As I’m sure you all know, there’s great historical significance to the Colts’ first AFC title since relocating from Baltimore ; finally, a white QB named Manning will play in a Super Bowl.
In all seriousness, Mr. Cut That Meat had a tremenous 2nd half, and for once, it was the Hooded Casanova who came out on the short end of a close playoff game. While it might be simplistic to say Belichick was outcoached by Tony Dungy yesterday, there’s no disputing the manner in which Indy’s offense kept the ball out of Tom Brady’s hands for long stretches of the 2nd half. It took the Colts long enough to get untracked, but the way they controlled the line of scrimmage during the game’s final 30 minutes was downright clinical.
Though the Colts’ wild comeback from 21-3 down, and the poise they showed collectively during a ferocious 4th quarter should once and all bury any talk of Manning and Dungy’s abilities to win the big one, you’d be remiss in ignoring Patriot mistakes that contributed to Tom Brady’s 2nd career playoff loss. For instance, one by ownership. Dropped passes by Reche Caldwell were terribly costly (though he was bailed out by a terrific leaping grab by Jabar Gaffney for Brady’s lone TD strike), but on a day in which Indy nicely contained Corey Dillion and Laurence Maroney, isn’t it possible that Brady needed one more viable target in the air? Money aside, how much better would the offense be if Deion Branch was still around?
That second drop by Caldwell was pretty costly. Was the difference between three and seven points (perhaps) and bailed out the Colts defense on their worst blunder of the second half. Perhaps it would help if he wasn’t using battery acid as eye drops or freebasing coke or whatever was causing his eyes to bulge in such cartoonish fashion.
Yeh, Josh right on, that’s just what Mrs. Wotan was saying too. Mrs. Wotan also wants to know if half the Pat’s defense needed to use the can during the second half. And what was Seymore doing on the bench when it was all slipping away?
Josh –
I stand (totally) corrected. The Globe’s Mike Reiss writes the Patriots only dressed 4 receivers yesterday, so perhaps the nudity was distracting, too.
Wotan — Seymour injured his leg during the Colts’ first play of scrimmage, attempting to tackle Joseph Addai.
if NE didn’t have to punt the ball back to Indy with 2:07 left….can you imagine how many half-finished articles about Mr. Cut That Meat’s failures in (chris russo voice here) a big spot that were deleted after Brady was picked off?
Great job out of GC there Mikey!!!
I missed the fat man on Mike’d Up last night so I’m pretty interested to see his take on everything as well as the Parcells retirement (http://thefeed.blogs.com/the_feed/2007/01/selfcanned_tuna.html). He’s always shown as much love for Parcells and the Parcells tree of coaching as he has for a well-smoked slab of bacon so will be interested to see if Parcells gets a pass on quitting and if the Hooded Casanova gets a pass on a less than stellar coaching job.
The Sports Girl has a rather predictable column today about the game in which he references the 2004 Red Sox (!!!!), shockingly enough. He also uses the phrase “we had it” over and over again. What’s this ‘we’ crap? Unless he recently married into the royal family, or he’s the backup long-snapper on the practice squad, I don’t think he should be using the word ‘we.’
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/070122
anyone who doesn’t suit up and uses “we” irritates the piss out of me. i wound up missing most of both games despite changing my travel plans to get me back to chicago in time for the pats game. it seemed like everyone in memphis was rooting for both the saints and colts so i pretty much kept my assinine comments internal at the airport bar.
KT,
you saying that Simmons wasn’t wearing his Pat Patriot helmet and cleats whilst screeching at the big screen yesterday? ‘Cause I know I was.
Did your helmet have the ‘new’ logo, or the old one? Cuz you know The Sports Girl would probably give you more cred points for having the old one.
Rog,
it’s all about the old logo. And I can only dream of someday scoring cred points with, well, ANYONE.
Someone should give Simmons an Iron Sheik-B. Brian Blair Humbling.
They can have him. I’m not even a Pats fan(I’m a NYG fan) and even I know this guy is just injury prone. Did he ever make it through a whole season?? Just askin. I dont think the Pats are going to miss him THAT much. IMHO