04/19/24
January 18, 2015
Patriots crush Colts in the rain: Foul weather didn't slow down Tom Brady and the Patriots as they beat Andrew Luck and the Colts 45-7 (the second worst drubbing in AFC Championship history). This will be the Pats' 8th Super Bowl trip, tying them for the record with the Steelers and the Cowboys; and Brady's and Bill Belichick's 6th, tying them with Mike Lodish (player) and Don Shula (coach).
Don't know why McDaniels still had Brady throwing aggressively well into the third, with the outcome not in doubt and a good running game cranking away.
With Blount getting up big heads of steam and blasting into the Colts defense, I wondered if Marion Barber was watching and couldn't figure out how Blount was able to keep making forward progress when he got to the line of scrimmage.
I have a sense of misgiving about the upcoming SB that is similar to what I experienced prior to Game 7 of the 1986 World Series. There is no comfort in the old line about the genius Belichick having two weeks to game plan for the opponent. He had a full month in aggregate to game plan for Eli & Co. Plus, the game is returning to the scene of the Pats first devastating loss to the Giants.
BB won't want to hear any references to Shula, who calls him Belicheat, and apparently still harbors ill will after the Pats ran off 19 straight wins in 2007. Shula's teams specialized in Super Bowl lacklusterness and infamy, with his only convincing SB appearance being the Csonka-led domination of the Vikings at swank, charming Rice Stadium in the early 70's.
Jacksonville reference: I watched that Super Bowl lying in bed with my GF in a run down Holiday Inn on Golfair Blvd. With the Dolphins firing on all cylinders and the entire building shaking tectonically with every great play, the age old discussion of whether or not the earth moved took on a beguiling added dimension.
posted by beaverboard at 01:06 AM on January 19, 2015
Speaking of Belicheat, there is a report that the Patriots were deflating footballs against the Colts on Sunday.
Not that it had any outcome on the game (deflated footballs weren't letting Blount gouge Indy for massive chunks of yardage). Just leaves a sour taste in my mouth, if true.
posted by Goyoucolts at 03:29 AM on January 19, 2015
beaverboard: Don't know why McDaniels still had Brady throwing aggressively well into the third, with the outcome not in doubt and a good running game cranking away.Well, given literally two hours prior we'd seen a team put up 15 points in a span of 44 seconds to come back from 19-7 with 3:52 left in regulation... can you blame them for piling on until it was truly not in doubt? The balanced mix of passing and (mostly) Blount running along was keeping Indy completely baffled, so why stop until the clock is literally against them- when the point difference meant NE could take a knee on each possession for the rest of the game and still have enough lead to just run out the clock two minutes at a time?
Goyoucolts Speaking of Belicheat, there is a report that the Patriots were deflating footballs against the Colts on Sunday.Ugh, come on man, that's just an absurd accusation. Even the article admits that it's very unlikely and the Patriots have plenty of success that can't be chalked up to "cheating"... yet still at the end tries to sow seeds of doubt. This is a common American media technique: cast an aspersion, leave "doubt" in the mind of the viewer, when the whole thing is a lie.
The Colts just got completely smashed by a team that was firing on all cylinders today. This game was brutally lopsided, such that even as a NE fan I turned it off once the starters left the game. And honestly, if you're gonna lose, lose in a blowout so you don't spend all off-season kicking yourself like poor Brandon Bostick will be.
posted by hincandenza at 04:25 PM on January 19, 2015
deflating footballs
The NFL is investigating, but why? Who put in the complaint? It had to be from Indianapolis, either a player or coach or front office, but upon what was the complaint based? The only scenario I can come up with is that a defensive player from the Colts picked up one of the Patriots' footballs and thought it felt strange. Don't forget the game was played in a rain that was heavy at times. The writer of the Yahoo.com story mentons that one football was taken out of play and weighed. How much of a weight difference could 1 or 2 psi make in a football that normally weighs just south of 1 pound (14 - 15 ounces uninflated)? If the problem was low inflation pressure, would the officials not have used a pressure gauge rather than a scale?
Two things come to mind. If the officials weighed a football, they might have feared that the rain was soaking into the pigskin cover, causing the ball to weigh too much. The other thing is that at one time, after an Indianapolis punt, the officials interrupted the Patriots' as they were about to snap the ball for a play. There was then a delay of several seconds until the officials replaced the ball that had been spotted for the start of play. The TV explanation was that the kickers' ball had been used for the spot and had not been replaced. Perhaps this made the Colts side suspicious. Officials handle the football after every play. Would they not notice if the footballs being used by one team were a bit softer than those being used by the other? If the difference is so slight as not to be noticeable by someone who touches the football over 100 times during a game, and who has done so in many games during the season, how could it be such an advantage?
