postgame thoughts on Pats & Chargers

I found a couple things ironic about this past Sunday's game. One, Marty Schottenheimer, head coach of San Diego, has been blasted for years for being a poor playoff coach. The charge (which is accurate, in my opinion) is that he becomes overly conservative in his offensive play calling- he runs too much and throws too many short passes to his running backs rather than trying to move the ball downfield. I find it ironic that part of the reason he lost this game was that he went away from that very thing. In the 4th quarter, with a lead, he should have been handing the ball off or throwing swing passes and short tosses to Tomlinson on almost every play, at least until New England could prove they could stop him with any sort of consistency (which they probably never would have done). Marty went away from his favorite method of run, run, halfback flare (ad naseum) and it may have cost him the game. With 4:30 left in the game and a tie score, he runs once with Tomlinson and throws twice to an overmatched receiving corps, both incomplete (thanks to mostly incompetent receivers). It wasn't the only thing that lost it for them, but it was part of it. Some will note that Roosevelt Colvin's interception was on a little toss to Tomlinson, but I'll counter with the fact that it was not a designed play, but rather a safety valve (which ultimately proved not so safe).

Two, I find the complaining on the part of the Chargers about the excessive celebration by New England to be comical. Mind you, I think the celebrations of some of the Patriots were stupid, but I can't feel bad for a team with someone known for a certain dance that he does after plays, even those he isn't a part of (I'm talking about the steroid abuser, Shawne Merriman). Listen, if you're going to dance after every stupid play, be prepared for the other team to do the same when they come into your home stadium and upset you. It's as simple as that. Grow up. With that said, I would have prefered the Pats not done anything. I'd rather one of the established veterans (Bruschi, for example) simply point out after the game that the Patriots don't talk trash and celebrate prematurely, rather they save their dancing for the Super Bowl victory parade. Nothing like the old timers pointing out the foolishness of the young punks. That would have been better revenge, in my opinion.

Lastly, I find it interesting that most "experts" said that the Patriots would have to play their best game in order to beat San Diego, when in fact the Patriots played quite poorly and still won. Here's the bottom line: you cannot give Tom Brady a chance to beat you in the 4th quarter. He will beat you, you can bet on it (in fact, many do).

A couple other notes:

Sometime in the 4th quarter a person in my viewing crew pointed out that we hadn't heard Asante Samuel's name all night. Samuel is the best cornerback on the Patriots, he tied for the league lead in interceptions and is considered their biggest (if not only) big play threat on defense. Here's the thing, with cornerbacks it's often better that you don't hear their name. If you do, there's a good chance it's because they're getting beat by the wide receiver. There have only been a handful of great corners who could tie up an entire half of the field on their own (Ty Law and Champ Bailey come to mind). Samuel is not one of those corners. He takes chances, when he succeeds he looks great, when he fails it usually means points for the other team. I'd rather not hear his name sometimes, it means his man isn't getting open and the quarterback won't dare throw it his way. It's a sign of respect.

Brady was downright awful at points on Sunday. Yet, he pulled together a great drive at the end of the 1st half, and pulled himself together after an interception (turned fumble recovery thanks to Troy Brown) to lead the game winning drive. He looked like the Brady of 5 years ago, the one I would call the "best bad quarterback in the league" or the "worst great quarterback in the league" depending on my mood. Back then he would look bad for an extended period of time, but then put together something amazing to win the game. In the Pats 1st Super Bowl win he didn't really play that well (look at his numbers sometime), but he commanded the game winning drive with the clock working against him. I'll take that any day.

I think there is one play that stands out to me as defining these two teams. In the 4th quarter Brady throws an awful pass on 4th down which gets intercepted by Marlon McRee, San Deigo's safety, who then tries to run with it but is stripped by veteran receiver Troy Brown ("veteran" in this case is a euphemism for "ancient"), which is recovered by New England, who go on to score the game winning field goal. Here is why this defines the two teams: McRee showed no game awareness, he should have dropped the ball rather than intercept it, giving his team the ball at the Patriots line of scrimmage rather than downfield. Brown on the other hand showed tremendous awareness and went for the ball, which was carelessly held by McRee. The Pats were a smarter, grittier team than the Chargers, and that's why they won.

I'll check back in with some thoughts before the Pats-Colts game this Sunday. Eventually we'll get back to eternal matters on this blog, until I hope you stick around. Thanks for indulging me.