The New England Patriots taped their December game versus the New York Giants using the popular digital recording device TiVo, bryanjoiner.com has learned.
The game was broadcast on NBC, CBS, the NFL Network, Animal Planet and Music Choice!: Jazz.
Three episodes of House, M.D. were deleted to make room for the game.
I’m a Patriots fan, and have been back to the Hugh Millen days. Those were bad, but Saturday was the worst day in Patriots history. It’s one thing to have nothing; it’s another to lose what you’ve had at the worst possible time. I don’t want this to sound like sour grapes; if the Patriots are guilty of systematic cheating, it should be uncovered. I’m a journalist and stand by my peers doing their (incredibly difficult) jobs.
Spygate is now past the point where I can say, as a reasonable defense, that “everyone does it” — that may still be true, but it hardly matters. The Patriots being what they are, it’s only about what they have done. Sure, if it came out that Arizona and Tampa Bay and Oakland were also taping, it would look better for the Pats, but that won’t come out because no one is looking for it. The news media is a copycat business, and people are looking to bury the Pats. That’s the story. And now they have the shovels.
Last night, I lamented that Matt Walsh had copped to having inside information; today, it only got worse, with reports that the Patriots might have taped the Rams’ walk-through in 2002. Nevermind that the facts (that the Rams only practiced Red Zone plays) would indicate that the Pats didn’t gain much of an advantage from any supposed cheating (the Rams entered the Red Zone once, and scored a touchdown); perception is reality here. The Patriots have lost all credibility. In truth, they should have lost it months ago. The bad timing of this is entirely Roger Go0dell’s fault, as Gregg Easterbrook correctly notes. (Though it should be noted that Easterbrook basically congratulates himself for knowing this story months before it was broken, as if deserving credit for the non-scoop. Bravo!) The NFL had a chance to put all of this behind them, and didn’t. Now it will never go away. Not ever. Perception has a pesky habit of becoming reality, especially when feelings are so acutely involved like they are here. Try telling a Steelers fan that the Pats beat the on the up and up. See if they believe you.
The worst part is that I can do nothing about it. I just wanted my team to win, and more than anything else, wanted them to win Sunday. This was it. Now, who knows what happens? I mean, the Patriots will never be stripped of the Super Bowl wins. I know this. It would ruin the NFL to take the titles back. But I can’t be blanket proud of them any more. I know too much. I’m as realistic and pessimistic as anyone when it comes sports’ darker side, but this has shaken me. I hoped for a great Pats team for decades, nearly impaling myself on the ceiling when Drew Bledsoe orchestrated that win against Miami in 1998. Those were the days of limited potential. Our potential has changed. But at what cost?
Wright Thompson’s profile of Ernie Adams details probably all you need to know about the Patriots. (apparently not everything)
Here’s Football Outsiders’ monstrous, always-smart Super Bowl Preview. “Even if you get to pick your poison, it is still poison…” Aaron Schatz compares the Giants to the 1996 Pats, like I did — get ready for Desmond time.
Grant Joiner tackles the game in this great video…
And if you missed it before, here’s my Super Bowl preview…
On a non-football note, if you like Freakonomics-type stuff, I’ve started reading a blog called Marginal Revolution. It’s fairly excellent. Check it out here.
Or, “my official Super Bowl post.”
The last two weeks have seen an intense speculation as to what’s going to happen on Sunday, and not just in the Puppy Bowl. (My money’s on Scuba. No discernible breed: cuteness from everywhere). Many of the columns I’ve read have focused on how the Giants just might win, which is understandable, given that most of the country has already been talking about the Patriots for 20 weeks. But during this entire time, I haven’t heard argument that stands up under the smallest bit of scrutiny other than the simple, effective, “The Giants could win.” They are playing, so yes, they could. The Steelers and Broncos could not, so in that sense, it’s already a wonderful football season (Growing up rooting against the Yankees leads to equations like this, but I hate those guys). However, beyond that, there’s not much you can say that stands up under even a little bit of pressure. Let’s take the arguments for the Giants one by one:
1. The Giants as road warriors
The Giants have put together one of the more impressive Super Bowl pushes in the last few years, joining the ’85 Pats, ’00 Ravens and ’05 Steelers as a team that won three straight road games to make the Super Bowl. Two of these teams won it all, the other got crushed. But the Giants’ feat is even more impressive: they’ve won 10 road games in a row all told, losing only to Dallas this year. So it would seem that they’re comfortable away from Giants Stadium. Unfortunately, the Pats are just as comfortable away from Foxboro(ugh), having gone 8-0 on the road (and 10-0 at home). It seems silly to assume that whatever factor that allows the Giants to not suck on the road will not apply to the Patriots, who don’t suck anywhere.
