Patriot Steps
Globe Staff Photo / Jim Davis
“THAT JUST HAPPENED!”
That’s all I could think about with each play in yesterday’s 59-0 romping of the Tennessee Titans/Houston Oilers/sad little men who wished they never got off the bus on Sunday.
In Friday’s Patriots Review/Preview we covered that this week should be the week that the Patriots’ offense got it together and started taking shape for real. Well, imagine our excitement as the weekend went on and we saw the Tennessee backfield drop like flies and went on with few options in the defensive secondary. This led to a Sunday morning 4SB Tweet/Book of “With the Titans secondary depleted, we could finally see good use of the longball!” which met criticism due to the expected weather conditions by some to which my only reply was “WEATHER SMEATHER!”
Boy, was I right!
Living in the Foxboro area gave me a pretty decent idea of what the players and fans were going through during the game. Luckily, I was inside sitting on the couch with my heat on. The snow on Sunday in Foxboro was amazing and fairly unexpected as far as I know, but since 4SB started I watch a lot more Sportscenter than 10pm News. The snow was falling as if it were mid-January, and even then we sometimes are still waiting for it. But the Pats didn’t seem to notice either way.
In the “Pats 5th Quarter” following the game, Steve Burton was emphasizing that this game was residual conflict from the 2007 season. In 2007, the Patriots were certainly playing out of their minds and it was fueled by the gasoline that the NFL and each individual team poured onto it by talking trash about the Patriots and the so-called “Spygate” scandal. The 2008 co-chairman of the competition committee and Titans’ coach Jeff Fisher had rehashed the matter and Belichick does not forget.
Watching yesterday’s game was a work of art and made us all remember every moment of 2007 and how good that felt each week to watch your team just trounce whoever dared to step foot on the other side of the ball each week. Things did start off fairly scar at first though.
With Fred Taylor already out for an undisclosed amount of weeks/months/Idontwannatalkaboutit, we were left with Sammy Morris, L-Mo, and Benny G-E at RB. Not bad options but everyone has been extremely weary about letting L-Mo take over the reigns, unless it was on “Dancing with the Stars”. Watching Sammy Morris go down and have to be carried off the field less that 10 minutes into the game was not something we wanted to see… based on this season, that left us with bench players running the ball for the remainder of the game. UNTIL L-Mo ran like a convict dodging every cop in town. He made his way through the line of scrimmage, strongly assisted by a great block by rookie replacement LT Sebastian Vollmer, and darted out for a 45-yard touchdown run, the first run over 20 yards on the season for the Patriots and the high-fives got started in New England! L-Mo would play a big part on this game finishing with 123 yards on the ground and 10 yards in the air.
Image provided by ESPNBoston.com (Elsa/Getty Images)
The excitement really got going in the 2nd quarter as Tom Brady found his inner self and completely lit up the Titans defense. His 5 touchdown passes in a quarter tied an NFL record and sent fantasy teams throughout the nation into shock waves. The first two TD passes (40 yards & 28 yards) of the quarter came to Randy Moss (8 rec., 129 yds) who tripled his TDs on the season within 57 seconds and added a 3rd TD on the game in the opening drive of the third quarter. Kevin Faulk 3 rec., 54 yds) was on the receiving end of the third TD of the quarter (38 yards), while Wes Welker (10 rec., 150 yds) looked great and received the final two TDs of the quarter (30 yards & 5 yards). THE PATS ARE BACK!
Brady completed the game with 6 TD passes going 29-34 (at least 3 of those were throwaways) for 380 yards and he was done for the day only 5 minutes into the second half. UNBELIEVABLE! Even Brian Hoyer got in on the action with a rushing TD and going 9-11 for 52 yards in his second half action.
The offense was once again a power house and made the Titans defense look non-existent but the ones who kept the ball in the hands of that offense and gave Brady the opportunity to even get close to the end zone that many times was the Patriots’ defense.The defense was amazing in this game. Whether Tennessee was completely unprepared for the snow or they just couldn’t find their Red Bull before the game, there is no excuse for the slashing that occurred yesterday. Kerry Collins went 2-12 with -7 yards on the day while Vince Young went 0-2. That is 14 pass attempts ON THE DAY! Brady had 34 in a little over a half. Not to mention the -7 total passing yards on the game.Thank god for Chris Johnson or this team would have been completely rubbish as he added 128 yards and of course, no touchdowns. The Titans fumbled the ball 6 times and lost it 3 of those times while also giving up 2 interceptions (Chung & Butler). Maybe about the only thing you could complain about on this defense was that they had no sacks on the day. For a team like Tennessee who obviously couldn’t get men open to receive, no sacks is no good, although they did not drop back to pass often.
Seau was somewhat of a surprise regular on the defense as the Patriots returned to a 3-4 lineup with Adalius Thomas a “healthy scratch” on the game. Seau had 2 tackles and a fumble recovery and looked ridiculously excited to be back out on the football field with his club. As I stated in the Preview for this game, Seau adds a lot to this defense, not only personnel-wise but in the locker room as a leader.
Globe Staff Photo / Jim Davis
Not enough could possibly be said about a team winning a game 59-0 and setting records all over the team charts as well as the NFL charts but you have heard it all already within the hours since this game ended and I’m sure you are easily as pumped as I am about what the future can bring.
Heading over to the motherland next week, this kind of play could not have come at a better time. A team can easily lose a step with the travel, jet lag, 5 hour time difference, and all that damn fog. This Patriots team took enough steps forward this week to head them in the right direction into London, the Bye Week and the tough schedule beyond.
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