FOXBOROUGH — We kept waiting for the big comeback. We waited for the goofy bounce that would go in favor of the Patriots. We waited for the opponents to bow at the altar of Gillette Stadium and melt into a puddle at the sight of Messrs. Belichick and Brady. We waited for Walt Coleman to call the Tuck Rule, or Billy Cundiff to miss an easy field goal attempt. We waited for the football gods to shine some light on the ever-fortunate sons of New England.
None of that happened Sunday night. The ever-lucky Patriots found no horseshoes. Pitted against a mean team of men who were not afraid (hello, Ray Lewis and John Harbaugh), they were beaten and beaten soundly.
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A lackluster performance all around. It is hard to believe this Patriots team played as badly as they did in this game of all games. What a pathetic performance. Did they somehow delude themselves into thinking the Ravens would be an easy win??? Yikes. For a Belichek coached team this is pretty bad. They were man-handled and beaten to a fair thee well by the Angry Birds and had no answer whatsoever. Very sorry. This one will sting for quite some time.......
Hey........Wanna be a Jets Fan instead...?
I can't agree that it was a 'lackluster' performance. They simply got beaten up by a better team.....
Funny you should mention Gisele. I thought the same thing after watching Welker's 1st-down drop (the play that signaled the beginning of the end, though Welker's hardly to blame for this team-effort loss). Harbaugh's brusque, required half-time "interview" (all 13 seconds of it) said it all. When CBS's clueless man-on-the-field fed him a "Boy, it looks tough for your team, what's your solution going to be" question, Harbaugh got testy. He pointed out how they had stopped NE in the red zone, how they were only down by 6, how they would now go out and win. Then his team came out and backed his words. In Angry Bird spades.
Once the Ravens smelled blood, it was all over. Men against boys, it looked like -- enough to invoke the "mercy clause," almost. Old scores being settled with equal parts joy and malice. The Ravens were hitting hard and making receivers pay for the famed Brady screens. Meanwhile, Flacco was everything Brady was supposed to be.
"Exposed" is a fair word, all right. And, given Brady's age, New England might want to start beating the bushes for the next Colin Kaepernick....
I am getting there in my mind also. Bring on a tough, fast, big, strong arm kid that's raw to polish under Brady for a year or two and reload across the board. Brady is too contend with his 3 rings and his rich supermodel in his arm. He flinched twice when he could have run for key first downs yesterday. He even threw his legs out like a scared little dog one time. You could almost hear the yelps the time he threw it away on fourth down with the game on the line like a scared school girl rather than run for that critical first down. It was hard to watch. Time to move on.
I know this may seem rediculous to some, but the Patriot's beating at the hands the Ravens does not crush me. Dissapointed, yes. Crushed and personally humilliated, like some fans I watched on TV post-game? God no. Everyone involved in that game made a great deal of money. At our expense. Think of it that way, and move on my Brothers..
Spot on Dan as usual. It's always amazed me that knucklehead Pats fans always forget how lucky the Pats have been during this run. Look, I'm not saying they haven't been a great team as they clearly have been for over a decade. But it is a simple fact that for Brady's entire career tipped balls that go strait up in the air have always been dropped or find a space where there is no defender. My alltime favorite was the game vs Buffalo where a Pats receiver was knocked out and fumbled but he fell out of bounds and his leg or arm landed on the ball so they kept possession---and obvioulsy scored on the next play. When the "lucky" plays even out like they did yesterday against a very good team....well we all saw the result. Good luck in the SB Ravens.
Observations:
- The whole game looked like Brady (By himself) vs the Ravens
BUT
- It has been obvious all year that Brady is also playing "Not to get hurt". At least two or three times yesterday, he could have made a quick courageous decision and run for important yardage. He also went down a couple of times like a "Little Lamb" when if he toughed it out a little, he could have inspired his team and possibly have picked up an important 1st down (i.e Leg up in the air on slide). You can't finesse your way to the "Super Bowl".
Football is a game played by very tough men. The Patriots and The Ravens, who made it this far into the playoffs are tougher than most. But yesterday, The Ravens, who beat (and beat up) The Patriots, were simply the toughest men on the field. The playoffs reminded my of the movie "Unforgiven"......The Titans (Enlish Bob, played by Richard Harris) were tough, The Patriots (Little Bill, played by Gene Hackman), were tougher still, but The Ravens (William Munny, played by Clint Eastwodd), were the toughest, meanest, SOBs at "Greeley's Bar" AKA Gillette Stadium, bar none.
At what point do the NE fans and media admit that Coach Bill is a mediocre "in game" coach?
Just like Doc Rivers in game 6 last year, not having the ability to figure out a way to win when you are ahead in a big game is too often overlooked by the NE sportsnation and Bill B is never taken to task (both Super Bowl loses to NY count ere as well).
Not putting pressure on Flacco for fear of the big pass play clearly was a choice and cost the Pats dearly.
NE fans must finally put to rest the "he's a genius" label and start asking why he can not deliver like the truly great ones do.
Completely agree with your "he's a genius" comment. I've always maintained that coaches get far too much credit when they win and far too much blame when they lose. Bill B has been fortunate to have some outstanding players during his tenure with New England. But would people be calling him a genius if he never ended up with Tom Brady as a quarterback? People seem to forget that his record sucked when he was the head coach of Cleveland....
