts got an early lead and forced the Pats to play catchup. The Eagles blitzed heavily and effectively blanketed Randy Moss. The Ravens won physical matchups at the line of scrimmage. That each could do so successfully is more a tribute to that team’s execution than to any ingenious plan.

For all the supposed blueprints, how come none was ever used twice?

Here, then, is my submission for “How to Beat the Patriots”: do best what you don’t do best. That’s the one common thread among all the near-misses: success by teams’ second options.

The Patriots defense is far from dominant, but is proficient in taking away what teams like to do. They take away Brian Westbrook, forcing A.J. Feeley to try to beat them. Feeley made the best of the opportunity. They limit Peyton Manning, forcing the ball into Joseph Addai’s hands. Again, nearly fatally.

In the closest call of all, against the Ravens, the Pats failed at denying what the Ravens do best, and Willis McGahee ran wild.

Sunday, don’t be surprised to see strong numbers for the Chargers QB, whomever it will be, but in a double digit loss.

The Awful Truth

There are few true moments of clarity in our lifetimes, times when your mind opens itself up to some infinite truth. One hit me last Monday, standing in line at Disney World for an hour with my five-year-old, waiting for an autograph and picture from some pretty, anonymous actress in an Ariel costume, herself likely a dozen runny noses and greasy little hands away from giving up the dream and going back to grad school like Daddy suggested.

That ultimate truth revealed itself all at once: “Disney will always win in the end.”

No matter the measures you take - the hotel discounts, the knowing somebody who knows somebody who can get you in, discovering that doing the character breakfast means free parking - no matter what, Disney will find you, and they will make you pay.

Every year, the NFL finds itself a new suitor in the playoffs, the next big thing, the “team nobody wants to play.” An ultimate truth in the NFL is that the Patriots want to play that team. The Jaguars were this year’s playoff darling, and they were ripe for the kill: strong in areas the Pats were reportedly weak, with some modest success during the season, but very, very green.

In scenarios like that, the Patriots are Disney: they’ll always win in the end.

The pretenders have been weeded from the NFL playoffs. The Colts and Titans, with their “gentleman’s agreement” between Tony Dungy and Jeff Fisher to end their game expediently. The “Just Happy To Be Here” Cowboys, whose coach reportedly didn’t even game plan for the regular season finale. And these Jaguars, yappy posturers beguiled by their own press clippings.

The Jaguars are now patting themselves on the back that they “kept it competitive.” But that’s exactly what the Patriots want: opponents comforted by moral victories while relinquishing real ones.

delrio.jpg

Aha!

Randy Moss revealed what the Indy types suspected all along:

“You know, we’ve got a hellified offense here.”

The perfect season always did have a Faustian ring to it.

Eight Men In

logoby Dan Snapp
dan@patriotsdaily.com

They can’t call the Patriots a “team without stars” anymore. With eight men chosen for the Pro Bowl yesterday - seven of them starting - they’re manufacturing stars at a Dallas Cowboys rate.

Wait, scratch that; the Cowboys have 11 players going. America’s Team, Leading the League in Smiles.

Pro Bowls are always mixed blessings. You like the honor but you hate the game.

When you’re a kid, and you think every player on your team should go, it obviously means the most. For some years, it was the sole consolation, seeing probably one Patriot get honored in an otherwise cruddy year. You wait for that moment in the third quarter when your guy gets in, watch him run on a couple snaps, and that’s that. How sad the days we sat waiting for Rich Camarillo to punt.

Any awe the game once beheld has long since worn away. Yeah, it’s still nice to see the recognition, and you have to be happy for the Patriots first-timers Logan Mankins, Dan Koppen, Vince Wilfork, Mike Vrabel and Asante Samuel. It’s too bad the game never lives up to the honor.

There are other shortcomings, too. For the team, a Pro Bowl honor might be the first step out the door for that player. No longer is he your little secret, your diamond in the rough. And the way the voting always seems to work, for some players once you’re in, you’re in every year. Matt Light earned his second straight trip, and it’s easy to imagine Mankins and Wilfork earning multiple honors. So what’s Wilfork’s asking price now when it comes to renegotiation time?

