Per my earlier post of the SB49 Sound FX episode, it’s starting to feel like the playoffs are coming and I’m getting fired up. Probably played “For Those About to Rock” and “Sunday Bloody Sunday” a little too loud on my way into work this morning, and we’re still nine days away from the 2015 Patriots season actually starting.
One of the things getting me fired up was listening to Felger and Mazz for Bedard’s appearance this week. This is the only time I’ll listen to Felger and Mazz for reasons like Mazz pumping the brakes on Malcolm Butler all season long only to name him his number one star for the season on this episode. But what really got me fired up was Felger’s pressing Bedard to choose whether the 2015 Patriots underacheived or just didn’t have as good of depth as the he’s been led to believe. Felger kept hitting “they lost four of their last six” over and over and even Bedard was getting frustrated.
Had I not been listening to it after the fact I might’ve been tempted to call in. In Felger’s black and white sports world it has to be one or the other, but what he leaves out is that this was not the same Patriots team for the last six weeks of the season. Every single one of those games they were missing someone new. Gronk, Hightower, Vollmer, Easley, Blount, McCourty, Chung, the list is long and distinguished.
How can you just lump those games all together when each one had significant new challenges?
Here’s the bottom line – the Patriots lost more man games that any other team in the NFL and still finished 12-4. Yes, they had 14-point leads in two of those losses and had some bonehead play calls and strategy, but name me another team that would ever call a 12-4 season “underachieving”.
Or name me another team that would be anywhere close to competitive with their third-string right tackle starting at left tackle. Yeah, let’s just put Brady back to pass 50 times with Cameron Fleming protecting his blind side. What could go wrong?
Felger and Mazz know what their doing so I don’t often take the cheese, but this is one time his dismissiveness really got me fired up. So yeah, whatever. You do you, guys.
Another bit of news this morning that excited me was the announcement that Peyton Manning will be the Broncos starter for the playoffs. I love it. And yet there are plenty of Broncos fans thinking this is the year Manning will take them to the promised land.
Nevermind his playoff history, nevermind how bad he looked at the start of the season when he should’ve been healthy, nevermind he’s still not fully healthy, nevermind the weather in Denver could severely limit his already limited game, nevermind he doesn’t really fit Gary Kubiak’s offense, nevermind his lack of arm strength basically makes Emmanuel Sanders nothing but a deep decoy, nevermind all of it. This is the year Peyton will get it done!
Gameplanning for Peyton is simple for the Patriots and actually helps their defense. They can stack the box against the run and honestly their running game scares me more than anything. You take away the short throws and force Manning to beat you on deep passes. I don’t know if he can do that anymore in perfect conditions, much less if there’s some kind of bad weather on game day.
I hated losing homefield at the time, but now the Broncos are almost assured to play the Steelers or Chiefs, two teams that will give them major problems. I’ll be shocked if we don’t see Brock Osweiler at some point, whether the Broncos are in a hole or it’s just a terrible weather day.