2. Plaxico calls it 23-17; Dr. Z calls it 24-20, both for Giants
When the Giants played the Patriots in Giants Stadium in December, it was cold, loud and inhospitable for the Pats, and they still rung up 38 points. The Giants, for their part, scored 35. However, they scored a special teams touchdown (which can’t be counted on to be duplicated) and a last-minute touchdown that that Pats basically gave to them. That’s 14 points that might not show up for them, so okay, there’s your 23/24 range. The lowest point total the Patriots have scored is 20, and that was against the Jets in ghastly conditions in Foxboro(ugh) in December. Now, in a quiet stadium, in warm weather, the Patriots are going to score lower or equal to their season minimum? That seems pretty unlikely. It’s not that I don’t respect Dr. Z’s pick of the Giants (I merely disagree), but to not even mention that this is indicative of a lack of research. For his part, he’s up front that he’s playing a hunch, but it’s not a hunch that looks realistic.
3. The Giants have only gotten better since the Pats game, while the Pats have gotten worse
People have said the Pats have looked vulnerable since the Eagles and Ravens games, and they are correct. But they’ve still won. The Giants have put together a nice run, beating the Buccaneers, Cowboys and Packers, but let’s look at those games: the Bucs stink, the Cowboys have floundered and were still one Patrick Crayton drop away from having the lead late in the game, and the Packers game was a toss-up in that weather (Much like the Pats/SD game could have been because of its own weather. The weather was worse in Green Bay, but it was still really bad in New England, and the Pats were pretty gritty to win it. So was Philip Rivers, for what it’s worth). Now, the Giants still won, but they could have lost those games, just as the Pats could have lost to any number of teams. So why do we only hear it about the Pats?
4. The Patriots’ defense is not very good
This one bothers me the most. The Giants led the league in sacks, so they’ve got the flash associated with them, but they gave up 351 points in the regular season. The Pats gave up 274, and even accounting for their crappy division, have a higher-rated ‘D’ than the Giants according to the number-crunchers at Football Outsiders. The Pats’ defense is not great, but they still have two starting Pro Bowlers in Mike Vrabel and Asante Samuel, and the Giants have none. Sure, they have Pro Bowl-caliber players in Strahan, Umenyiora and maybe Tuck, and having those three guys in one place could wreak some havoc; but then you have to add Seymour, Wilfork and Warren on the other side, to say nothing of the aging vets Seau, Bruschi and Harrison. The Pats may give up some big plays, but the Giants are apt to give up bigger ones and, more importantly, smaller ones with more regularity.
5. The historical precedent
Everyone loves to compare across Super Bowls. Dr. Z says this game reminds him of Jets vs. Colts, where the Colts were heavily favored, while Gregg Easterbrook sees more of a Giants/Bills Super Bowl, with this year’s Giants playing the role of… the Giants. And then you have the Steelers and Ravens connections, and the obvious Patriots/Rams role-reversal, with the Pats as the high-scoring offense and the Giants as the plucky underdogs. I can’t so much refute these hypotheses so much as I can submit my own. Notice that most of these connections led to thrilling games, while most Supes are not thrilling: people are trying to hype themselves up. The Super Bowl that I see is the Pats/Packers Super Bowl: a team, probably not even the best in its inferior conference, goes to the Super Bowl behind a strong running game and an occasionally erratic, strong-armed quarterback who’s on a roll. They give the stronger team a game for a while before attrition sets in, and then they finally start making mistakes, their first in weeks. That game score was 35-21, and I remember the details of the game like they were yesterday, because it seemed like the Patriots had a chance right up until, as my Packers fans put it, “Desmond Time.” For this year’s Giants, I see “Desmond time” hitting before the third quarter. That’s the point you know it’s probably over, and the house of cards that you’ve built your case on collapses. Eli’s accuracy. Coughlin’s great moves. Plaxico’s non-drops. Suddenly everything breaks down at once, and before you know it the game is over. That’s what I see for Sunday. The Patriots are just plain better; somehow it doesn’t seem like it now in our egalitarian two week buildup, but that’s what will become clear on Sunday.