The game itself, we could all do without. Face it, it’s the least enjoyable of any of the all-star games, league-decreed vanilla rules make it the least competitive, and you mostly spend your time hoping nobody get hurt in the meaningless affair.

The league needs to rethink this, from the marketing suicide of playing it a week after the season’s denouement all the way down to the garish Hawaiian shirts they’ve got the coaches wearing. Bill Belichick in a Hawaiian shirt makes one appreciate the hoodie.

Can’t we just have the honor and say screw having the game? Still send them to Hawaii, have an event, sign a few autographs, drink a few mai tais and come home. I suppose they could still have some sort of competition. Anything but beach volleyball.

Backgammon perhaps?

I suppose the thing to hope for is the day when your team’s players tire of the trip. They say how honored they are by it, but they need time to heal. The honor then goes to some alternate from some doormat team, whose young fans can now wait eagerly for that big third quarter series when their guy finally gets a few snaps.

More Than A Passing Fancy

logoby Dan Snapp
dan@patriotsdaily.com

It was the most insidiously impressive drive of the game.

Albeit outshone by the wonderfully executed play-action bomb to Randy Moss or the splendid Tom-Brady-to-Moss-to-Brady-to-Jabar-Gaffney flea-flicker, the Patriots drive to open the fourth quarter Sunday was where they most definitively exerted their dominance over the Steelers.

Driving 89 yards in 13 plays, all passes, and leading to a 28-yard Stephen Gostkowski field goal, it was an exercise in mastery. The Pats tipped their hand, going empty backfield on all but two plays, but the Steelers couldn’t stop them.

New England went no huddle the entire series, still running the play clock down each time. They completed nine straight passes (the first five to Wes Welker), with the receiver staying in bounds each time, and ran six minutes off the clock. In essence, it was their runless run-out-the-clock squad.

The signature play was the first. The ball at their own one, the Pats had Tom Brady alone in the shotgun. Welker made a quick break outside, Brady caught him in stride, and Welker left James Farrior in his dust for a 22-yard gain.

“How ’bout this?” an awestruck Phil Simms said at the snap. “You’re backed up at the one, and this says it all: ‘We are a passing team.’”

So that’s what it’s going to be. For better or for worse, this is what they are now: the Great American Pass Team.

We’re about to see if the Patriots can do what in any normal year couldn’t be done: win a Super Bowl with a one-dimensional offense.

We warned about the team getting too pass-happy back in August. There are harbingers of this danger every year: Peyton Manning’s record 2004 season gone cold in frigid Foxboro (and him finally winning once he tempered his statlust); John Elway going ringless before Terrel Davis came along ; Dan Marino never winning a title.

So what would make us think things will be different for this Patriots team?

Obviously, nobody’s ever been this good at it. Soon, the Pats will hold the single season scoring record, Tom Brady will best Manning’s passing TD accomplishment, and Randy Moss most likely will surpass Jerry Rice’s season receiving TD mark. Those records might not even survive this week’s Jets game, maybe leaving Eric Mangini’s job on the endangered list as well.

One can hope.

But doing all this, plus maybe going undefeated, plus then maybe winning another Super Bowl, all while running a heavily lopsided offense - it’s just the Patriots thwarting convention yet again.

On first glance at the stats, the Pats look relatively balanced. For the season, they’ve run 43% of the time - pretty decent considering what a pass-happy offense we expected them to be. They’ve also got a respectable 4.0 yards per carry, for a middle-of-the-pack 1,478 total yards rushing.

But the team’s running success the first part of the season skew the results. Through the first five games, the Pats mixed the run and the pass about 50-50, running for 775 yards, an average of 155 a game. The next eight games, they ran the ball only about 37% of the time, running for 703 yards, an average of 87 yards a game.

Dallas seemed to be the turning point. So did the team’s change of MO hinge on Sammy Morris’s injury early in the third quarter of that game?

As the weather’s turned colder, the Patriots have aired it out more. Perhaps it’s just a by-product of situational football, with the recent come-from-behind wins against Philly and Baltimore dictating a pass-first mentality. But why then just the nine carries against the Steelers, a game in which the Pats took control in the third quarter?

