Okay, so I've already seen one "Be afraid.
Be very afraid." post
by a national pigskin pundit and I expect to see some variations on
"You wouldn't like them angry" as the regular season draws near.
Despite the dis, it's hard to repeat as Super
Bowl champs. It hasn't been done since – oh, right, New England did it in
2003-04. Back in the day the Patriots were grand masters at playing the respect
card, as in I can't get no. Early indicators are that these Patriots are
rallying around their embattled leader, with special teams ace Matthew Slater
calling Tom Brady the "heartbeat of this team." Behind closed doors,
it's easy to imagine Belichick reminding them this isn't just about Tom, it's
about every man with a flying Elvis on the side of his helmet. It is about us.
It is about them.
Motivation matters. As I've noted before, in
the NFL, desperation is the ultimate motivation. You want to know which team is
going to win any given Sunday and ask yourself who needs it more. Will a loss
knock one of the two teams out of the playoffs? Will a win secure home field
advantage?
Will a win today validate the integrity and
legacy of the team and it's players?
I continue in my deeply held belief that the
NFL was out to get the Patriots, whose unprecedented reign of pigskin terror in
the salary cap era has put the lie to the Theory of Parity. Something had to be
done to stop them and Brady's intention to play into his 40s only added
urgency. If two more years of Brady and Belichick was horrifying for the other
31 owners, consider the prospect of five to seven more seasons with New England
perched atop the AFC East, making a run at the Super Bowl and inevitably taking
home one or two or even three more Lombardi Trophies. The notion that Brady was
in decline and no longer elite was made laughable in the 4th quarter of SB49.
Is it really so hard to imagine Tom still being terrific at age 42? 45? It's
not like he won't be able to throw the deep ball then; he can't throw long now.
His forte is the short pass, decision-making. Can he get smarter? You might
think he's seen it all by now but think about that 4th quarter again. It may
have been the best fifteen minutes of football ever played by a quarterback in
the NFL and he did it against one
of the best defenses since the '85 Bears.
And yes, he did it with properly inflated
footballs.
But I digress…
So, the
NFL ginned up a cheating scandal out of thin air (see what I did there?).
They took away draft picks and gave the league a four-game head start with Tom
Brady's suspension.
Yet somehow, like they have done consistently
with Roger Goodell (FTG) as commissioner, they got it wrong.
They gave the New England Patriots a raison
d'etre.
That won't go away even if Brady's suspension
is overturned in federal court. Belichick won't let his players forget. Robert
Kraft won't let the team ignore the lessons he learned when he mistakenly trusted the
league to get this right. It's us. It's them. Don't forget that. Not ever. And Tom Brady won't lose any
opportunity to validate his career, his name, his legacy. Every week will be a
referendum. Opponents always bring their best when they play the defending
Super Bowl champs? They'd better.
The strength of the pack is the wolf. The
strength of the wolf is the pack.
Next February, when Tom Brady raises the
Lombardi Trophy over his head for the fifth time, I'll remember the third day
of camp, when Bill Belichick had the offense, as a unit, take a lap.
That was the moment I knew, whatever else
happened, whatever adversity the New England Patriots face this season – and there
will be adversity – this is a team that has a chance to etch its name in the
history books.
We're on to football. Finally.
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