Patriots Fanatic

This weeks Any Given Sunday feature at FO is all about the San Diego debacle. A good read.

I think the play that perfectly summarized the entire day was that garbage time rushing TD by SD that got called back for holding. The running back broke at least three tackles at the LOS, and then while running down the sideline all of 6 inches from the sideline, Asante Samuel tried to knock him out of bounds and merely bounced off.

I’m giving Pass my player of the game award. He was one of the very few to play hard today and he had that amazing catch off the tipped ball. He’s come a long way since Weis complained about his very existence back in 2002.

I’ll also give a little love to the punt and kickoff coverage teams. They really kept Sproles in check.

According to the official gamebook, the final time of possession was 36:38 for the Chargers and 23:22 for the Patriots. However, in the second half, the Chargers slaughtered the Pats 20:45 to 9:15. Ouch!

Whew!

What a nailbiter! We were away for the weekend and watched it after we got back, finishing up around 11:00pm. I wasn’t even close to tired until after midnight after all that adrenaline.

To answer one pending question, yes, they certainly still have heart. But how much longer can heart make up for injuries? Harrison is gone for the season and probably his career. Light is gone for at least six weeks. Rumors are that Faulk (how did he get hurt on that catch, anyways?) will be out for 4-6 weeks. Gay is considered likely to be out for a couple more weeks. Same for Poole. It’s just crazy.

And yet they pulled it out this week. I was encouraged by how they came down the field on the opening drive and was encouraged by the way Dillon banged it in. And then they give it all back in one play. I still think Samuel would have saved the TD if Wilson hadn’t Tebucky’d him off the play. That’s the sort of thing I’m even more worried about with Harrison gone. Then I thought it was all over when Light was carted off and Brady was immediately sacked twice with two rookies on his left. Amazingly, the combination of the rooks settling down and Cowher being too stubborn to do anything as logical as making in-game adjustments fended off the pass rush. Though the running game never really got going, the Pats were moving the ball well (outgained Pittsburgh roughly 450 to 270). But the red zone turnovers. Arrrrgh! Faulk’s fumlbeitis returned, costing us at least 3 and giving Pittsburgh 3. And Brady having bad luck when a pass rusher stuck his arm out at just the right angle to turn a throw from the Pit 8 into an easy pop fly. But Seymour and the DL crew were able to turn it up and crush the Steeler offense. They shut down the running game and held Big Ben to under 50% completion rate while sacking him 4 times. They could have sacked him something like 8 or 10 times if they didn’t miss the tackles. Finally, they were able to pull ahead, ultimately by 7. Time to relax? Nooooo, thanks to the (not so) special teams, allowing close to a 50 yd kickoff return after the Pats went up by 7. Forced to be aggressive against the battered secondary, Pittsburgh was able to move the ball before being forced to 4th-and-11. And then…ARGH. Former Steeler (and maligned by Steelers fans) Chad Scott got baited into a long pass interference penalty setting up an easy TD off play-action. Tied. Amazingly, the special teams provided a boost, with rookie Hobbs returning the kickoff 34 yards to the Pats’ 38. Brady calmly went to work and the rest was history. Speaking of Brady, he was 12-12 for 168yd in the 4th quarter.

I’m feeling a bit better about Dillon. It was pretty clear most of his inability to run was due to the OL’s inability to block (which still isn’t good, mind you). He also seemed to be moving faster and harder. Both his TDs were nice power displays.

Jerome Solomon of the Globe and Bob Lobel of WBZ-TV are both reporting that Harrison is gone for the year (and maybe career) with a torn ACL and that Light is out for at least a month with a fractured bone below the knee.

Damn!

UPDATE:
Harrison tore his ACL, MCL, and a PCL. Gotta believe that coupled with his age makes this a career-ender. :(

According to Reiss’s blog:

Cornerback Randall Gay walked through with the aid of crutches and a large black sock up his left leg. He wasn’t putting any pressure on the leg.

Check out Mrs B’s game review podcasts.

Over at The Virtual Tailgate there were good friends and there was good food. Sadly, that was about it for good things that day.

First and foremost, something must be done about the (not so) special teams. This is the third year that they’ve been underperforming. I think it’s time for Brad Seeley to get his walking papers. The kick coverage is atrocious. Practically every kickoff comes back over the 30. And then there are the punts… How can this team forget about lane discipline? There were three gigantic returns (one for a TD called back on a penalty) and in all three the returner initially ran into traffic and began to cut back. And in all three, instead of maintaining their lanes, the coverage team all converged on the returner. So when he made is move and escaped the crowd, there was no one left to cover him. To add insult to injury, on the one that went down to the Pats 14, it looked like Izzo was going to be able to push Gamble out of bounds wayyyy back near the beginning of the return, but just before he reached Gamble, another Patriot Tebucky Jones’d him out of the play. I do need to give a fractional gold star to Ben Watson on that play, though. He came out of nowhere in a burst of speed to run down Gamble and save the TD. It was very impressive, doubly so for a man of Watson’s size.

Second, what was wrong with Brady? Even back in the first quarter, when the OL was giving him some time, he was high. And it got worse from there — like throwing three feet over the head of a completely wide-open Watson. The INT wasn’t great either, but at least that took a very nice play on the part of the Carolina linebacker. The fumble wasn’t really his fault, though — the rusher came in from the blind side and the ball was all the way back. I did not like Brady’s body language on the sideline — head in hands, sulking, etc. Don’t want to see him become another Manning. He also seemed to do a lot of yelling at people. Not sure I like that.

I hope the horrible running game so far this season is the OL and not Dillon suddenly getting old. I don’t see much in the way of holes, but Dillon seems slower and isn’t running over people like he did last year. Hope it’s just a perception.

Bad day from the receiving corps. Lots of drops and lots of failures to get separation. The long gainer to Troy Brown was sweet, though. Bittersweet, actually, since it very vividly demonstrated the speed Brown has lost in the past couple of years. Two years ago he would have taken it all the way. Still, it’s nice to see him involved in the offense.

Terrible day from the OL. For starters, they had at least six false starts, including one of the first offensive play of the game. They failed to open up any running holes. After the first quarter they gave Brady little time. Matt Light was beaten like a drum.

The D actually played reasonably (minus two really stupid penalties). They held Carolina to 250 total yards, with about 145 in the air. And there was Vrabel’s INT return for a TD (though that was a stupid play by Delhomme than it was a great play by Vrabel). I wanted to kill Colvin for a totally stupid hands-to-the-face penalty that nullified a Starks INT. Leaving Proehl wide open down the middle was bad, too. And Harrison’s stupid personal foul gave Carolina a FG. But overall the defense did pretty well.

The coaching was sub-par. Why no screens to blunt the pass rush, especially in the second half? The ongoing special teams debacle has already been discussed. And why wasn’t the Watson fumble challenged? Yes, it probably would have stood, but at that point the fumble was the ballgame. There was nothing to lose by challenging it. I do agree with the other non-challenges. I saw the Davis fumble get recovered in the endzone by Carolina (no thanks to CBS — game telecasting is getting worse and worse). And Brady’s fumble was definitely a fumble — the hand wasn’t moving yet).

Next week will be a big test. I can handle a loss (though it’ll hurt) if they lose having played a clean, sharp game. But if they come out in a game of next week’s magnitude even remotely close to the way they did this week, I will have to seriously question if this year’s edition has what it takes to even make the playoffs in the first place.

Oh, those rings!

(and I’m no Vlad P, I’ll have you know :))