When Laurence Maroney talks to the press, it’s usually a bad thing. He doesn’t dance, he says, and we don’t see what he sees. If we’re to believe Laurence, the only things holding him back are the coach’s reins. The team’s choice of plays seems to hint otherwise.

The next two weeks should shed some light on Maroney’s future with the team. The Jets and Dolphins are 30th and 32nd against the run, respectively, a disadvantage the Patriots would love to exploit. If the Pats are still showing empty backfield late into those games, Maroney’s New England days may be numbered.

Then again, they’re only doing what they do best.

Shut the Gates

logoby Dan Snapp
dan@patriotsdaily.com

Arizona may have lost in OT, but it wasn’t in vain. For unknowingly, those scrappy, noble Cards provided the league with the blueprint for beating the San Francisco 49ers:

Don’t suck worse.

The league’s collective mood brightened Sunday night. See, while the Philadelphia Eagles didn’t actually win, they revealed the path to not actually winning by a smaller margin than by what previous Patriots foes didn’t actually win.

See the significance? Three points! Why, it’s even within “They must have cheated to win” range. Moreover, it proves the Patriots are mortal. That they, too, bleed. Add the sad news of Rosevelt Colvin’s season-ending injury, and surely the Pats are seen as downright vulnerable.

What heady times we live in when the worst they can throw at us is how empowering a three-point loss is to the opposition. Let’s hope the Patriots empower the remainder in similar fashion.

After the Eagles surged for their final lead Sunday, my sister-in-law called.

“Is your family safe?” she goaded. “Are there any sharp objects in your immediate vicinity? Should we call anyone?”

“I’m not worried,” I told her. “They’ll still find a way to win it.”

Perhaps Ellis Hobbs said it best: we’ve been spoiled by the blowouts. But how comforting that the constant sense of security never went away. It’s surely a residual from the 2003-04 championship years, the feeling of confidence that the Patriots would always find a way to prevail.

Everybody’s thinking the Eagles did the league a favor, illuminating the Pats’ vulnerabilities - and maybe to a degree they did just that. But they did the Pats a favor as well. They reminded  them of the greatness they’re still capable of when not everything’s going their way.

They gave Bill Belichick the fodder with which to belittle his charges. Meanwhile, they gave the rest of the league hope. Tell me, which is more likely to breed overconfidence?

Let ‘em have their moral victories. We’re in it for the actual ones.

The Eagles also did Pats fans a favor. Finally, a week where we’re not besieged by Spygate accusations, running-up-the-score moralists, or body language experts disseminating post-game handshakes.

The blowouts and the mad charge toward the record books have been fun, but they messed with our expectations. Instead of focusing on the important things - locking up the division, securing a bye and home field advantage, and winning the Super Bowl - we’ve been force-fed these purely cosmetic goals repackaged as the Holy Grail.

It created an impossibly high ceiling, and with it came a rabid mob salivating at the prospect of the Pats falling short. The perfect season, the team records, the individual records - they should all be “Who cares?” items, purely gravy if they come to fruition, and no big whoop if they don’t. The Pats have bigger fish to fry.

So now maybe the Eagles game will help us get our priorities straight again. We’ve been held hostage all season by the media storylines.

Let’s shut the gates. All of ‘em.

We can find comfort in the fact those storylines never set foot in Bill Belichick’s kingdom. Witness this from his Monday press conference:

Q: Does it amaze you the expectation level that seems to be attached to your team? People expect blowouts.

BB: We expect to win every week. I’m not saying we expect to win every game, but each week we prepare for the game, we expect to win that game. That’s the way we prepare for it. You don’t go into any game thinking we don’t win it. We’ll go into this game preparing for it and expecting to go down there and play well and beat Baltimore. That’s the way we go into every game.

Q: But the fact that a lot of people on the outside –

BB: I don’t care what everybody else thinks. I can tell you what this team thinks. Right now we’re thinking about getting ready for Baltimore. That’s how we approach the game. I can’t tell you what anybody else thinks. I don’t care what everybody else thinks. It doesn’t make any difference.

People on the outside? In Belichick’s world, there is no outside.

