The musings of a gutted Pats fan
Roar Rookie By benwalker, 8 Feb 2012 benwalker is a Roar Rookie
- Tagged:
- New England Patriots, New York Giants, NFL, Super Bowl, Super Bowl XLVI
I’m writing this article after my beloved Pats – the New England Patriots – lost Super Bowl XLVI to the New York Giants in Indianapolis.To describe the feeling – gutted.
Two weeks of anticipation, late nights watching ESPN’s Mike and Mike program and general excitement, wiped away in a few minutes.
It hurts.
So with the emotion and disappointment still coursing through my veins, here are a few reasons why the Giants were lucky to win the game (oh… the score was 21-17 for those who don’t know).
1. How the referees could call Tom Brady for a safety on his first throw of the game is ridiculous. It’s like an NRL referee blowing a play the ball penalty against the team with the ball on the first tackle of the game 10m out from their own line. It doesn’t happen and shouldn’t happen.
2. That safety was followed by the Giants getting the ball back and marching into the end zone for a TD. That’s a 9-0 lead before the Pats even got the ball. Thanks ref.
3. The Gronk wasn’t fit. Half of the trophy should be given to the Ravens for wrecking our main target Rob Gronkowski’s ankle in the AFC Championship game.
If Gronk was FIT and on the field, the Pats win. It’s as simple as that. As it was the Giants didn’t really have to worry about Gronk and could target their attention on Brady and the other target men.
4. Fluke catches in the final minutes being highlighted over and over again. Surely these guys have used their get out of jail cards. First Tyree, now Manninghan? Are you serious?
5. The biggest query I have is how a team that barely wins 50 per cent of regular season games can make the playoffs in the first place? It seems a flawed system.
At the end of it, the biggest drama I have with the whole thing is the adoration being heaped on Giants quarterback Eli Manning and Tom Coughlin.
Good luck to them for winning their second title but if anyone compare them to Tom Brady and Bill Belichick they obviously know very little about the NFL.
The Patriots have made the Super Bowl five times in the past 10 years, won three of them in the space of four years, have completed an unbeaten 16-0 season (admittedly they lost that Super Bowl but they were undoubtedly the best team that year) and the only time they missed the playoffs they went 10-6 without Brady.
The Pats don’t drop in and out of the playoff race every second year, pick up high draft picks and then re-appear.
Eli Manning isn’t even the best quarterback in his family, let alone the NFL.
If this sounds like the ramblings of a poor loser, then so be it.
I love my sport and get emotional and I think that’s the great thing about sport.
See you in 2012/13 G-Men.
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The Crowd Says (3) | Page 1 of Comments
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- New England Patriots, New York Giants, NFL, Super Bowl, Super Bowl XLVI
February 8th 2012 @ 9:38am
B.A Sports said | February 8th 2012 @ 9:38am | Report comment
Hey Man
I love my Pats. had my Pats shirt on, my Pats hat on, the whole works on Monday.
The safety was a safety, as unusal a scoring play in a Superbowl as it was, it was just a bad play by Tommy.
I haven’t heard anyone suggest Manning is in Brady’s class, I think the jury is out as to whether or not he is even an automatic Hall of Famer yet. But at the end of the day he had to play 5 elimination games in a row to win the Superbowl. In the Playoffs he had one turn over – an interception against Green Bay when he got absolutly drilled as he threw it. He got drilled alot and he still stood in the pocket and delivered. He isn’t as good as Brady but over the last two games he has played a heck of a lot better than Brady did.
I agree that there are lots of little things that went the Giants way, like their two fumbles that they recover and a third fumble (from a strip) that was called back because New England had 12 on the field. When you couple that into the two fumbles that they recovered against San Fran, that essentially won them the game, you have to think everything just fell into place for them at the right time.
And then there is the Wes Welker drop on the second last drive. Throw was 5% off and Welker had taken plenty of tougher catches on crossing routes, diving full strength in that game, and he comes up with a drop at that moment… That was the big turning point for me.
But even on the last hail mary, as the Gaints go up to bat the ball down, I am convinced that one defender batted it off another and if that defender stays down and the giants get a clean bat on it, it may stay up in the air for Gronkowski to grab.
February 8th 2012 @ 10:41am
robert thomas said | February 8th 2012 @ 10:41am | Report comment
consider this.: as a pat fan i recognize the fact that this roster was not a super bowl team. The defense was a patch work of mostly undrafted and taxi cast-offs. Belichick within the past two years of mutiple firsts, seconds and thirds chose not to reinforce his sagging defense. he chose instead to concentrate mostly on the offensive side of things, which is fine, but forget super bowl with that rag tag bunch on the defense. considering our initial possibilities in September, i’d say we had lived quite a charmed existence to actually arrive at the emerald city lights.
Our luck ran out, especially with the absence of our all world tight end, out of sinc, out of recievers, especially long routers. Our game plan shrunk to the head of a pin, very defensible. Too much for brady to overcome.
Our achilles heal has always been our “no frills” defense who at best are no more than a crap roll. Like in 08, that porous group could not stop an offense at a particular juncture when the game was on the line. this time it did not have the luxury of a large lead and again the same result. very predictible in august and september and probably as far back as April when Belichick refused to draft defensive players. super bowls are one up in the front office with the willingness to spend what it takes to win it all.
As a pat fan you do realize this hasn’t been done. their plan was to extract every ounce of genius out of tom Brady, compensating for planned deficiencies from not capitaliizing in personnel. for next year, the key will be the moves or lack thereof in April. They have two more years to get this done, then it”s a nuclear winter with Brady over the hill.
February 9th 2012 @ 12:39pm
Fivehole said | February 9th 2012 @ 12:39pm | Report comment
Sour Grapes much?