10 Things We Learned Yesterday
In no particular order, here are 10 things we learned about the Patriots in yesterday’s game, a 17-10 win over the Kansas City Chiefs:
1. In the history of the NFL, there’s never been a quieter venue after a home-team victory than Gillette Stadium after yesterday’s game. There was more fear and loathing than celebration. A win is a win — the 20th straight regular-season victory for the Patriots — but to have your franchise quarterback take a hit that looked chillingly like the one that was laid on Cincinnati quarterback Carson Palmer in the opening moments of a 2005 AFC Wild Card loss to Pittsburgh is not a good thing. More will be known today (reportedly, an MRI is scheduled), but reports indicated it looks more and more like a torn anterior cruciate ligament in the left knee, which would mean Tom Brady will spend extensive time on the shelf, and leaves Bernard Pollard looking like Brady’s personal Kimo von Oelhoffen. “It didn’t look good,” said one former NFL player I spoke with who suffered a torn ACL in 2004 when asked about the injury. “The knee action I saw on TV — when the knee collapses in — usually is the ACL. … I’m not a doctor, but from my own experience, I think he is done for a while, if not the entire season. A torn ACL is a monster to come back from — you are never the same player, no matter how confident you are in yourself.”
2. Ready or not, Matt Cassel has the keys to the franchise, at least this week. Even with Chris Simms reportedly flying into Foxborough last night for a physical, you would think that Cassel — who last played meaningful minutes back in 1999 for Chatsworth High in California — will likely get the start Sunday against the Jets. It’s been a long time coming for the 26-year-old, who finished yesterday’s game 13-for-18 for 152 yards, as well as a 10-yard touchdown pass to Moss. “I’ve been waiting for this opportunity for a long time,” said Cassel, who did not throw an interception. “To have it be a team win and do it on the field felt really spectacular.” The touchdown pass was nice and gave the Patriots a lead they wouldn’t relinquish, but the 51-yard pass to Moss on a sharp-looking play-action fake was the unquestioned highlight of the afternoon. After New England was backed up to their own two-yard line, they ran a pair of running plays that went nowhere. (That sparked what Wes Welker called some “Come to Jesus” discussions in the offensive huddle.) On Cassel’s third play from scrimmage, he faked a handoff to running back Sammy Morris and hit Moss on a go route for a 51-yard connection. “It was a play action pass. We had run a few balls and we were backed up,” Cassel said. “Randy made a great move to get on top of the guy and I just tried to put it in the vicinity. He did a great job coming down with the ball.”
3. Many Patriots had a hard time believing Pollard’s contrition. Morris (10 carries, 53 yards, 1 touchdown in a solid effort) initially agreed when asked if it was a cheap hit, saying, “Honestly, yeah,” adding, “he went down and dove at his leg.” (Moments later, Morris later amended his statement, adding, “I wouldn’t say cheap. He was on the ground. I don’t think he intentionally meant to do anything. He was trying to make a play, and like I said, it’s just part of the game sometimes.” For what it’s worth, the initial statement was shown on many television stations. Morris’ second statement was not shown.) Teammate Randy Moss was more blunt with his assessment. “For me personally, I think it was dirty. I didn’t really see anything because I was running down the field. It looked dirty to me,” Moss said. “Anytime you see something like that that looks foul and looks dirty it opens your eyes. To me personally, it looked dirty.” Pollard certainly appeared sorry: “He’s a tough guy, but as soon as I heard him scream, I knew something was wrong,” said Pollard. “As soon as I heard him scream, I started saying, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m not a dirty player.’ … My prayers go out to him. I hope he has a speedy recovery.”
4. The one guy who could have been best at preventing Pollard’s hit on Brady — and perhaps the injury — wasn’t on the field yesterday. Running back Kevin Faulk served a one-game suspension yesterday for violating the NFL’s substance abuse policy. Among New England’s current crop of running backs, the veteran is without peer when it comes to blitz pickup. When Pollard came flying up the middle, he was met and initially turned back by Sammy Morris. But Morris didn’t finish him, and Pollard’s final, furious swipe caught Brady’s leg, resulting in the injury. It’s important to note that we are not calling out Morris for this play — Pollard made an extraordinary effort to do what he did. However, Faulk has been a trusty last line of defense for Brady on several occasions over the years, sacrificing his body in the name of the greater good — that is, protecting No. 12 at all costs. (We still marvel at a block he laid on Chicago’s Brian Urlacher back in November 2006 that saved Brady from a sure decleating.) It’s no stretch to say that if Faulk was in the backfield, Pollard’s chancing of reaching the quarterback would be significantly less than with any of New England’s other running backs.