America’s Sweetheart? Everyone Knows It’s Indy

logoby Dan Snapp
dan@patriotsdaily.com

Move over, Charlie Brown. America’s got a new lovable loser: Your Indianapolis Colts.

Has there ever been a team so feted after two straight losses? Has ever a team been so unabashedly built up as the one you simply HAVE to root for?

The Colts broke down late against the dastardly Patriots a week ago, but chin up, America! There’s good news yet, because the Colts, while losing, “provided the blueprint” for how to win against the Pats. Imagine that.

Indy lost this Sunday as well, to the “energetic” San Diego Chargers (while providing yet another blueprint, hooray!). Don’t lose faith, though. See, they only lost because they were missing Marvin Harrison and Dallas Clark (how come the networks never mentioned that?).

And there was, like, weather (FOOTBALL was MEANT to be played INDOORS!!).

And the refs had it in for them (apparently no appreciation for Ben Utecht’s one-man homage to the ‘75 Cowboys offensive line shift).

So OK, their kicker missed two field goals. And well, yeah, I guess you could probably also mention the six interceptions the franchise quarterback threw.

But still, they’re a team you can be proud of. Heck, Mark Schlereth told us Tony Dungy’s admittance of a tactical error cemented his position as one of the league’s elite, the tactical error itself only slightly diminishing the distinction.

Mark made another huge point about the special teams being so tired and all. I think that was especially apparent on Darren Sproles’ touchdown on the game’s opening kickoff. Hey, when they come out of the tunnel for pre-game, they sprint, dammit!

And just wait ’til you catch Dr. Z’s story on Manning:

“And even with strange numbers on the uniforms of Manning’s receivers, the Colts drove when they had to, scored, put points on the board, brought it back to 23-21 and took it down to the shadow of the Chargers’ goal, where a missed 29-yard field goal did them in. It was an amazing example of battlefield command, of somehow mustering a shattered army. But that’s what Peyton is so good at, fighting the odds.”

Forget the Colts’ D, the recovered fumble in the end zone, or the two picks and two fumbles by Philip Rivers. And certainly forget that last second pick when Peyton was trying to make something happen; in my book, he had a mere five interceptions. No, Z’s right: Manning’s the man alright.

Seriously, though, exactly how bad a game must Peyton Manning have before we’re permitted to call it as such?

The media’s gone off its rocker for this team. There’s always been the Manning love, and the kissing up to “one of the league’s good guys”, Dungy, but it’s been ratcheted way up this season.

The “Good vs. Evil” stories prior to the Pats game, the Silver Lining stories after the loss, and now the continual excuse-making - it all points to one thing: The media chose their champion in advance, and they’re sticking to their story. Although if the Colts screw up another one, the Steelers are waiting in the wings as the new People’s Champion.

There’s merit to the injury excuse, but whose fault is that? Football’s a game of attrition, where you have to prepare for losing starters to injury (like, say, the ‘03 Pats did).

The Colts throw Craphonso against the wall to see what sticks, and we should feel sympathy? They made their choice long ago when they decided to pay for two No. 1 receivers. This one’s on Bill Polian.

America’s Darlings will likely pull out of their tailspin this weekend against the Chiefs, and get healthier for the stretch run (hopefully, Dwight Freeney’s injury is minor). Good vs. Evil II is likely still good to go.

Hope they’ve got their excuses ready.

DirecTV, the Omniscient

logoby Dan Snapp
dan@patriotsdaily.com

Running up the score is not without its shortcomings.

For me, it’s the ongoing battle I’ve waged with DirecTV. For a Patriots fan living outside of New England, you have to plan for how you’re going to watch your team. The NFL Ticket is a godsend in that regard, making the world all the more miniscule.  

This year, though, two problems emerged:

1. The Pats are great; and
2. The Pats are too great.

Number one meant networks televising the games they normally wouldn’t (Pats/Phins in the Midwest? Really?). Number two meant them cutting away from the game after the Pats had it well in hand. The by-product then is a handful of games half-recorded on CBS and half-recorded (minus a few minutes always) on the NFL Ticket.

User error plays a role as well, such as forgetting to anticipate the game going over its TV grid allotment. This happened again Sunday. As the Patriots were in the early stages of their masterful fourth-quarter comeback, DirecTV was telling me I was watching “60 Minutes.”

