The New England Patriots’ 60 Minute Offense: Running up the score or playing the game?
I facetiously called New England Patriots 49-28 victory over Miami Dolphins Runupgate since Patriots re-inserted quarterback Tom Brady in the game after first pulling him with the team up 42-14. As you may recall, Brady was sent back in to restore order after backup quarterback Matt Cassel threw a terrible interception that versatile defensive end Jason Taylor returned for a touchdown With 10:30 remaining in the fourth quarter. Brady took little more than two minutes to lead the Patriots to their final score of the day. Some reporters wondered if perhaps the Patriots had responded a little too harshly to Miami’s score, prompting Belichick to respond with his classic “I was at the game” out burst.
That victory was followed by 52-7 thumping of the Washington Redskins who had imagined themselves as a team that could roll with the big boys. Leaving Brady in with the score 38-0 made plenty of professional sports journalists scream bloody run up.
Like most people who’ve played football at any level I’ve been on both ends of blow outs and I was never bothered by them one way or the other. Winning is fun and losing sucks and losing by ten points isn’t any worse than losing by 40. Winning by two points was a lot more exciting than winning by seventy seven, but hey, I took victories any way they came and the fun thing with scoring seventy seven is that back-ups and marginal players get to score. The only time I was unhappy with the play calling was in a game where our coach kept calling a lot of passes, almost all of which fell incomplete, instead of simply keeping the ball on the ground - where we had had consistent success anyway - to eat up the clock and bag the victory (in retrospect the coach was right to call those plays because Lord knows we needed to work on them).
I find it completely bizarre that NFL players - who play in a league where just about every reasonable measure to create on-field parity has been taken - would be thin-skinned about having the score ran-up on them. And I’m pretty sure I’d be pissed as a fan if Patriots players were complaining about having the score run up on them. Maybe the problem is that NFL players play for paychecks rather than passion. Perhaps they fear that getting blown-out will reduce their future earning potential. That would probably be of particular concern among Washington Redskins who get paid a lot but produce little.
One thing that is uncalled for when you’re scoring en masse against an overmatched opponent is taunting, although, truth be told, that didn’t bother me all that much, either, back in the days.
Here’s another Patriots fan who doesn’t care much for the complainers. It’s good to be us this year, I’ll tell you that much.
