Cursed To First - Sox and Pats forever.

The Official Patriots Fan's "Running up the Score" Rant

Let me just get this out of my system.

Once again, angst has been building up within the Patriots-related synapses of my brain, until I feel the need to at least plant a verbal stake in the ground on behalf of the apparent minority of NFL fans who feel the way I do about this.

I know I shouldn't let things like this get to me the way they sometimes do. There's that expression -- haters gonna hate. I also can't say I have an exactly spotless record when it comes to irrational hatred of and criticisms for other teams (Peyton Manning and the Colts being the prime example).

And yeah, there are a lot of ways in which I really can't defend Bill Belichick, in particular. I understand why people find him gruff, persnickety, sarcastic, pedantic, condescending and generally a dick, sometimes all in the same sentence. The man has obviously not built his professional success on his stellar social skills.

But I've long since had enough of Belichick's team, its owners, and associated fans, being the subject of plainly idiotic double standards and / or collective amnesia because of the widespread personal distaste for the head coach. And there are times, like this time, that all the understanding in the world that sometimes these things are meant to get a rise out of me, to stir the pot, to get the phone lines lighting up and the eyeballs glued to the TV screen, or at the very least are an irrational defense mechanism akin to my own vis a vis the Colts, still can't make me abide the continued insistence on reverting to the oversimplified pigeonhole the league has collectively created for the New England Patriots.

Patriots Squished by the Fish

When I argued that this is not a lost season for the Patriots shortly after Tom Brady went down, the relative ease of their schedule this year, especially early on, was something I took into account. Miami at home has been all but a lock over the last few years; while I knew it wouldn't be a cakewalk, I wasn't expecting this.

Neither, it seemed, were many of my fellow Patriots fans, who flooded talk radio yesterday afternoon with their views on exactly who lost the game. To my consternation, and that of the radio hosts I was listening to, there was a vocal faction wanting to ship out Matt Cassel and give Kevin O'Connell a shot under center.

Call me a quarterback apologist, but I didn't see this loss as Cassel's fault. At least, not totally.It's true he faltered in the red zone, as he had against the Jets (luckily 1,000 field goals were enough to beat them). The Tuna's defense kept him shuffling between the 20s all day, not something that would've happened to Brady.

However, Cassel also doesn't seem to be getting much protection. You could argue that Brady just made it look like he had more time because of his calm style, or hid a multitude of blocking sins with his mobility in the pocket, but there were times yesterday Cassel didn't even have a second to set his feet. Then there was Randy Moss, shutting it down in the third quarter and showing shades of his old self.

And to lay it all on the backup QB would amount to a grossly unfair overlooking of the defense yesterday, which played as if opposing runningbacks were invisible.  There's plenty of blame to go around - one analysis I've seen attributes the effectiveness of the Dolphins' running game to deception from a spread formation, hardly the kind of thing it seems the Patriots should fall for  - which suggests that this team has deeper problems than its Hall of Fame quarterback's left knee. That in itself is an unsettling thought.

Although, maybe I should have been expecting this. After all, the Dolphins were the last team to beat the Patriots in the regular season, and that time was even more of an upset - and even more of a crushing loss. That time was with Brady at the helm, the Patriots didn't even get on the board, and every member of the Dolphins was outfitted in traffic-cone-orange shoes. It was a game Kristen and I came to refer to with the statement, "What Miami game?" because the Patriots were headed for the playoffs anyway, and there were bigger fish to fry, and so it seemed the best course of action was to forget the game ever happened. In fact, this is probably the first time I've acknowledged its existence since.

Old-school Pats fans like my Dad have more animosity toward the Dolphins than I do, recalling the days when the Dolphins were dominant and the Pats were so bad not all of their games were even televised locally. So it was an especially bitter thing to some to have this latest regular-season winning streak bookended by losses to Miami. And wouldn't you know it'd be the Tuna cackling on the other side of the ball when it was time for another streak to end.

All of that said, it's pretty tough even for a Pats homer like myself to feel too terribly about this. I'm supposed to be grieving the first lost regular-season game in two years? The week after the team tied its own consecutive-regular-season-win record? Please. I'm spoiled, but I'm not that spoiled.

