What Can Brown Do For You?
Patriots 24 – Chargers 21
All week long we heard it. The Patriots defense was too old and too slow. No one could stop Tomlinson. Rivers is a Pro Bowl QB and Brady is having an off year. Merriman would destroy our offense.
But when the dust settled, it was the Patriots who showed poise and resolve down the stretch and the Chargers who were committing personal fouls as things started to work against them. The Patriots showed, once again, that they were the best clutch football team this year, and possibly of all time.
The win came from the usual cast of characters. Brady making clutch throws. Troy Brown stripping a San Diego defender of the ball after an interception. Rosevelt Colvin leaping to make an interception. And the defense holding the high-powered Charger offense outside of field goal range on drive after drive.
And the new faces contributed. Rookie kicker Stephen Gostkowski hit a 50-yard kick to start things off and then hit the game winner with 70 seconds to go. New receivers Caldwell and Gaffney put in solid performances. Rookie TE David Thomas came up with a crucial fumble recovery on a kick return.
But Troy Brown is the most amazing – hence the title of this article. Here’s a guy 35 years old with fourteen years in the league. He plays WR, returns kicks, and plays corner-back when the secondary is riddled with injuries – which is almost every year. When he’s playing both ways he has to attend offensive and defensive meetings during practice. He never complains. He performs as well as anyone else playing those positions – better than most. He always manages to get open, he is reliable on kick returns, and he is capable of making interceptions as a defender. Today he switched from wide receiver to cornerback on the same play – Brady’s pass was intercepted, Brown saw it, squared up, and tackled the Charger cornerback, stripping the ball in the process. The Patriots went from turning the ball over to a first down thanks to Troy Brown. And then he just went back to the line and got ready for the next play. Like it was no big deal. Amazing.
The Patriots did what they always do. Found a way to win. Against odds and against “expert” opinions.
All week long on message boards, Patriots fans were saying this could happen. And the Charger faithful called us “delusional” at best. For half a decade this team has been winning games that the experts before the kick-off said they wouldn’t and couldn’t win. They won games where the post-game statistics said they did lose except for the only statistic that matters: the score.
The Patriots are supposed to have a “mystique” – which doubters say is hype of course. But it’s more than that. This bunch of players simply refuses to quit and never stops working. They are the last guys you want to call out for a street fight because the back down from nothing and fear no one. They have fought through the most impossible odds too many times and come out on top for that.
We told people this could happen. No one listened.
Talk about Marty Shottenheimer started immediately after the game. The local TV stations here in LA blamed the loss on the “Marty Factor.” But he didn’t fumble the ball, drop passes, or lose his cool and cause flags to fly on personal fouls. It’s too easy to blame him.
If he is guilty at all, he is guilty of not preparing his team for what could happen when they met the Patriots. The Chargers are used to blowing teams out. To wearing them down and then overwhelming them in the fourth quarter. They were not prepared to deal with their “unstoppable force” meeting the Patriots’ “immovable object.” When they did, they cracked. They couldn’t finish.
Related to this is a general lack of discipline. The whole “lights out” dance and trash talking routine is fine during the regular season when you’re beating up on the Raiders and Cardinals. But come play-off time, when you’re facing a team with 3 recent championships to their credit it just doesn’t fly.
Tomlinson went off after the game because he thought the Patriots were taunting the team. The Chargers missed a field goal and the Patriots were lined up at mid field. They celebrated where they stood. They mimicked Merriman’s little dance, but he had it coming for some of the things he said and did leading up to the game. Richard Seymour as much as said that the Patriots would “do their talking out on the field” in response to Merriman’s trash talk to the press.
Tomlinson went further and blamed this “classless” behavior on coach Belichick. Which is an inane proposition because Belichick had nothing but positive things to say about him and his team all week. But it was Tomlinson who would not even shake hands with the Patriots as he stormed off the field. People say he’s a class act. If so he’ll apologize.
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