Past and present titles for Patriots tainted
Here we go again.
The Patriots are back in the Super Bowl and they’re probably going to win. That will make six. And that will tie the Patriots with the Steelers in Super Bowl wins.
Tom Brady will be the first quarterback with six Super Bowl rings and that will reinforce the belief among the media and most fans that he’s the greatest quarterback of all time.
The Eagles are probably going to show up to play today and they may have something to do with it, but, if history is any indication, their coaching staff will come up with ways to make it easier for the Patriots.
There’s no better example of that than the Atlanta Falcons in last year’s Super Bowl. They decided to have their quarterback take a seven-step drop instead of running the ball and setting up a game-clinching chip-shot field goal late in the fourth quarter.
A strip sack and a fumble put Brady and the Patriots in position for a fourth quarter comeback.
And, if history is any indication, the Patriots will get a gift from the officials like the quick whistle on what should have been a fumble return for a touchdown two weeks ago in the AFC Championship game. If the touchdown was called, it would have iced it for the Jaguars.
Every great team has had breaks go its way on the road to greatness.
But how many of them blatantly cheated?
Yep, sorry to bring that up but, if the Patriots going to the Super Bowl is going to be an annual event, so will raising that question when they are declared the NFL’s greatest dynasty.
Bill Belichick might be the greatest coach in NFL history and he might have been if he hadn’t cheated. But he did.
Sorry, but Belichick gets an asterisk.
No asterisk for Vince Lombardi.
Or Chuck Noll.
Or Don Shula.
Or Bill Walsh.
The NFL’s official story is that the sophisticated system of using video tape to steal opponents’ signs didn’t help the Patriots win any games.
That, of course, is ridiculous, since Belichick was fined $500,000 and the Patriots had a first-round draft pick taken away. There’s no better proof of how much Spygate helped the Patriots than the speed with which the NFL burned the giant piles of videotapes before anyone could see them.
The cheating went on for seven years.
Spygate will always be there. No matter how many more times Belichick and Brady show up at the Super Bowl. They’ll be favored again next year.
It doesn’t matter if some people get tired of hearing about it.
The media in the NFL seem to have been well trained not to bring it up too often, but it should be a part of every discussion about Belichick’s and Brady’s place in history.
And it should be brought up when both become eligible for the Hall of Fame. Kind of like steroids being brought up every time the hall of fame worthiness of certain baseball players is being discussed.
It happened.
- The Eagles will make the game interesting today.
They had, by far, more hits on quarterbacks this season than any team in the NFL and Tom Brady doesn’t do well when he’s taking hits. The New England offense is all about him getting rid of the ball in two and a half seconds.
In the NFC Championship Nick Foles had the best game of any quarterback in the postseason. He was 26-for-33 for 352 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions. His passer rating was 141.4. And he did it against the No. 1 defense in the league.
- Former Steelers Director of Football Operations Tom Donahoe, who got a raw deal from Dan Rooney and the Steelers when he was fired in 1999, had a lot to do with the Eagles getting to the Super Bowl. He’s their Senior Director of Player Personnel. A good guy and a good reason to be rooting for the Eagles.
- The Penguins don’t seem all that fatigued anymore. I never bought into the theory that the number of games they played on their way to winning two Stanley Cups would have anything to do with them winning three in a row.
We’re talking about super-conditioned athletes who are, at the oldest, barely into their 30s. All that was missing in October, November and December were important games. Playing a mini-season’s worth of games in which every faceoff and every shift is huge is likely to make it hard to produce the same energy and desperation for an October game in Phoenix.
The 7-4 victory Friday against the Capitals was the first game this season that had a playoff feel. And the Capitals didn’t leave town counting on the Penguins being tired in April.
- The NFL announced that it will be taking a look at what should constitute a catch before next season.
Does it really need to be that complicated? Two feet in bounds with control of the ball. Did he catch the ball and have possession of it before he was hit? Then it was a catch. A lot of confusion and stupidity could be avoided if the league went back to allowing the ground to cause a fumble.
Why shouldn’t it?
John Steigerwald writes a Sunday column for the Observer-Reporter.