The Patriots pulled off a wild one last night, beating the Ravens 27-24 to remain undefeated. It was a heck of a football game, and as someone smarter than I wrote, shows that you need as much luck as skill to go undefeated. But think about this: what would be different if the Patriots lost that game?
Answer: not much.
Here’s a little secret: until the I realized the game itself was something special — you know, the type of game you’ll talk about for years — I didn’t particularly care whether the Patriots won or not. I’m sick of the “19-0” stories the same way I was sick of them the first time a particularly overzealous Patriots fan friend started saying the Patriots would go 19-0 this year, and that anything else would be unacceptable. Really? I love the Pats, but it’s good to be battle-tested. That’s why I was so happy with this game, which was a coin flip in the end. I think this was better than a blowout win, but it could have gone either way. Let’s not forget our real goal: we want to win the Super Bowl. That’s all there is to it.
It’s almost as if the Patriots’ constant success over the last 7 years has made people lose sight of what made those teams great. Sure, they won many, many games, but they had one goal, and that was winning the Super Bowl. They didn’t care about whether Tom Brady was better than Peyton Manning, or going undefeated. They just cared about winning the last game.
For the life of me, I will never understand the Peyton Manning thing. It seems to me that this is a vestige of the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry, where Boston fans are eager to show that their player is better than a Yankees player, but the only reason we did that is we never won. It’s all we had. Why do I care that other people think Peyton Manning is better than Tom Brady? Tom Brady won 3 Super Bowls and is 12-0 this year? What does any of that have to do with Peyton Manning?
The answer is “nothing.” And, just to be fair (human?), I will admit that it’s fun to tweak each player occasionally w/r/t the other. But a good number of Patriots fans carry this chip on their shoulder about Brady, that he has to be better than Manning for… well, for some reason I can’t put my finger on. Isn’t winning enough?
Getting back to the original topic, sure, I will be disappointed if they lose. But not all that disappointed (unless they lose to the Steelers, because I will have to comply with the terms of a rather humiliating bet). The great teams don’t win every game, but they make it close when they’re not playing their best, and give themselves a chance to win. Sometimes it happens, and sometimes it doesn’t. Last night it did. All I know is that I want no part of Lady Luck come January.
Here’s how I felt after Sunday night’s Patriots game: reassured. I was reassured that the Patriots would be incredibly difficult to beat the rest of the way, and reassured that they won despite the challenge the Eagles threw up there.
Huh?
The Eagles played their best game of the year Sunday — you know it, I know it, and the American people know it. They protected A.J. Feeley like no other line has protected against New England pressure all year and Feeley played like A.J. Unitas for three and a half quarters. If not for one phantasmagorically stupid play, the second Samuel interception, the Eagles could have easily won. They even dropped three or four near-interceptions and still came close to the upset. But I’m still reassured.
Why?
Because Feeley was more Brady than Brady for three quarters, and if that’s what it takes to beat the Patriots (on top of their O-line and defensive wizardry), I’ll take it. That’s a tall order for anyone, but Feeley was a treat to watch the other night. That’s not going to happen against Kyle Boller, John Beck, Kellen Clemens or Eli Manning. It could happen against Big Ben, and that’s why the Steelers game is big. But the Steelers are banged up. To quote a great man, though, I like our chances.
On the down side, we lost Roosevelt Colvin for the year. This was his best year so far for the Patriots, as he was finally back to full speed after a 2004 injury. To replace Colvin, we had a Brown-out: we re-signed Chad Brown, activated Troy Brown from the Physically Unable To Perform list and to make room, waived Kareem Brown. Maybe he’ll sign… with the Browns.
