The Politics of Sport

OK; this is a political blog, but I find the need to talk about what everyone in New England has been talking about during the past week. I want to give my impression of the Patriots loss to the Indianapolis Colts last Sunday night. There have been more discussions surrounding this game than there have been over the all important health care debate in the Senate.

Bill Belichick was right. Belichick made the right call on fourth and two with little time remaining. If he makes that play, the Patriots win. He has the best quarterback in the business and the best 3/4th down player in Kevin Faulk. Belichick was not showing disrespect for his defense; God, he never has done that. As a matter of fact, if Belichick had little faith in his defense, he would have been far more likely to kick the ball. On the ensuing series by the Colts, a Belichick lacking faith in the defense would have told his defense to let them score so they could put the ball in Brady's hands with over a minute to play. Belichick put total faith in his defense and had them make a stand. It did not work. Bill Belichick will make that same call many more times in his career and it will work more often than not.

If there is any criticism of Belichick, it has to involve the lack of time outs the Patriots possessed at the end of the game. That was very unlike a Belichick team. It probably had to do with the crowd noise in that closed in stadium. Lacking the time out made it impossible for Belichick to throw a red flag on the Kevin Faulk advance of the ball on 4th and 2. Film breakdowns have shown that Faulk made the play even though he had an initial juggle of the ball. The Patriots just caught a bad break. The worst bit of luck for the Patriots was the horrendous call by the Ref of pass interference when clearly the defender as every right to the ball. That replay shows from every angle, the defender turned ready to receive the ball and no contact with the wide receiver. That call was egregious and I certainly hope that the Ref gets disciplined for a remarkably bad call that cost the Patriots the game.

Enough already! Get over it and stop talking about it. You win some you lose some. Go on to the next game where I can assure you, Bill Belichick will have all 3 of his time outs left at the end of the game (at least 2 anyway).

There are a lot more games being played that are far more meaningful and most of those games are occurring in Washington DC. And I don't mean Redskin games.

tomtoak