If You Need A Reason

Their offensive line is in shambles, their most dynamic playmaker is now on Injured Reserve and their best defensive player is sick and unable to practice. I guess that explains why the Patriots are only 7-point favorites in their road game against the Giants.

That and Bill Belichick, Tom Brady, Rob Gronkowski, Chandler Jones, Dont'a Hightower, Julian Edelman, Devin McCourty, Stephen Gostkowski, Rob Ninkovich…

 

Hey, everyone has problems. To get to and win a Super Bowl, there will be challenges that must be met, adversity that must be faced and overcome. It is what it is. At some point this season, the 53rd guy on the roster is going to have to make a play that will be the difference between winning and losing.

So it goes. The Patriots will travel to the Meadowlands with a patchwork offensive line, without Jamie Collins and James White and/or Brandon Bolden subbing for Dion Lewis.

This is where it gets interesting.

Gets interesting?

What am I saying?

Every week of this 2015 season has been a reckoning for Tom Brady and the Patriots. Every game comes with subtext. Defending Super Bowl champs always have a target on their backs, of course. Add Deflategate as your backstory (Tom Brady is angry) and you've got Hollywood calling.

The other teams in the AFC East had gotten better – or at least that was the game on paper – and the Patriots had lost Revis (so, pigskin Armageddon for New England, obviously). The Steelers would challenge the Pats with their high powered offense. The Bills would punch the champs in the mouth. The young Jaguars were coming off a big win and would measure themselves against the  best the NFL had to offer. The Colts would prove they were ready to wear the mantle of Super Bowl favorites. The Jets would prove their early success was no fluke. The Dolphins would show they'd had a pigskin epiphany while running the Oklahoma drill. Washington would prove that with DeSean Jackson they should be NFC East favorites.

Now it's the Giants.

The Giants are supposedly in the Patriots head (because of those Super Bowl losses) the way the Patriots are in every other team's head (just because).

Okay, I guess that lines up with the retribution narrative (Tom Brady is angry).

Not that a regular season win in November would balance the ledger against two Super Bowl losses. It can't change the past. And it probably doesn't matter much to the 30+ players on the roster who were still in college or the 10+ veterans who were playing elsewhere when the Patriots were beaten by the Giants in Super Bowl XLVI. Other than that, I suppose "Super Bowl Payback" is a storyline.

Maybe the Patriots are on a mission. Maybe Tom Brady is angry. If so, that's probably enough.

If Tom Brady is angry, if he's determined to prove on the field that he's not a cheater, if it's about honor, if it's about respect, there's no need for any questions about games that have already been played. There's only one thing anyone needs to know.

The Giants are in Tom Brady's way.