I did notice that the spike after Gronkowski's touchdown seemed to lack the high bounce that has become typical. I want to believe that it was because he had it bounce more to the side rather than straight up, but perhaps this is why Indianapolis registered a complaint. This could be the new standard for inflation -- the Gronk test. Set up a measuring bar in each end zone, have Gronk spike the ball after each touchdown, and if it does not attain a certain height after the rebound, it is underinflated.
This whole thing sounds like some disgruntled person who wants to make some capitol out of the reputation of Belichick and the Patriots. If the accusation is made, the NFL has no choice but to investigate, and this in itself leads to a more widespread belief that once again the Patriots have cheated. Get over it, Indianapolis. You were beaten, your team is very good but does not match up well, and it showed. In his post-game presser, Andrew Luck reacted with a good bit of class, blaming his own inadequacy and recognizing that the Patriots were a better team. Leave it there, Indy.
posted by Howard_T at 05:25 PM on January 19, 2015
The NFL is investigating, but why?
It was the on-field officials that noticed the balls didn't seem normal and not anyone associated with the Colts. All the media noise has to do with Patriots previous conviction for cheating and nothing to do with the outcome of the game.
posted by cixelsyd at 05:44 PM on January 19, 2015
Ugh, come on man, that's just an absurd accusation.
I wasn't accusing anyone of anything, and as I said above, it clearly wouldn't have had an outcome on the game. There were plenty of caveats in my post.
As far as losing in a blowout... got to disagree with you. The Colts have looked thoroughly outclassed by the Patriots for three consecutive seasons. It's not been because they were outsmarted, or because NE has more talent. For whatever reason, Indy's current coaching staff has been utterly unable to stop the Pats from running the football down their throats. So no, I'd have liked to see a somewhat close game just as a sign of improvement.
posted by Goyoucolts at 06:32 PM on January 19, 2015
Ah, I see what you mean about that- I have that philosophy as a general playoff rule, that if you get blownout you aren't kicking yourself all off-season over what might have been. But you also make a very good point, that if instead Indianapolis suffered a 28-22 OT loss, it would have been almost a moral victory in terms of progress for the young QB and his team.
Apologies if I was casting aspersions on you, Goyoucolts, and sorry for your loss yesterday. And if NE wins their 4th SB in a couple of weeks, I'll even be content enough to call that a perfect capstone on Brady's career and wish you and your team the best of luck next season (except if you meet the Pats in the post-season again :) ).
But it's still an odd story, for all the reasons Howard_T names as to why it would be easily found out by any of the dozens of people who handle footballs for a profession- much less why a team that good would even need trickery.
posted by hincandenza at 07:42 PM on January 19, 2015
I honestly want the Colts to be competitive with every team in the league. What the HC has been through, what the GM is trying to accomplish while not knowing what to expect in regard to the principal owner from day to day...they have had to face some fire and have made some gutsy decisions. How many other teams would have made this good a transition from a Peyton to an Andrew?
They have gotten progressively better each year since Peyton went high altitude. I don't want to see them humiliated. I want to see what Luck's got under better circumstances. He can play the game.
Reggie Wayne has been too good for too long to be left sitting on the bench in the rain with a thousand mile stare on his face. C'mon y'all, crank it up in the fall.
posted by beaverboard at 09:58 PM on January 19, 2015
If the accusation is made, the NFL has no choice but to investigate, and this in itself leads to a more widespread belief that once again the Patriots have cheated.
If they did do this, it would really take away from my enjoyment of this amazing decade-and-a-half run and lead to a sort of Greek Tragedy discussion of why such an obviously talented coach and organization would feel compelled to shave corners anyway.
But that's a big If. If it's not true, this feels like an easy thing to do: accuse the Patriots of anything and it will stick because 31/32s of NFL fans are not Patriots fans and would like there to be an outside/ uncontrollable reason their team isn't as successful. The level of vitriol is something else: Wilbon almost had a stroke on PTI saying the Pats should be removed from the Superbowl and replaced with the Colts. Over a charge that has as much chance of sticking as the Colts would have in the Superbowl.
