What. The. Hell?
OK. So maybe it isn’t all that mysterious.
The bottom line is that the Giants simply played better. That’s right, and the good news is that this was actually a good game. It wasn’t decided by horrific penalties. Or flukes. Nobody was injured. And the decision wasn’t really certain until the very end. It was a really good game to watch.
Well, unless you were a Patriots fan. Not so much because they lost, but because of how they played. Well, that isn’t completely accurate either. The defense held the Giants to only 17 points. Against this Patriots offense, that should have been more than enough. With Brady, Moss, Welker, Stallworth, Faulk, and Maroney … surely they should be able to score more than 17 points. Right?
Right?
No.
But before we dissect where the biggest guns to come from Boston since they stopped making battleships up in New Bedford went wrong, lets just take a gander…
Fitzy’s take on the debacle in Arizona …
The Patriots really turned it up after that crushing loss to Miami. In the last three weeks of the season they put two teams out of the playoffs (the Jaguars and Titans) and pretty much eliminated their own turnovers. The offense suddenly went from uncertain to methodical. Their wins were convincing instead of nail-biters. It’s playoff time, and the Patriots come alive this time of years.
But the last two games weren’t without incident. In the Jaguars game, Brady was speared by their rookie cornerback while diving for a first down after a short run. He didn’t get up right away. It was an obvious helmet-first hit which the ref’s didn’t flag. Had it been Peyton Manning, they’d have thrown a flag. The officiating in this league is fast becoming a joke.
Worse still was that the Jag’s coach – Jack Del Rio – defended the hit and more or less said Brady deserved it. Spearing is illegal on any…
About the only good thing I can say is that the better team did win. Holmgren completely mismanaged key parts of the game. And the Steelers did execute better overall.
I’m happy for Bettis and Ward who are both class acts. I’m even happy for Cowher who, up til the last couple weeks, I thought was a complete blow-hard. But after seeing some of the pieces done on him – the person behind the jutting chin – I changed my mind. Even Rodney Harrison of the Patriots likes the guy. So for those guys, congratulations.
It was a cleaner game than I expected too. But …
