Re: Philadelphia view: NFL's evil empire resides in Foxboro
- From: Buddude197 <buddude197@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2007 14:17:26 -0800 (PST)
On Nov 20, 5:00 pm, "Cobb" <cob...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
<Hemicrui...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:d158d835-80fb-4054-ab8d-76b6b6bde33e@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Philadelphia view: NFL's evil empire resides in Foxboro
10:16 AM EST on Tuesday, November 20, 2007
By SAM DONNELLON
Philadelphia Daily News
They have been called cheaters and then bullies, all within the first
half of the same season. That might be as unprecedented in the history
of the National Football League as the gaudy statistics the New
England Patriots have accumulated.
But the real trick the NFL's most dominant team has pulled this
season, the one I can't recall ever happening before, is in morphing
from national darlings to national demons, their team now an
assemblage of superb but suspect characters, their coach a guy who
makes Bill Parcells seem warm and fuzzy in comparison.
The other night, as he was driving his team to the sixth of eight
touchdowns in a 56-10 rout of Buffalo, Tom Brady took off for a little
scramble and slid to the ground as two Bills defenders converged.
After one seemed to slide a knee into his back, Brady jumped to his
feet and chastised a nearby official for not throwing a flag.
"Aw, shut up, you big baby," a man sitting at a bar stool near me
shouted.
That kind of reaction would be unthinkable just a few seasons ago,
when Brady was seen as the David to Peyton Manning's Goliath. Not only
have the roles reversed somewhat, but when the Super Bowl champion
Colts hosted New England a few weeks ago, they owned the role of
underdogs and spoilers, and not the other way around.
Videogate started that. Bill Belichick's playcalling - especially with
lopsided leads - solidified it. In two of the last three weeks, the
Patriots have eclipsed 50 points against coaches Belichick allegedly
respected, against teams with winning records.
This from a coach who won three Super Bowls by a combined nine points.
But that was before someone called him a cheat.
Minutes after Al Michaels told us how much Belichick respected
Buffalo's Dick Jauron as a coach, Brady threw a fourth-down pass that
put the Patriots in position to add to their 42-7 lead. Buffalo fans
let the Patriots know how they felt about such respect, even hurling
down a few items with their invectives.
"We don't care," Patriots cornerback Ellis Hobbs told the Boston Globe
afterward. "You can throw what you want. That just lets us know that
we're doing our job. This is not Pop Warner or anything like that.
It's the NFL. We just go out there and play football no matter what."
If these scores are the result of any cheating, the Patriots must be
working with satellites, not video cameras. Against a Buffalo team at
home that was riding a four-game winning streak, New England scored
touchdowns all five times it had the ball in the first half. With
Randy Moss, Donte Stallworth and Wes Welker as targets, Brady has
accumulated 3,059 passing yards already and thrown 38 touchdowns -
almost twice as many as the Eagles have total, and almost three times
as many as Donovan McNabb.
It's also just 11 short of the record Manning set just a few years
ago. No longer the patron saint of all backups, Brady is now justly
being compared to the greatest quarterbacks to ever play the game. He
also has, we have found, more than a little Joe Namath in him,
fathering a child with an actress while dating a supermodel.
You'd never catch me doing that, I'll tell you.
There's no way around it: The Patriots are the NFL's bad guys now.
They are as despised and feared as those old great Raiders teams, the
ones that racked up personal-foul penalties as they racked up points.
There's a difference, of course. Those old Raiders looked and played
like warriors from "Braveheart," brawling and mugging their way to
victory. The Patriots simply sweep over you with that air attack of
theirs, making a wasteland of your hopes, making strengths seem like
weaknesses. The Bills had built that modest streak of theirs through
defense, but you wouldn't have known that after those first five
Patriots possessions.
You want to know the definition of Thanksgiving? It's that Sunday's
game with the Eagles will be played in Gillette Stadium instead of
Lincoln Financial Field. If fans in Buffalo were moved to such
embarrassing measures, what do you think the local reaction would be
when the Patriots go for it on fourth down with a 35-point lead late
in the third quarter?
Asked another way, do you have any idea how much damage a turkey
dropped from the upper bowl can inflict?
I don't quite know what to make of Sam's article.
I do know that there isn't enough pointed criticism of the Eagles in the
Philly media--from the games I've seen.
The offense just plain sucks--possibly due to the coaching. Westbrook is one
of the game's great runners, and I've seen him disappear at times this year
when they got to the red zone.
McNabb hasn't been the same since his injury. He has to be mobile to be
effective, because he isn't a great pocket passer. He doesn't see his
receivers well, and he isn't that accurate. But he is largely devoid of
criticism in the Philly media, possibly because of race? Oddly enough,
McNabb has said black QBs have to do more. I don't think that's his
experience in Philly.
The other factor, of course, is the loss of Owens. He behaved like a jerk in
Philly, but his criticisms of McNabb may have had some validity. They
certainly haven't been the same without him. A great receiver can make life
so much easier for a QB. Right, Tom?- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -
While the crux of your response is on, the opening lacks merit. I'm an
Eagles fan and trust me, they've been lambasted by the media. Hell,
when we have successful teams THEY get lambasted by the media. (Mike
Schmidt famously said "Philly is the place where you get to enjoy the
thrill of victory and the agony of reading about it the next day)
As for your next point, spot on. It's coaching. Westbrook dosen't
disappear in the redzone, they just stop using him. (or any player
with a number in the 20's-30's for that matter). Philly has had one of
the biggest lines in all of football for a long time, the response?
Throw it all the time, even in obvious rushing down and distance. Reid
has never developed the "pound them down" philosophy. QB returning
from a knee injury? 63% pass to run ratio. RB averaging 5.2 a carry?
Well you *might* get 8 if you throw it. Drives us nuts.
For all Owens baggage, and at the time there was a ton, he made the
whole offense better. Not to knock Tony Romo, who I think is a fine QB
as much as I hate to say it, but TO has made him better then he
actually might be. Those players are rare. Think Moss, has he made a
little difference as to how your team looks?
.
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