5. Lost in the news of the Brady injury was the news that Deltha O’Neal had a solid debut with the Patriots. The veteran cornerback made two of the most important stops of the game yesterday, making a touchdown-saving tackle on Devard Darling’s magnificent catch and run late in the fourth quarter and stopping a Dwayne Bowe touchdown reception on fourth down at the end of the game. Chasing own Darling — after Brandon Meriweather and James Sanders blew their assignments — was simple. “I was just thinking, ‘Get him down so we don’t go into overtime. Get him down, get him down. We can stop them,’” O’Neal said. “Once I got him down, we had four downs to try to stop them.” The stop on Bowe on fourth down was more dramatic — he found himself lined up opposite the Chiefs’ top wide receiver, who dropped a would-be touchdown catch a few plays before, and had a feeling the ball was coming his way. “It’s the last play, fourth down, you know they’re going to pass it,” said O’Neal who finished the game with three tackles. “Nine times out of ten it’s either going to go to [Tony] Gonzalez or [Dwayne Bowe]. [Bowe] was on my side. I was thinking, ‘This ball is coming to me, this is a gut-check. I’ve got to play my part and play my position.’”
6. Yesterday, Randy Moss became the most important part of the New England offense. Without Brady, Moss undeniably loses some of his offensive oomph. But it’s likely that now, Moss will become the true center of the New England offense. He will be asked to do things that he might not have been asked to do with Brady in there. At best, he remains Randy Moss, a wide receiver without peer who could make most any quarterback look good. (He finished yesterday with 116 receiving yards, making it 56 career games with 100-plus receiving yards.) At worst, he remains savvy enough to be able to draw pass interference flags and create distractions for defenses that would allow others like Welker to flourish. Yesterday, when Brady went down, he was like almost everyone else — keeping one eye on the field and another on the tunnel to the locker room, expecting Brady to pull a Paul Pierce/Willis Reed style return to action. “Every time the fans cheered, I looked over at the door,” Moss said. “I was like a little kid at the candy store, just hoping you would see that No. 12 come out those doors and up the steps. Like I said, every time the fans cheered I looked at that door, so basically, I was just snapping my neck around every time.”
7. The New England red zone defense is better today than it was at this time last year. Last season, the Patriots’ defense was kvetching about its red-zone performance. Statistically, it was one of the worst in the league, consistently ranking at or near the bottom of the AFC. Linebacker Tedy Bruschi said it was a point of emphasis during training camp, and it showed yesterday: New England held the Chiefs to a single score when Kansas City got inside the 20, and stopped them on the goal line as time ran out. “That was important. It’s been an emphasis for us this training camp to start off on a good foot in the red area because we had our struggles there last year,” Bruschi said. “To get a few stops, especially a fourth-down stop to win a game like, that’s a real positive for us.”
8. Damon Huard has still got some gas in the tank. The former New England backup (and wouldn’t that have made for an interesting story if he could have pulled off the win yesterday?) came off the bench in the second half after Kansas City starter Brodie Croyle suffered a shoulder contusion and performed just as well as Cassel. He ended up going 8-for-12 for 188 yards, one touchdown and one interception, and would have tied the game late if Bowe hadn’t dropped a pass in the end zone on Kansas City’s final drive. “I’ve been in this stadium before, so that wasn’t really a problem. I’ve been playing in this league for 12 years, and you have to be ready to go at any moment,” he said. “It was a pretty rough day for me to see two of my good friends get hurt in one game. That doesn’t happen very often, where both starting quarterbacks go out in the same game. I wish them a speedy recovery.”
9. Going forward — at least until someone is signed — the Patriots will be uberprotective of Cassel in the same way a big brother might protect a little brother. Many of the Patriots were a little touchy in the locker room after the game when asked about Cassel. “I think he did a pretty good job for a guy who you all thought should have been cut,” said Welker. “I think he did an excellent job coming in, and he did really well.” Defensive end Ty Warren echoed Welker’s statement. “If Cassel is the guy, we just have to cheer him on, lead him on, give him affirmation, and give him the confidence he needs, and I think this game built his confidence up a lot, with the criticism he took over the preseason.”
10. We’re not going to see the Patriots wear white jerseys at home for a looooooong time. In 2002, the Patriots tinkered with their uniforms, choosing to wear an all-blue uniform (jerseys and pants) for home games against the Broncos and Packers. The uniform scheme was junked for several reasons, including superstition: New England submitted a pair of hideous efforts in back-to-back home defeats while wearing the blue ensemble, and they haven’t been seen at home since. According to the Patriots stats crew chief John Hendry, yesterday was the first day the Patriots wore white throwback jerseys at home for the first time since Oct. 2, 1994. With Brady’s injury, superstition would dictate that Patriots fans should look for the traditional home blue jerseys again when New England returns home in two weeks to face Miami at Gillette Stadium.
Christopher Price has covered the Patriots for Boston Metro since 2001. His book, “The Blueprint: How the New England Patriots Beat the System to Create the Last Great NFL Superpower” is current available from St. Martin’s Press in paperback. He can be reached at christopher.price@metro.us.
