In honor of Week One: We hurt each other. In honor of Week Two: We do it again.
Opinion, if repeated sufficient times, will take on the luster of diamond hard fact…
Week One had its surprises. Apparently, Cam Newton can play quarterback in the NFL. The Cincinnati Bengals will not go winless in 2011. Donovan McNabb was so bad I couldn’t even enjoy it. The NFC South may not be the toughest division in the NFL. The Buffalo Bills are much, much better than we thought they are or the Kansas City Chiefs are much, much worse. Perhaps both. Perhaps neither. We’ll find out soon enough.
Some People Call Me the Spacey Cowboy
Is a headline like “Cowboys quickly rally to QB Romo’s defense” ever a good sign? That was a totally bad throw, wasn’t it?
Apocalypse, Indianapolis
We knew the Colts would struggle without Peyton Manning. I mean, Kerry Collins is like 57 years old, right? He actually looks pretty good for 57.
That’s The List
Brady is now the Patriots one-game passing yardage record-holder with 517 yards, putting Drew Bledsoe in his rear view Monday night in South Beach. He is just the 11th quarterback in NFL history to pass for more than 500 yards in a game…
1. Norm Van Brocklin (554)
2. Warren Moon (527)
3. Boomer Esiason (522)
4. Dan Marino (521)
5. Tom Brady (517)
6. Phil Simms (513)
7. Drew Brees (510)
8. Vince Ferragamo (509)
9. Y.A. Tittle (505)
10. Elvis Grbac (504)
11. Ben Roethlisberger (503)
That’s not a bad list, Vince and Elvis notwithstanding. It’s an even better list in “Top 5” mode.
They came after us, Tom checked it, we picked it up, hit him in stride, broke a tackle.
- Zen Pigskin Master, William Stephen Belichick
We’ll tune into the Patriots post-game show on WBZ whenever the Patriots win. Hence, we refer to it as “Patriots Exultant.” Its official name is “The Fifth Quarter.” Come on! “Patriots Exultant” is so much better! I wonder how long the production meeting ran when they came up with “The Fifth Quarter.” (Get it? The game has four quarters so the post-game is the fifth quarter. Am I right? It’s awesome!) I’m setting the over/under at 59 seconds.
I digress.
I love Belichick in the post-game. He’s like some socially-awkward-genius-from-the-future stand-up comic after a win. When he broke down Wes Welker’s 99-yard TD reception (Welkah!), I almost broke a rib. A wry smile seemed to tug at the corners of his mouth as he finished. I mean, what’s the deal with Wes Welker?
In that moment I realized something.
A play like the Brady-to-Welker pass, catch and run is pigskin magic. Powerful juju. A charm that conjures the energy that echoes from just such moments; moments that coalesce into crystal monoliths on the rolling plains of our psyche. That they are rare makes them important. Think of the noise of the mundane day-to-day large black coffee at the Dunkin Donuts drive thru world of data streaming into our craniums at Category 5 speeds. It’s really a miracle we remember where we left our keys when you think about the noise to signal ratio.
Anyway, my point is (I’m getting there) you have to save that shit for the third quarter of a playoff game. You can’t waste it in a post-game press conference. You make a little mud man in the locker room and put a #83 jersey on it. Later, when you really need it, you take a handful of that mud and you rub on your face, you rub it on your chest, you sculpt your hair into a Mohawk with that mud and you remember that this is what you do…
They came after us, Tom checked it, we picked it up, hit him in stride, broke a tackle.
Tom Terrific
Maybe it was the dissonant drone of Monday Night Football’s Three Stooges (I swear so much I didn’t even notice it when Jaws dropped the s-bomb; I would’ve bet on Gruden). Maybe it was familiarity; a sense that I’ve seen this movie before.
Could I have “Brady Fatigue,” the gradual numbing and nullification of my Sense of Brady?
Could I have been taking Tom Brady… for granted?
Until the 511 yardage total was announced, it had seemed much like so many other performances by the Icy Commander. 500 is one of those big round numbers that sports likes so much; it resonates. It surprised me. I took note.
What Belichick didn’t say was that the Patriots emptied the backfield on their own 1-yard line in hopes the Dolphins would blitz. Belichick wanted a blitz and the man-on-man coverage that goes with it because he has Tom Terrific at quarterback. Brady would read the defense, the rush and the coverage, and make a call. And then he would throw a pass that actually, literally hit the receiver in stride. Wes Welker didn’t have to reach up for the pass; it actually, literally dropped right in his lap. The defensive back – the late, scapegoated Benny Sapp – with his back to the ball doesn’t know the pass is on the way until the ball is already in Welker’s hands. It was a revelatory moment. Perfection.
During the preseason I pondered the possibility of Brady pitching a perfect game, an unconscious, Kevin Durant in Rucker Park-like game where every call is perfect, every block is made, every pass is completed. Based on a 3 TD quarter against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, I readily considered the Patriots offense scoring 63 points in three quarters. Even if each of the TD drives started on the 50, you would need a minimum of 450 yards. If the average start moves back to the 30, that’s 630 yards.
It seems crazy writing it down (again) but it seems possible, if not plausible. The offense has room for improvement; they may have scored 38 on 600+ yards of offense but they also left points on the field. The defense will have to play better than they did against the Dolphins to provide the nine possessions needed, of course. I know it’s crazy but I’m intrigued.
It could happen.
If it does, I won’t take it for granted.
A Good Commute Today
I had to surf the presets to make it happen but it was still a good ride…
· You and Your Heart (Put on your flip flops.)
· Since U Been Gone (Yeah, the U is stupid.)
· Gimme Some Lovin’ (Little Stevie Winwood. Every Day.)
· Do It Again (I’m not a big fan of guitar solos but Jeff “Skunk” Baxter’s work on this track is beatnik cool.)
· No Surprise (Just an epic pop song.)
Brainworm
This is not an endorsement, but it is stuck in my brain. I give it a 91. It has a beat. You know the rest.
Webhole
I went looking for a Tom Terrific link and I think I was a very strange child but more importantly, I found this.
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