As promised...

This week's sports wrap up...courtesy of one George Bryant...

And now...In his words


"The latest chapter in the Brady-Manning / Brady-Del Rio / Manning-Belichick  odyssey has come to a close.  On Sunday, we saw who the better quarterback was (at least this year), we saw who had the better team, and we saw how very quickly expectation and entitlement can be turned into defeat, disappointment, and quite frankly, for the more passionate among us, sheer frustration, bitter rage and utter disdain for everything we thought we knew and had come to expect from a team who, for better or for worse, took us all on one hell of a roller coaster ride in 2013-2014.

After allowing my rage to subside, the disappointment to wash over me and its waters recede into the expanse of yet another football offseason where we, the most fortunate and spoiled fans in the NFL ponder what it will take to reach the top of the mountain again and recapture the glory, I still have trouble sorting through the mess inside my head of what happened yesterday.   Serenity now… serenity now… 

It can be argued that Tom Brady had one of his best seasons, however inconsistent he may have seemed at times.  Entering the season without the three biggest pieces of his offense last year in Aaron Hernandez, Rob Gronkowski and Wes Welker, he was literally left to his own devices to find a way to replace 224 receptions, 22 touchdowns and 2,627 yards.  Julian Edelman stepped up in a big way this season, but I can’t help thinking that his production is more a result of who’s throwing him the ball and how this offense is geared towards smaller, quicker receivers and the quick slant / over-the-middle game more as opposed to him being a legitimate ProBowl-caliber receiver capable of catching 100+ balls and 1,000+ yards every year.  It’s also clear that Danny Amendola still has yet to fully grasp the concept of this offense and Brady’s timing, patterns and routes.  He was targeted once yesterday.  TARGETED ONCE.  Guess who else was targeted once yesterday?  Matthew Slater.  A Special Teamer.  I can’t continue trying to figure this out or I will suffer an aneurism.Serenity now… serenity now… 

it can also be said that Coach Bill may have done his best work this year, coaching this team to an unlikely AFC Championship game in the face of everything they had to withstand – the loss of Mayo, Wilfork, Spikes, Talib for a time, Amendola for a time, Gronkowski for more than half the season, Hernandez, Welker, Tebow… wait, what?  Except for him, every loss was huge.  And as they stacked up, we had to know the levee would break.  It had to.  How can you lose the two anchors – the two field generals – of your defense and still get to a Conference Championship?  They did.  How can you have two rookie wideouts, and two slot receivers under 6’ tall, one of whom misses four games, and still make it to within one game of the Super Bowl?  They did.  It’s for this one reason alone that I say no matter how much you may dislike Belichick, his treatment of the media and his methods of managing his team, you cannot deny the man is one of, if not the best, as an NFL head coach.  How many teams struggle to be successful, and scores of others literally languish in and out of every season knowing they have no shot at even playing .500 football?  Yet here we are, once again disappointed that we’re not in a Super Bowl, but that we’ve played in FIVE Super Bowls since 2001 and EIGHT Conference Championships in the same span.   I still take Bill Belichick over any coach in the NFL, and it’s not even close.

What is close, however, is the end.  The ever-closing window on the New England Patriots and their chances at seeing the top of that mountain, and hoisting another Lombardi trophy.  Tom Brady will be 37 entering the 2014-2015 season.  By most assumptions, that gives him 3 solid years left before his age dictates just how far he can go on the field.  The Patriots have to be prepared for the fact that he has two very good seasons left in him before they have to start figuring out who will be drafted or brought in to take over as the face of this franchise.  And although the Patriots are arguably the best in the game at moving forward and being consistent with the “DO YOUR JOB” and “NEXT MAN UP” mantra, I can’t help but think they need to start going all-in on Tom Brady.  Quarterbacks like this are generational; they don’t come around often, if at all, and they must capitalize on what they have before his age gets the better of him.  

Two years ago, I scoffed at the idea that the Patriots needed more offensive weapons, needed more ways in which they could average or eclipse 35 points a game.  The offense was fine as it was and was not the reason they couldn’t get over the hump in big playoff games.  Now, the story is different.  The defense is trending in a positive direction.  Injuries notwithstanding, they have a core who can make plays, turn the ball over and take away the opposition’s biggest threats, even if the linebackers are average at best in coverage situations.  The offense, however, has lost too much punch.  While they’ve gained what has shown to be a potent running attack with Ridley and Blount, the running game has become complimentary; it’s a passing league.  The league changed several rules just to make the passing game a more prominent part of today’s NFL.  And with that, the Patriots must respond in kind.  It’s clear that Tom Brady is deficient when it comes to connecting on a deep pass with any accuracy.  They can’t stretch the field with Julian Edelman, Danny Amendola and Austin Collie.  Running Gronk up the seam is always a nice chunk play, but that leaves him exposed and prone to further injury; a fact that we have seen now for three years is devastating to this team’s ability to move the ball and score in the red zone with any efficiency.  What the Patriots lack now is the ability to open up the field and keep a defense on its heels and spread out. Amendola and Edelman are both great options in an underneath passing attack allowing Brady to keep the chains moving, but they have nothing to show out wide up the sidelines or over the middle downfield.  Kenbrell Thompkins and Aaron Dobson may develop into just what they need, but forgive me if I reference history and the Patriots past failures in drafting reliable wide receivers.  Although it was injury that kept them out this year and not lack of talent or inability to grasp the playbook, we still saw moments of confusion and misunderstanding highlighted by Brady openly “communicating” to them where they should have been on certain routes.  

 Perhaps it’s the perpetual front-and-center idea of “value” that caused them to pass on the likes of Anquan Boldin and Mike Wallace, but this offense would look drastically different with tall, long, physical receivers who could go up and get the passes Brady overthrows or get open downfield to be able to pick up more yardage and extend drives.  It’s hard to say the Patriots should swallow their pride and break the rules that made them the most successful franchise in football over the past fourteen years.  What we do know is that quarterbacks like Tom Brady can change a franchise for a decade or more.   And we all must resign ourselves to the fact that it may all be over inside of five years.  Tom Brady is 7-8 in his last 15 playoff games.  It would be nice to see him cement his career with another Championship without having to do it with retreads, rookies and punt returning slot receivers.   There’s no shame in going all in. "