I’ll say this about Gregg Easterbrook’s dalliance with a complete lack of reason: it’s gotten me to read his column. And most of the football parts, at least, are non-offensive to me. He just has this thing for the Patriots, this, “I coach football so I can talk about sportsmanship w/r/t the NFL, but it actually makes no sense, so here’s the Hubble Space Telescope and oh yeah, BillBelichickHatesPuppies and Al Gore is a fraud — his time would clearly be better spent writing football columns.” Say what you will about Gore’s politics, but a criticism of them doesn’t belong on ESPN.com, does it?
Anyhow, his narrow view of the Patriots’ running-up-the-score charge is not unlike that of many others who don’t follow the games closely. Only Easterbrook professes to actually follow what’s going on quite closely and seems to miss, oh, a whole lot. From today’s column:
At the end of the third quarter, the Patriots were leading Buffalo 42-7 — more than the margin of the greatest comeback in NFL history — yet Tom Brady was still on the field, still throwing passes like mad while the Flying Elvii were going for it on fourth down rather than attempting a field goal, frantically trying to run up the score. This is bad sportsmanship, plus it needlessly exposes starters to injury.
In previous columns, Easterbrook has criticized New England for playing Brady in the fourth quarter of close games: now we’re up to the third quarter. What’s next, the half? As the Patriots were up 35-7 at halftime, they could have easily been up 35-0, a deficit which every team in NFL history save one has not come back from. Should he be benched then? Well, that’s ludicrous. But the late third quarter is not ludicrous now, because it fits into Easterbrook’s narrative. Sigh. Brady did not play a single down in the fourth quarter and the Patriots ran the ball a hefty percentage of the time. It was, in fact, a display of sportsmanship. That the Bills cannot stop the Patriots is not the Patriots’ fault.
He also accuses the Patriots of being ruthlessly efficient in their first seven drives, scoring touchdowns on all of them, and this is true, but he criticizes them in going for it on fourth down (see above). Yet earlier in the article he writes:
And in other football news, trying for the first down on fourth-and-short isn’t a “huge gamble” as sportscasters say. Rather, it is playing the percentages properly. Jacksonville is 7-3 and leads the NFL in fourth-down attempts and fourth-down conversions. See more below.
So wait… for Jacksonville, going for it on fourth down is a cause of their success, while in 10-0 New England, it’s a symptom of excess? I’m confused. This is a clear double standard.
After this pre-determined silliness, he moves on to effusive praise of the New England offensive line and writes:
The Flying Elvii are doing everything to near-perfection, but TMQ continues to think too much credit is going to Brady and his flashy receivers, not enough to the offensive line and defensive front seven. On the night, Brady was never sacked, was hit only once and hurried only once; otherwise, he stood in the pocket as though he was posing for a magazine cover, no rusher even near him. Put Joey Harrington behind New England’s great offensive line, and he’d be a star.
Now, I hate the Peyton Manning vs. Tom Brady debate, because I think it’s reductive and meaningless, and there are too many other factors that determine their performance to conclusively say that one is better than the other (hence the debate’s popularity). But the argument always goes something like this: [x] is underrated, so [y] is overrated. Which is fun but wrong: they have nothing, in a very real sense, to do with one another. What does this have to do with Easterbrook? Well, Easterbrook is making the argument that even Joey Harrington would be a star on New England. That may be true, but I think Tom Brady can get an appropriate amount of credit here and not be compared to Joey Harrington. It’s not that only Tom Brady is overperforming, or that only the offensive line is overperforming, or that only the wide receivers are overperforming — they all are. They are connected, but it’s not a case of if one is performing particularly well, the other is not. To take away credit from either Brady or the offensive line is ludicrous.
So which one is a greater harbinger of doom for the planet:
• The fact that the Buffalo Bisons baseball team felt the need to illuminate their entire stadium because the Bills were on Sunday Night Football? How can NBC have Green Week, when Greenzo scolded Liz Lemon for keeping lights on for ‘The Invisible People,’ and then condone this stuff? THE ENTIRE STADIUM’S LIGHTS WERE ON AND THERE WAS NO ONE IN IT! Normally, I would be worried about the long-term consequences of this…
• … except it may not matter. When, with the Patriots leading 35-7 at halftime of a game on my brother’s birthday, NBC chronicled the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School football team, I felt my universe was about to collapse upon itself. It will be tough to top that for outright absurdity ever again.
Bryan Joiner 