Topic: NFL
Here we go again...
I’m not prepared for this.
Pats/Colts III... it’s surreal. You think you know how big this game is?
You have no idea...
Want to find out? Find the nearest Colts fan. Ask them what the AFC Championship game this year means to them. It’s almost impossible to express in words. One thing’s for sure though, you’re going to hear the words:
We can’t lose this game.
I remember watching last Sunday’s Pats/Chargers contest and swinging between rooting allegiances at least a dozen times over the course of the game. On the one hand, if this was THE YEAR for the Colts to finally ride the road entirely to the Super Bowl, I’d want it to wind straight through New England. This rivalry is similar in so many ways to Sox/Yanks pre-2004. I’m not saying, in any way, that it’s equal. Just that it’s related. One team reefs on another for so long that the other team just starts expecting it. And you know as a fan of the other team, that no true and absolute glory could come without a defeat of the dominant team. Hell, if you’re comparing the two, Vanderjagt’s missed kick last year is pretty Buckner-esque.
Could you imagine now the Sox winning the World Series without having beaten the Yankees in order to do so? It would have been good, but it would have been missing something. The Yanks would still be able to boast “We still got your number in the playoffs” absolutely truthfully. I could have seen the same thing from the Pats fans. “Belichick is always one step ahead of Manning”, “Colts can’t play tough football in the snow”, “Manning chokes worse than Britney Spears on a...”
This is the way it has to be. If we’re to truly shake our “can’t get it done when it matters” reputation, we’ve gotta slay the beast. We must beat the New England Patriots.
On the other hand, these are the Patriots. This is the team that has stood for everything that we’re told that we’re not. Selfless, Tough, Patient, Clutch. They have halted the Colts ground game, beaten up the Colts receivers, carved through the Colts defense and, most painfully, made Peyton Manning look like a poor man’s Jake Plummer.
They haven’t just won playoff football games over us in the past. They’ve made us look like the football team equivalent of fireworks. Looks really nice for a while, makes lots of noise and everyone wants to watch them; but, in the end, turns out they haven’t been that good at all.
They have simply looked like a team that was in a different league. As a fan, that has been the worst part of these annual agonizing playoff defeats. You think you’re cheering for something special all year. A team that has really achieved greatness and they’re taking you along for the ride. Then your team’s flaw are brutally exploited and you’re left wondering what the hell you’ve been doing with the last four months of your life.
We can’t lose this game...
In my years as a sports fan, I have never held the kind of hatred for any other franchise that I currently hold for the New England Patriots. As a Toronto Maple Leafs fan, it would have been easy to hate the Senators if we didn’t absolutely OWN them. (Wait, is this what it felt like to be a Sens fan in the late 90’s, early 00’s?) As a Detroit Tigers fan, everyone beat you on an equal opportunity basis, so it’s difficult to hate any one team. As a Michigan Wolverines fan, well, I’ll bet you can guess which team continues to jostle for position at the top of the hatred heap.
It’s the way they win that gets me the most. You think you’re getting ahead on them. You think you may have finally solved the Bill Belichick puzzle. You think the tide is finally turning. Then something happens, something totally unexpected and equally awful. A “Patriots Moment”. An unbelievable and unexpected turn of events. Before you know it, the momentum and emotion has been completely sucked out of your team, your guys are done. You can feel it.
Exhibit A- Troy Brown’s strip of Marlon McCree in this past weekend’s game.
McCree picked that ball off and the place went absolutely nuts, for about two seconds. They were silenced by the sight of Troy Brown ripping the ball out of McCree’s hands and the Pats recovering. The excitement was sucked out of the stadium and players. I said to my girlfriend at the time:
“Goddamnit, that’s it. There’s no way they’re losing this game now.”
The Patriots Moment will usually manifest itself as an absolutely backbreaking drive engineered by Tom Brady. He will take his ragtag band of receivers and just absolutely march all over your defense at seemingly the worst possible time. None of the passes will clear 20 yards except for the occaisional seam to a tight end. (A play the Colts have copied very effectively). And you’re left considering what face you want to put on once the final whistle blows and your team is announced as the loser.
Am I optimistic? Can we win this game? On paper, no. We aren’t as good a team as we were two years ago, and the Pats beat us then. But trying to predict anything the Colts are going to do in the playoffs on paper has proven to be useless thus far.
They have been winning games differently this year. There have been some classic Colts scorefests (Philadelphia, Cincy, Denver) but they’ve been showing an increasing ability to “pull games out”. One point wins over Buffalo and Tennessee. The Pats game was not over till Kevin Faulk’s fumble. Their two playoff wins have been the epitomy of “gut-it-out football”. When Peyton and the offense wasn’t clicking in the past, that was it for the Colts chances of victory. But Peyton has had two subpar games in a row and his defense has pulled out both victories. We can win this game.
Or at least that’s what I want to believe... no... NEED to believe...
We can’t lose this game...