Even if I was, we've lost both a heartbreaking Super Bowl and our star quarterback in the last 8 months. This game was a sucker punch, but it pales in comparison.

Patriots Go 15-0

Photo by Beth

Last night, as the clock ticked down to zero, history was made. The Patriots, having broken the all-time single-season team touchdown record, sent Tom Brady and Randy Moss along a little further on the path to breaking the single season touchdown passing and reception individual records, and became the first franchise ever to win 15 consecutive regular season games.

It was a thrill to be a part of it. It was a thrill to say I was there. The rain had largely held off and it was a balmy evening (especially by Gillette Stadium standards in December), and considering what the win meant historically, I was surprised at how few people were left in the stands at the end of the game.

It's true the Patriots had put the Dolphins away handily by halftime, but for one thing, in the second half the play of the Patriots dropped precipitously, and by the same token, the Dolphins appeared to have remembered suddenly how to play football again. Though there was still a 21-point gap between the two teams, at some points, especially in the third quarter, the outcome was more in doubt than the final score would lead you to imagine.

More importantly, this was the first time in NFL history this has ever happened. The last team to hold this record has held it for 25 years. Yet being there as that particular distinction was clinched apparently wasn't that important to most of the fans who'd been there at the beginning? I have to say I don't understand that. I also have to say that had it been Fenway Park, not a soul would've left their seat until the end, just so they could all pat themselves on the back and cheer for having been there. But not here. I wish I knew why.

I also wish I knew why the Patriots seemed to be a completely different team in the second half. In the first half, also riding high from having seen members of the Red Sox on the field during pregame introductions, I had decided by halftime that it was probably going to be my favorite Patriots game that I've seen in person. So far, this had been the pattern: we would all stand up and holler our fool heads off for the defense just to get off the field as quickly as possible so the offense could come back again.

And when the offense did come back...it was like a curtain call. A victory lap. An exhibition rather than a competition.

They were trying plays they had no business making. Twice in a row, Jabar Gaffney made catches that by rights should've been intercepted by the cornerback, and the second of these turned in to a touchdown. In a third-and-three situation near the Patriots' 40, Brady handed off the ball to Laurence Maroney, who cut around the left side instead of driving straight through the pile, and, sprung by a tremendous block from Heath Evans, he ran right past the box where all of Miami's defenders were stacked up, 59 yards all the way to the end zone. It was his longest run of the season.

It seemed like everything the Patriots' offense touched turned to gold. Moss and Brady had two touchdown pass / reception combos between them, and we were counting down on our fingers how many both of them needed to break the records by the second quarter. The second Brady / Moss TD came on a goal-line play-action fake so beautiful that it had my Dad ranting and raving with excitement about it for the rest of the night.

On the defensive side of the first half, we saw a jarring hit by Rodney Harrison on Dolphins' tight end David Martin, who otherwise would have caught a pass for a big gain. Rodney belted him right in the chest with a forearm, sending him reeling and knocking the ball loose instead. The stadium was possessed after it happened--the savagery of that mighty blow from Rodney lit up the crowd almost visibly.

Thus the pump was primed for further bloodthirsty defensive celebration after Heath Evans pancaked Ted Ginn Jr. on the kickoff return after the Pats took a 21-0 lead in the second quarter. Rodney's hit was probably harder, but Evans had more leverage with with to clothesline the onrushing Ginn, and the Evans hit looked even more spectacular, with bodies sprawling all over the place. Gillette was a zoo.

Then, when Tedy Bruschi batted down what would certainly have been the Dolphins' first touchdown pass of the game just before halftime...forget about it. It was a party. It was a celebration. It was one of the best times I've ever had at Gillette for 30 triumphant minutes.

And then, just as the party reached its zenith, there was a brief intermission, where, for once, all three contestants in one of those kick-a-field-goal-for-a-prize contests got the ball through the uprights. As it turns out, that was pretty much the last excitement for the home crowd for the night.