And so I was. How prescient of them to notice.

Has it always been this way? Maybe I’ve been oblivious to it. Maybe when the Patriots were hanging 52 on the Redskins, DirecTV was  telling me, “This one’s over. How about taking the kids to the park?” or “What more can they do? The lawn still needs mowing.”

Or maybe that was my wife, and me equally oblivious.

But DirecTV had it right. Sixty minutes. There’s your response to anyone who complains about running up the score: 60 minutes.

The Patriots prepare for every conceivable scenario under the sun. This is why the term “situational football” is a buzzword only in New England.  It’s why Patriots fans aren’t surprised (unlike the flabbergasted announcers) when the team takes an intentional safety, direct snaps to Kevin Faulk, or fakes a field goal.

It’s why Tom Brady is still out on the field until midway through the fourth quarter of a blowout.

Sixty minutes. The Patriots needed nearly every one. Think that extra work against Washington, against Miami, and against Dallas didn’t help? Is it so inconceivable that those instances of “situational football” against real opposition played a part in prepping the team for that crucial quarter against Indy?

The last 10 minutes of the game, you could tell Indy was shot. The Pats front seven was pushing the pocket on every play. In that same span, the Colts only got to Tom Brady once, just after he released the ball to Moss on a slant. After being the team left chasing and panting back in January, the Pats on Sunday were ready for a full game.

If you get the opportunity, treat yourself by watching the last two defensive series again. There were heroes aplenty: Richard Seymour, whom the Colts started doubling after he wrapped up Joseph Addai the first few plays; Junior Seau, who shadowed Addai and also applied great middle pressure on Manning’s first fumble; Jarvis Green, who kept blowing through both Rien Diem and Jeff Saturday; and Rosevelt Colvin, who destroyed left tackle Charlie Johnson on every play, and later collected the Manning muff to effectively end it.

Welk, Don’t Run

Back in the 2001 season, we saw the product of Charlie Weis’s fertile mind with the Patriots using toss sweeps and wide receiver screens as bread-and-butter plays. Weis explained that they viewed the WR screens as extensions of the running game.

“If we get five or six yards,” Weis said then, “We’ll take it.”

The Patriots acquisition of Wes Welker came as no surprise to any who saw him torch New England the last couple of seasons. But for all who immediately threw out the Brandon Stokley or Wayne Chrebet comparisons (and why is it that a white slot receiver is deemed comparable only to another white slot receiver?), a better match would be Patriots Troy Brown and Deion Branch.

Welker has shone on those screen plays, either as the recipient himself or as blocker for Donte’ Stallworth, but he’s also become the designated safety valve when the running game breaks down. He proved it yet again on the final third down catch Sunday to clinch the game.

It’s his quickness that begs the comparison to Branch. In successive years, the Patriots used second-round picks on the player who posted the best time in the shuttle run at the Indianapolis Combine - Deion Branch in 2002 ( 3.76 seconds) and Bethel Johnson (3.72 seconds) in 2003. While the careers of the two took divergent paths, it still sheds light on how the Patriots value receivers.

Welker, too, flourished in the quickness drills. But his straight-line speed brought down his stock. Five-foot-nine receivers who run the 40 in 4.6 seconds go undrafted, as Welker did in 2004.

So Welker was a Patriots-type receiver way back in 2004. They just didn’t know it yet.

Mercy Killing

logoby Dan Snapp
dan@patriotsdaily.com

So what’s the big deal? Brady sat out the entire second half.

Oh, right. Not that Brady.

“Runningupthescore-gate” is my favorite gate yet. It’s got all the classics: irrational speculation, righteous indignation, even body language interpreters. I can’t wait to see how the Patriots are going to top it.

At the heart of it is a desire to have some measure of control over the Pats. Nobody can do it on the field, so they wag the disapproving finger instead.

“For shame that you defeated us by more than what we determine is the proper amount.”

Everyone cites these unwritten rules the Patriots are supposedly breaking. It’s an unwritten rule that you let up with a big lead in the fourth quarter. It’s an unwritten rule that you must sit the starting QB. It’s an unwritten rule that you don’t attempt a drop-kick, or execute a fake field goal, or have your third string quarterback throw a last-second touchdown pass.