As usual, Shaughnessy you're a condescending idiot where most Patriot fans can't stand your ridiculous commentary always looking to cause contrversy and seem to love it when the Patriots lose.
Not a single nice word about our home team.
Your comment need not have been so insensitive about Welker (or Brady/Belichick.
I think you're an awful sportswriter the way you try to exploit the Patriots floibles for your own self-aggrandizment.
I sometimes like Shaughnessy, I sometimes do not. But I didn't find anything wrong with anything written in this article. Can you really disagree with the following? He totally hit in the nail on the head. "This should not be a huge shock. The Patriots were good this year, but they were not Super Bowl good. A lot of it was mythology. New England was artificially inflated by the pathetic AFC East, a weak conference, and the perfectly timed implosion of the 11-1 Houston Texans. Houston’s fold enabled the Patriots to get to the AFC title game without playing a legitimate playoff team." And the job of a reporter isn't to say "nice things about our home team", it's to report.....
It's not Dan's job to ballwash the home team. It's his job to have an opinion. Period.
The fact of the matter is that the better team one. The Pats offense looked bad because of the Ravens defense. They were all over the receivers and didn't give Brady much time. Conversely, once Talib went out and the Ravens got aggressive by letting Flacco throw the ball in the second half, they exposed the Pats defense for what it had been pre-Talib. Flacco had a lot of time and made the Pats pay for it.
At least Belichick took it well!
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Unfortunatley the P-Men have become the old Indianapolis Colts. A talented quarterback with all the tools but cracks under pressure, is easily rattled and plays nervous in big games. A fineesse team that cannot compete in an physical game. Not tough either mentally or physically. No leadership on either side of the ball. We are getting uswed to losing big games around here. They will continue to lose big games until they can build a team much like the ones that used to win Super Bowls, not like the Indinapolis Colts.
The Curse of Bridget Moynihan.
Tom Brady was Joe Montana with Bridget..all Super Bowls.
Tom Brady is carbon copy of Jm Kelly in Gisele era. No SB wins
I like your thinking, Celts07! Payback to Brady for knocking her up, then dumping her...
Eagle-68: Don't ya know? It takes two . . .
To me, the play of the game was when Wes Walker dropped the exact same pass, in the exact same way from Brady for the first down (as he did in the SB last year). It signalled that the Patriots were not ready for prime time.
"I used to love her, but it's all over now..."
We are who we are. We haven't beaten a tough, talented, physical team in a playoff game since 2005. Pure and simple. The 3 Super Bowl winning Patriot teams were tough, talented and physical, on both sides of the ball. Talented might be enough to go 16-0, or to win your weak division every year, or, with luck lock up a number 1 or 2 seed every year, but it will never be enough to win a Super Bowl. We now know what everyone else in the league has known for years. In big playoff games, we are the Patsies. Hit us hard, and we fold like a cheap lawn chair.
All you diehard NE "hometown" fans --- lay off Shaughnessy, for once (well there have been a few other good articles by him...) he hit the nail on the head, i.e., feels like the end of an era. Face it people, if the Pats had to compete in any other division this year their record might not have seemed so stellar. The AFC east is the worst in the NFL right now and it didn't take much to be on top of it.
We kept waiting for decent sportswriting. We waited for The Best QB Ever. We waited for Laugher From Start To Finish. We waited for the Flogging Of The Book to end. None of that happened Sunday night, or ever. There will be no vengeance, just more insipid commentary designed to whip up controversy and web site hits. This should not be a huge shock; it has ever been thus. The Son of Morrissey Blvd. will blather on, failing to convert sports entertainment into epic mythology. BTW, have you heard about Francona’s new book?
sharpe was right about Belichic. He's an loser - you are not curing cancer
Another typical Shoggy "dance on the grave" Schadenfreude article. Yesterday morning, the morning of the game, his column was all "Greatest QB Ever" and now it's "they're a bunch o' bums", worse than the fifties Red Sox. And of course there's a gratuitious shot at Gisele from the jealous Shoggy to the equally jealous masses. The despicable "product placement" fawning article about "How Tito Learned to Love Me Again and Picked Me (Me!) To Write His Book" certainly doesn't help or earn our Shoggy any points. Don't read him; you'll only want to claw your eyes out afterwards.
Then why do YOU read him? Me thinks you need a dose of your own medicine.
We lost, and lost badly, but not as badly as Dan would have us believe. In the past few weeks he had the Pats annointed as some sort of second coming. Now h's running as fast as he can, away from his own words. Some consistency or mea culpa would have been refreshing. Just a couple of thoughts: two of the interceptions were on magical catches after the ball was tipped. With Talib out the complexion of the game changed completely, freeing up the Raven's long game. Love was also an enormous loss. But my main complaint was that the hit by Pollard on Riddley was not called. It was clearly "helmet-to-helmet." Pollard should be fined a fortune for his dirty play and should be banned/suspended for a long, long time!
It was not an illegal hit, Esiason talked about it this morning on WEEI. You just can't lead with your helmet which Pollard did not do.
LeeG, take a look at the replay, especially in slow motion. Riddley was the one who lowered his head and went helmet to helmet with Pollard. Pollard had established his position and was about to make a textbook tackle right in the numbers. Riddley lowers his head at the last second and tries to pile drive through Pollard with his head, instead of his shoulder. Riddley has only himself to blame for gettting knocking out and causing a turnover at a critical point in the game.