Like I said, I wish I knew why, exactly, the Patriots broke down--or, more accurately, stagnated--in the second half. I know that the play choices were different than I expected in many cases; many offensive drives stalled after attempts at long bombs to Moss from Brady that didn't work for one reason or another (usually because they were long-shot plays to begin with). It might have been that with a 21-point lead, the Patriots were taking more chances with tricky plays, the better to practice them while they had the leeway. Or that Brady was thinking too much about himself and Moss and their records when he made decisions about where to pass, but that would be out of character, for him and for the team.

It's also worth remembering that early this season, Brady hovered at around an 80 percent pass completion rate. Last night he was 18 of 33. Not dazzling the way he was in the first half of the season, but not as terrible as it looks in contrast to Brady's otherworldly first half. Some people I've heard from since the game have reasoned that Brady and Co. raised our expectations to such ludicrous levels in the early season that what is still above-average play is looking like a problem. Others are feeling very Chicken Little about it.

Me, I'm on the fence. I would rather have all the facts before making any pronouncements about what it means for the team long-term, and I don't. Clearly, Miami made some adjustments, but unless the real Miami Dolphins had been bound and gagged on their team bus until halftime and were liberated in time to replace their impostors for the third quarter, obviously something was going on on the Patriots' side as well.

And the issues weren't limited to the offense. The defense, too, which had made short work of the Dolphins in the first half, the better to get the Tom Brady Show back out on the gridiron, was backed up deep into its own territory on many occasions and surrendered points in the third quarter. By the fourth quarter, the defense showed flashes of regrouping, with several sacks on Cleo Lemon and no further points allowed, but the offense never really came back together. As for why it happened and what it means, I'm open to suggestions. I'm afraid I don't have an answer myself.

It was a strange way to end what had been an all-time record-breaking football game: in a mostly-empty stadium, with our third-string quarterback at the helm of the offense, and with a sour taste in my mouth from the last two quarters of lackluster performance from the Patriots on both sides of the ball.

In the end, when you balance the second half against the first half, things come out fair to middlin'. If both halves had been like the first, it would probably have been the best game I'd ever seen. If both halves had been like the second half, it might have been the worst. As it was, things just wound up evening out; it had its good moments and its bad moments like any other football game. Which may feel odd to a fan excited to see history, but it's also exactly the way Bill Belichick's Patriots operate.

Photoset on Flickr

The Tuna Sleeps with the Fishes

Photo by Beth

I am most definitely pumped about this game with the Dolphins, not only because the Patriots hang on the precipice of breaking records, but also because my husband, father, sister and I will all be there (and, it turns out, Jaime too!) enjoying the elements on the third deck. It's supposed to rain, though not until at least late in the game, but I have informed the greenhorns that we grizzled Gillette veterans will not be leaving until the scoreboard clock says 00:00, regardless of what wet misery we endure.

(Now that I've gone trumpeting that about, of course, I anticipate some sort of embarrassing scenario in which *I* am the one who pusses out, but never mind.)

In the meantime, the Dolphins have gone and won themselves a game, and signed Bill Parcells to a fake front office position, since they can't rightly give him the title Chief Butt Kicker In Charge of Getting It Together, Goddammit.

I believe Parcells' MO to be as follows: he likes to swoop in when a franchise is a total bottom-feeding wreck and undertake the task of slowly, laboriously turning it around by restocking the roster and verbally abusing its members until a tight ship is being run. Then, for whatever reason, he "retires." Only to come out of retirement again with another flailing team. Bill Parcells is more a football consultant than a head coach. And he's damn good at it.

It may come as a surprise to some that I have respect for Bill Parcells, given he's so widely disliked, but I do. In fact, I even find his audacious, sadistic sense of humor pretty entertaining. He has such a way of getting in people's heads. He is clearly gifted, though in unusual ways; he may be the most underdecorated great head coach in the history of the NFL, because with his last several teams he only stayed long enough to see things on their way, and it was only later those franchises attained success (cf. Patriots, Cowboys). He's an odd duck, but I give him his due.

So here he is among the traffic-cone orange and teal of the Dolphins, which actually has me excited. Things could get really interesting in the AFC East.