What we need is an actual written, Unwritten Rulebook. As it stands, nobody knows what the true rules are; just whatever sounds convenient after the fact, after the alleged offense.

So where are the lines drawn? How much of a lead do you need to have, and at what point into the second half, before you take out the starters? And by “starters”, who are we talking about? Is it just the quarterback, or all the skill players? What of the line? What of the defense?

Ironically, only pass plays count as “running it up” in the Unwritten Rulebook. Tom Brady handing off to Heath Evans for a 10-yard-run with 13:34 to go in the fourth is perfectly acceptable, says the UR, but throwing 35 yards to Randy Moss a minute later is strictly verboten. Apparently, running the ball up the gut on fourth down is OK, too, so long as it’s not the quarterback.

Hopefully, the Unwritten Rulebook will give some suggestions on what to do instead. Up 38-0 into the fourth, should the winning team kneel the remainder of their offensive plays? Apparently they’re not supposed to try anymore, so why continue the charade? After receiving punts, maybe they should just punt it back. I suspect that would be even more of a slap in the face than, you know, actually trying.

Hate to say it, but the winning team just can’t win.

Teams in the past had unique ways of handling blowouts. My father tells the story of Giants squads so dominating, they switched up sides at halftime, with the offensive players playing defense and vice versa. Yet when Bill Belichick puts linebackers at tight end,  receivers at cornerback, or defensive starters on special teams, he’s criticized for either putting his players at risk of injury, or “making a mockery of the game.” The unwrittens must have been re-written somewhere between eras.

Risk of injury is the one legitimate argument against what the Patriots are doing. With the game sealed away, why risk injuring Brady? It’s a good question. And really, Brady is what this whole thing is about. If Matt Cassel started the fourth quarter, nobody would care what plays they ran, or who else was in there running them with him.

There are three plausible reasons for the Patriots’ sudden aggressiveness: 1. Prepping for the Colts; 2. Looking out for legacy; or 3. Actually running up the score to stick it to the league. It could be a combination of all three.

They may very well be running it up on purpose. In week one, they broke a rule (an actual written rule) and were punished heavily. The subsequent overkill - by the league, the players, and the media - gave the Patriots their “us against them” talking point for the season.

They’re very protective of their legacy, so once the legitimacy of their three titles was questioned, the die was cast. A common refrain was “They only won each by three points.” If that’s the factor that caused the doubt, they were going to make certain there would be no room for doubt this time around. If an opponent’s dignity was a residual casualty, so be it.

Maybe this team wants to be remembered as the best ever. To do that, they have to go undefeated (to match the ‘72 Dolphins’ feat) and they have to dominate games. Anything less and history drops them a notch.

Which brings us to the Colts, the real reason for the runup. No offense to the rest of the league (well actually, plenty of offense), but the Colts are the only team the Pats have played all season. Ignore the disparate uniform colors and patterns. Those weren’t the Jets or Bills, Bengals or Cowboys. They were Colts.

Not in person, of course. But plenty in spirit.

The Patriots have lost three straight to the Colts, giving up 40, 27 and 38 points, respectively. They used to be the team that shut down such big, high-scoring offenses, but no more. The Colts passed them by, so they had work to do. Everything they did in the offseason, and every game along the way has been with an eye toward this meeting, and their eventual playoff matchup.

This game is worth two to the winner. The Pats knew they’d probably have to win every game up to it just to keep pace, and they’d have to learn to score points in bunches. The team never looked past an opponent, of course, but each game also served as a testing ground. The defense tinkered with unique lineups, like the one lineman formation they tried against Dallas and the offense tested all scenarios, all formations, and all weapons in their arsenal.

Win or lose, the philosophy will stay the same: keep winning, because the Colts will surely keep winning, and keep dominating, because the Colts will surely keep dominating. The records, the honors, the marks - they’re all nice if they come, but there’s only one real goal, and only one team in the way.

In the meantime, the league will keep begging for mercy, and the Pats will keep putting teams out of their misery.

It’s kinder that way.

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