Running Diary for the Depressed Patriot
(Editor’s note: Bobby took a new spin on last night’s Pats / Saints game and decided to do a running diary of the game… I can see the beer bottles lining up on the counter now…)
Our commentators tonight are Mike Tirico, Jon Gruden and Ron Jaworski. This can’t possibly end in a disaster, right? Right…
1st Quarter
After the Patriots won the coin toss and deferred for about the 27th time this season, the Saints return the ball to the 35 and Brees immediately hits receiver Devery Henderson for 33 yards on the first play. Eesh, that’s scary. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a quarterback look so “on his game” after the first play of the game.
Well, the Patriots get a small victory in holding the Saints to a field goal on their first possession. Since the first play looked like it was going for a touchdown, I’ll count that among our blessings so far. Go, team.
Chris Graythen/Getty Images
After the ensuing kickoff, the Pats methodically marched 80 yards, with Laurence Maroney gaining more than half of those yards (including 22 on his first carry of the game), ending in a 4 yard L-Mo touchdown. It seems as though as long as our defense can hold at all against Brees & Co., we’ll be able to score on them.
Wes Welker just returned a punt 41 yards into Saints territory. The Patriots are doing precisely what a team has to in order to win a tough game on the road. Put your foot on their throat, and don’t take it off until half of the crowd has made an angry comment about the price of parking just to watch their team suffer their first loss of the season.
I didn’t even get through that last line before Tom Brady threw a bad interception to Mike McKenzie. The Pats have officially lifted their foot off the neck of this dangerous offensive machine.
Yeah, that was the way to go into the 2nd quarter. Immediately following the turnover, the Patriots defense allowed Pierre Thomas to rush for 26 yards before the end of the 1st. By the way, We’ve already heard at least twice from Ron Jaworski about how Mike McKenzie and Chris McAllister have been out of football for a year and they’re playing a playoff caliber game right now. Can you really say someone has been out of football for a year and now the teams are happy to have players like this back, when they both lost their jobs last season due to incompetence? Is that really being out of the game for a year?
2nd Quarter
Just a minute or two into the second quarter, Pierre Thomas takes a screen pass from Brees through at least four missed Patriot tackles into the end zone. Our defense is blowing more opportunities than all the teams that passed on Mike McKenzie and Chris McAllister up until now. (Last sentence submitted by Ron Jaworski.)
Sean Gardner/Reuters
Wow… After the Patriots drive stalled after only 21 yards, Drew Brees found Devery Henderson standing alone 15 yards behind the Patriots’ defense with nothing between him and the end zone but the embarrassing and impossibly unlikely chance he’d trip on his own shoelaces on the way there. 17-7 Saints. What an unbelievable defensive collapse right there. After Jonathan Wilhite left on a corner blitz, the safety who was supposed to be covering his back decided to bite in as well, leaving the right side of the Pats’ defensive backfield open for Henderson to run amok. That one stings. A 75-yard-touchdown pass. Oh god, does that one sting.
Okay. We’re at halftime, and I’m pretty certain I’ve spent the last 1/2 hour in a reality-induced coma.
3rd Quarter
After a Patriot field goal and another Brees touchdown pass, this time to Robert Meachem, I’ve come to the conclusion that the Patriots aren’t as good as New Orleans. This is seriously shocking. With the Colts, there were end zone turnovers, there were blown calls, there was this feeling that we lost the game. Indy didn’t win it. Not this game, we simply can’t keep up with this team. We’re on the wrong side of an “Eff-You” game. Oh god no. Please, no.
(AP Photo/Bill Feig)
I have no idea what just happened on this play. After a L-Mo fumble (I don’t want to have to start keeping track of these Laurence, just stop it!), Sedrick Ellis picked up the loose ball and lumbered to one side of the field, where the ball was knocked from his hands, and recovered by Welker. Points for Maroney for causing the second fumble, but points off because it shouldn’t have happened in the first place. This game is maddening.
The last two possessions have defined this game. After a 9-play, 80-yard touchdown drive by the Patriots that ate 4 minutes and 16 seconds, the Saints drove 74 in three plays in less than a minute and a half. No one’s stopping a team with Drew Brees on it today.
4th Quarter
Well, that just about does it. With the Pats down three touchdowns and less than 6 minutes to go, Bill Belichick has put in his B-Team. My friend texting me at the beginning of the game to ask why Hoyer had his helmet on is now eerily replaying in my mind. This can’t be my Patriots team.
A few notes from this horror show:
- No one can make someone who lost his job due to gross incompetence sound like a jilted future Hall of Famer like Ron Jaworski.
- You think ESPN ever hands these commentators a note during the game that says “Stop schmoozing. You all sound like 14-year-old girls in love with Drew Brees. Just stop it.”
- This defense is not as good as I thought it was. Not yet, anyway. Even though the guys from the the ‘86 Bears team couldn’t have stopped Brees this particular Monday night, the amount of missed assignments, blown coverages, lack of a pass rush and stupid blunders in this game made the Patriot defense look like exactly what it is: A young, dumb, athletic group much more likely to blow apart under pressure than out-run and out-last older offenses. The optimistic side of that argument is dead.
- At the very least, the Patriots get to cruise into Miami this week for a game against the Dolphins. The Patriots handled the Dolphins fairly easily last time, but everyone knows how well Brady usually performs in road games against the ‘Fins. Oh, god…
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Oh joy…reliving the game again…sigh…..and the ESPN announcers? Think they are related to the baseball announcers on ESPN and Fox? ugh!