Even while that franchise has been struggling, the Patriots have had some classic games against them, no matter what the time of season or locale. Remember the final game of the 2002 season, the overtime nail-biter against the Fish, who themselves had no shot at seeing the postseason but played like men possessed out of a desire to spoil the Patriots' hopes? They even had the Patriots on the ropes, as Gillette Stadium emptied and the commentators remarked that at this late hour, the Patriots still needed a touchdown, a two-point conversion, and a field goal. And then all of a sudden it was vintage Brady leading New England to--whaddya know--a touchdown and a two-point conversion...and moments later, unbelievably, Adam Vinatieri added the three-pointer.

The Packers would lose later that afternoon, dashing the Patriots' aspirations for good, but by the end of that Miami game, when Vinatieri kicked yet another field goal to win, it felt like winning the Super Bowl all over again. Didn't matter that Miami was otherwise an inferior team to the Patriots, even in that ultimately forgettable year.

There is a tacit underpinning of history to games between the Patriots and the Dolphins, and as a franchise, the Dolphins have the most well-developed sense of history I've seen. Hence the champagne-swigging '72 club and the elevated level of play against the Patriots, who are only just pulling even with the Dolphins in the all-time series between the two teams.

I've heard lots of cocky talk about Miami, but I expect a competitive game. You have to when it's the Dolphins and history is on the line. Especially when a Tuna is whispering secrets in their midst.

Just what kind of name is Cleo Lemon?

Not one that belongs to anybody who's gonna beat the Patriots, that's for sure.

Much like Jaime, I was not at full-blown cockiness heading in to this week's contest; in fact, I would estimate my confidence to have been higher before the game against an undefeated Dallas than before today's game against a winless Miami.

First there's the fact that the Dolphins abused the Patriots back in their heyday, which coincided with the dog days for the Patriots franchise. But even during the Patriots' dynasty era, there has been more than one game against Miami in Miami that I have totally blocked out of my memory almost immediately afterwards, because it didn't affect the Patriots overall asskickery and therefore wasn't worth the mental anguish.

This season, however, old frames of reference for the Patriots are going out the window one by one. This season is home to such paradigm shifts as not just beating Miami in Miami, but embarrassing them. At least, in the first half of the game.

I personally thought the most brutal single point of the game for the Dolphins was when Willie "Who?" Andrews (special teams coverage utilityman, drafted by the Pats in 2006) ran a kickoff that had been deliberately aimed away from Ellis Hobbs back for a touchdown. It was especially cruel since the kickoff was coming off Miami's first touchdown of the game, which brought the deficit to a single score and clearly had the Fish feeling pretty good about themselves. Hobbs caught up with Andrews toward the end of his run and they ran together into the end zone. That's about when I started to giggle with a mixture of glee and disbelief--and so did Dan Dierdorf.

I would also be remiss if I didn't mention the two touchdown catches by Randy Moss, both of which were technically impossible according to the laws of physics. Both catches also involved punking not one, but two Miami defensive backs. In fact, with the second one, the one that twisted Renaldo Hill's knee, he was being interfered with by two different Miami defenders, and still came down with the touchdown. (I believe that's when Dan Dierdorf's voice started skipping octaves. Not that I minded, but he was ball-washing the Patriots hugely today.)

You still have to give the Dolphins players credit. They kept grinding even when it would have been totally understandable for them to pack it in. And they exposed some holes in the Patriots defense that I'm sure will provide Bill Belichick plenty of humble pie fodder for the next week.

Which is why I can't blame him for getting a little testy in his press conference when he was asked ludicrous questions around this utterly asinine "running up the score" angle the national press has been going with the last few weeks. Apparently the Patriots are not supposed to be, you know, playing so hard. Apparently they're supposed to disregard decades of track record at this particular stadium against this particular team when that team brings the score back within two touchdowns. Apparently they're supposed to stop, you know, winning so much. (This is something akin to Wade Phillips' crackerjack strategy of calling out the best quarterback inthe league prior to the Dallas game: it would be laughable if it weren't so sadly stupid.)

It's all just haterism at this point, as far as I'm concerned. And I hope Big Bill just keeps on flipping 'em the bird.