This game has replaced the recent Michigan/OSU super-contest as the most anticipated game of my lifetime. The highest risk, highest reward game that I have ever experienced. I haven’t fully comprehended what another suffocating, frustrating defeat would feel like. For Colts fans everywhere: “Go get ‘em, Peyton. This is it. Go beat the Pats. Go win the big one. Your teammates deserve it. You deserve it. We NEED it.”
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Some thoughts from the Divisional Round:
1. What is with the little jean-vest number that the brunette Mercury girl has going on? Two issues here:
1) Does any guy out there think that this is hot?
2) Is this something that’s consider “trendy” among the fashion elite?
I haven’t been so puzzled by a garment since Britney Spears’ moo-moo during the Matt Lauer “Shame on the paparazzi” interview.
2. Pretty elementary concept: When you have a Pro-Bowl kicker at your disposal, USE HIM! Poor Nate Kaeding. He has to run onto the field for a rushed game-tying field goal after his head coach has been refusing to use him all afternoon. The Chargers went for it on 4th-and-11 from their Patriots THIRTY yard line (47 yard FG) and punted from the Pats 38 (55 yard FG). If I’m teaching Head Coaching 101, Lesson #1 would read:
“If you have a Pro-Bowl starter on your team, You must USE THIS PLAYER GODDAMNIT!!!!”
3. Marty just looked overmatched the entire game. The most unbelievable part came when he challenged the game-changing fumble by Marlon McCree. If Marty had been wearing a headset like EVERY SINGLE OTHER COACH in the NFL does, his video woulda told him not to even think about throwing the challenge flag. That was about as clear a call as any official has ever seen. I admire Nantz and Aikman’s restraint after they reviewed the challenge. I probably would have said something like: “Did Schotts just spend the last four minutes putting Eric Parker in a box to Tijuana and totally miss that play? Or does he really just suck that much?”
Note- Notice how Marty immediately put a headset on afterwards and never took it off again?
4. I can’t remember a greater TV dilemma than the premiere of 24 starting in the dying minutes of the Pats/Chargers game. From 7:50 on I agonized over the decision. By 7:55 I was kicking myself for not seeing this coming and purchasing a VCR the previous day. But at 7:59, with my mind into full lockdown, the words “The premiere of 24 will begin immediately following the football game” scrolled across the screen. Gotta love Canadian channels running the cross-network American programming.
Note: Could they have picked a worse actor to play Ahmed than the Harold and Kumar guy? I just keep waiting for him to break out into “I’m gonna take this package to the car wash... and wax it... yeah... Wax it! Wax it! And Air Dry.... Air Dry that %$&@”.
5. The Bears ARE WHO WE THOUGHT THEY WERE! A team with a defense that could be moved upon and a streaky offense. Their offense got hot and they won the game.
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Conference Round Picks:
Bears over Saints
Despite the cold weather conditions, there are going to be alot of points scored in this game. New Orleans has the equivalent of a rusty old lawn chair at defense. The Bears defense hasn’t been much better. Rex Grossman proved last week that he can be effective. If I hear mention another sideline reporter talking about how they chatted with Lovie Smith about his willingness to use Brian Griese one more time, I’m going to snap. You take away one poor decision and he plays an excellent football game last weekend. That’s it. No more discussion. Rex Grossman is now the more experienced playoff starter anyhow. Grossman should be able to move the ball on this defense. If he can’t, their two runners absolutely plowed through the Seahawks last week. Thomas Jones set the tone for the entire game on the first drive.
On the other side, Drew Brees is going to get his points. The Bear’s secondary without Mike Brown goes from fantastic to above average. I see Brian Urlacher making one or two stops that make the difference in this game. The Saints don’t have the same kind of game-breaking talent on their defense.
Colts over Patriots
Rodney Harrison is the Pats most indispensible non-QB. The same can be said for Colts’ safety Bob Sanders. Sanders will play in this game, it looks like Harrison will not. Having Sanders’ back seems to have fixed the Colts’ problems against the run. The Chargers showed in the early stages last week that Brady can be flustered if you get some pressure on him. Freeney and Mathis will be the key to this game. They need to disrupt Brady’s quick-passing offense in the same way since the Colts have to have an extra man in the box for run coverage, taking away from their vertical pass coverage.
Peyton has been having a below average postseason. He just screams “I’m due”. This game means so much to him and everything he will do in the future. He will be ready for whatever Belichick decides to throw at him.
Plus, in what was the single most underrated offseason move in recent memory, the Colts now hold the Patriots secret weapon. Adam Vinatieri. Just imagine for a second, Viniateri lining up for the winning kick in a Colts uniform. Looking over to the sidelines at Belichick. Looking at the man who would be just another good NFL head coach if not for his right leg. Looking at the man who didn’t think that the NFL’s greatest clutch kicker of all-time deserved Top-5 dollars. Then proceeding to drill the kick right through Belichick’s and every other Patriot’s heart. I get chills just thinking about that kind of thing.
Of course, there’s another thought that extracts a different kind of chill.
We can’t lose this game...
You may not contact Trevor Courtis after 6pm on Sunday, January 21st. Don’t even try it. At any other time, he can be reached at trevorcourtis@emailplus.org.