It was ‘the game of the year’ according to ESPN. The rivalry of the decade. The matchup that always promised greatness. For as much as I loath ESPN being right on all of those accounts, last night’s Pats Colts game was just another chapter in the epic story of the two teams in the past decade made especially interesting by the last two minutes of the game.
If you watch the brainwashed dickheads at ESPN analyze the Patriots decision to go for it on fourth down, you’ll probably hear a bunch of mindless banter about the foolishness of Belichick. How could he do this when the given is punting the ball?! How could such a brilliant coach do something that inevitably cost his team the game?! Is he as great as we really think he is?! Pardon me while I throw something at the TV. Trent Dilfer calling this absurd and ignorant almost legitimizes my argument by itself.
Belichick and the Patriots have made their name and built their dynasty on cojones. Balls. Stones. Belichick is a cold hearted asshole, and he’s a guy who is looking to bury a team and land a finishing move whenever possible. So with just over two minutes left in the game, the Patriots facing a 4th and 2 on their own 30, Belichick left the offense on the field to go for it and win the game with a conversion. While it didn’t work, it was the right call. When you’re a team on the road, you go for the win. You don’t play for overtime and you don’t let the home team’s quarterback have an opportunity to lead a heroic drive in front of all the fans while your defense stands there, hands on hips, pissed off and embarrassed.
The Patriots have predicated themselves on the spread offense the last few years. They have enough weapons in Wes Welker, Randy Moss, Kevin Faulk, Ben Waton, and (insert slot guy who failed on another team but excels in this offense here) to make it work. Oh and they have arguably one of the best quarterbacks to ever play the game in Tom Brady. So why wouldn’t you ask the Wonder Boy to get you two yards in a crucial moment? Brady has made his career on late game heroics and the ability to win when it really matters. All he has to do is get two freaking yards and the game is over. And, depending on how you look at it, if Kevin Faulk catches the pass cleanly, they get the two yards and the game is over.
Instead they didn’t get the first down and Peyton was set up with prime field position to win the game. But did it really matter where Peyton was at on the field? Peyton and Brady are in a class of their own in this league, they’re the sure-fire Hall of Famers who get it done every week. It’d be pretty gutless to simply punt the ball to Peyton and cross your fingers that he doesn’t ram it down your throat in 120 seconds, and that’s precisely what he would have done. If the Pats punt, they give Peyton another 20-25 yards of field to cover, something that didn’t really seem to bother him for most of the game as he diced up the Pats secondary with Reggie Wayne and Dallas Clark. Gutless isn’t what the Patriots are about, and it’s why Bill Belichick had to add a second shelf in his trophy room to fit all his Lombardi’s.
If you’re looking for statistical evidence to prove I’m right, you can go here. For now, let’s just hope these two teams get another crack at each other in January and we get another game that’s half as good as the one last night.