On Edit: this gets even better: the initial complaint about the balls being underinflated making them easier to throw came from D'Qwell Jackson right after he intercepted Brady. So you can see how that makes sense. The story says he complained, the refs took "[a]t least one football" out of play but that didn't stop the bastion of even-handedness and calm that is Pro Football Talk from reporting "Several abnormal balls were removed from Colts-Pats game" per an unnamed source. How NBC has hitched their wagon to that ambulance chaser I will never understand.
posted by yerfatma at 09:35 AM on January 20, 2015
Don't the refs pick the ball up, wipe them, and place a different one after most plays? Surely if the balls were significantly deflated, the refs had easy access to them during the game to notice themselves and/or confirm, either on the sidelines or in the locker rooms at half.
They heard about it before halftime, and if there was some legs to it, they wouldn't have come back onto the field in "illegal" condition. So the 28-0 second half wouldn't have been affected at all.
That said - after SpyGate, Pats fans just have to accept that writing stories about Pats cheating is good business. Last week, PFT got huge legs out of the eligibility kerfuffle, despite the fact the league acknowledges everything was on the level. For Jets fans, it's every story about dysfunction, and for Raiders fans, it's every story about incompetence that gets blown out of proportion.
posted by dfleming at 11:07 AM on January 20, 2015
Even if this was a sneaky move by the Patriots, it seems like a relatively small infraction to me that isn't worth the brouhaha.
If some balls were underinflated it should be punished under whatever guidelines the NFL has for that situation (draft pick, fine, or the like). The league should have already figured out whether a rule was broken -- it doesn't take long to weigh a football -- and announced the outcome.
To me, this should be no bigger than an owner getting a minor punishment for tampering. It's a one- or two-day story and that's the end of it. Goodell is giving it legs by letting the allegation linger.
posted by rcade at 12:21 PM on January 20, 2015
Seattle is the face, New England is the heal. Football moves one step closer to pro wrestling.
posted by Joey Michaels at 12:55 PM on January 20, 2015
after SpyGate, Pats fans just have to accept that writing stories about Pats cheating is good business.
Clearly - Sports Illustrated article that accuses the Patriots and Belichick of cheating everywhere, down to the stadium design letting them watch TV but not their opponents. If you're seeing Belichick's evil machinations in the layout of a billion dollar facility, it might be time to turn off Alex Jones.
The code of silence in New England is legendary, and almost comical -- Sunday night, a few players were wary of talking to me about getting together and drinking kava, a drink that is symbolic in Polynesian cultures. The drink is non-alcoholic, and it has nothing to do with football, but players understand: In New England, you don't say nothin' about nothin'.
The classic conspiracy theorist: nothing has come out because no one talks about all the stuff that happens. I love the idea players who leave New England have somehow been scared into silence. And if the author is going to keep on writing about the kava thing (this is his second piece), maybe figure out what it is: while it's not alcoholic, calling it "non-alcoholic" understates its effects. And maybe a thing people do to feel part of a group isn't something they want to talk to you about for reasons other than dark evil.
This video of Phil and Jim talking about how Phil used to manipulate footballs and whether Aaron Rogers does it was posted as a counter-point to the whole scandal.
Patriots owner Robert Kraft serves on the board of directors of Viacom. The chairman of that board is Sumner Redstone, who is also the chairman of the board of CBS. (CBS and Viacom were part of the same company but split in 2006.) Does Kraft secure preferable game times for his Patriots? Let's just say it wouldn't be hard to do.
Seriously? I'm sure networks that pay billions for NFL rights are happy to screw themselves out of ratings so the Pats can squeak out a home win over a West Coast team.
Kraft is a close confidant and protector of commissioner Roger Goodell; in September, when the Ray Rice punch video leaked, and Goodell went into public relations overdrive, Kraft defended him on national television on CBS, naturally. Cross Belichick and you cross Kraft. Cross Kraft and you risk the wrath of Goodell . . .Maybe some of this is overstated. But the perception is real, and it is not totally unfounded.
And the rule about diving at QBs' knees came into being 3 years before Brady was hurt. But, y'know. Time travel.
posted by yerfatma at 01:09 PM on January 20, 2015
I-did-not-expect-that! A Patriots win? Yes. Convincing, as in by 10 to 14 points? Yes. An absolute dominant bulldozing of a moderately good team? Not at all. It was a case of one team whose defense matched up poorly against the other team's defense, and whose offense was not sufficient to find a match up that would produce consistent gains against the other's defense. The other factor was that the Patriots were not about to take the Colts for granted, gave them all of the respect they deserved, and played hard throughout the entire game. The game plan was pretty good too.
The interesting sidelight to the Super Bowl will be Bill Belichick vs his predecessor at New England, Pete Carroll. Right now I don't think Patriots can win, but I see ways that Seattle can be nicked for good yardage. These match up a bit with the New England offense, but whether Patriots' defense can hold Seattle down is a tough question to answer with "yes".