Knee Jerk Reactions to Week 2: Pats vs. San Diego
Things to consider while wondering if all along the Chargers meant they'd get their revenge next time the two teams met:
*It's as if the Patriots aren't content with just being dominant; they're determined to be scary dominant. Consider how the opening drive of the game, they ran an attack that was the 180 degree polar opposite of how they opened the Jets game. Last week is was all run plays out of a two tight end set, with Kyle Brady in the Daniel Graham TE/ 3rd OT role, gouged out the Jets eyes and shoved Laurence Maroney down the holes. This week they split four guys wide and threw it all over the field but moved the ball just as effectively. They're like the Swiss Army knife of NFL offenses. They're like Jackie Chan; they'll kick your ass with a ladder, a produce cart, a video camera or just with bare fists. But your ass will be kicked.
*One thing TapeGate did was get Belichick more network TV face time than Ryan Seacrest. I think everyone outside of New England was waiting for his mouth to open wide and for his slimy, hideous alien self to come crawling out.
*Every time they showed Andrea Kremer, I thought someone had flipped the channel on me and they were giving an Emmy to Carmella Soprano.
*Still, she had a couple of rare moments of insight. Like telling us that Norv Turner didn't give out the game plan until the day of the game and barred all Patriots personnel from the locker room. Which conjures up nice mental pictures of Ted Cottrell wandering around the bowels of Gillette saying "Um, yeah...they sent me out to find out where you guys keep the clean towels..." Actually now that we've seen what the scripted first fifteen plays looked like, Norv was just avoiding a fine for dumping toxic waste. ("1st play: TE left, two wide, split backs, stupid INT right into Rosie Colvin's hands.")
*In last night's battle of the Grossly Overrated Network Analysts, John Madden's "There's the ball coming out right there" scored a TKO over Joe Morgan's "It was a cut fastball."
*Whale's Vagina looks very much like a team with a few Best in the Business superstars but no depth. Their secondary could be among the weakest of any good team in the league. They're desperately going to miss Donnie Edwards. If I was them I'd take out Antonio Gates insurance, because if this guy gets hit by lightning, they won't have anyone on that roster capable of getting open.
*It's hilarious to see how paranoid the NFL is getting as they look for ways to stop the Patriots juggernaut. If Homeland Security had monitoring devices like the one they showed on the sidelines to safeguard the helmet radio frequencies, it would be declared unconstitutional. The Pats should be jamming their signals with police scanners calls, McDonald's drive-thru orders and Col. Klink getting yelled at in his office by Gen. Burkhalter.
*After repeatedly picking up the sound of Brady calling audibles..."54 is the Mike!" and such....the league has announced that Al Michaels will be fined $500,000 and NBC will forfeit one of its new fall shows.
*Overall the line play was solid. The only real glitches came on the first drive where Igor Olshansky beat Logan Mankins to the outside (nice head slap, by the way), Matt Light gave up his obligatory one sack a game to a speed rusher (Shawne Merriman) and again later when Merriman came right up the middle and Maroney completely whiffed on him. Overall not bad , especially considering San Die-aaago is one of those teams who think sack total=great defense.
*But just so we're clear, when Merriman did the "Light's Out" dance after those sacks, he did it in a classy way. Unlike Ellis Hobbs last January. That's not opinion, it's objective fact, you see. I think I'd respect him more if instead of that lameass gesture, the former Terp celebrated every sack with the "Wedding Crashers" "Oh, yeeeah! Crab cakes and football! That's. What. Maryland. Does!!!"
*Apparently one of NBCs new shows is called "Ed Hochuli's Two Tickets to the Gun Show" as all this guy does is find ways to show us his pythons. He even looks for ways to remind you how massive are his pipes. Like when they picked up a flag, rather than just say "No penalty on the play" he had to throw in "the defender was just over powered." Leaving us to finish the sentence "As I too am overpowering with these arms of twisted steel." Later he called the first "Arm bar" in NFL history on Antonio Cromartie, where you could almost see him processing "Did they notice my arms when I gave the sign? Of course they did, Ed. They're massive."
*Early on when Jamal Williams got free and came in unblocked to stuff a stretch play (pitch to Maroney where Williams came from the back side), it looked like it could be a long night for Dan Koppen. But he dominated the rest of the way, especially on run plays. And his fight with Marlon McCree was a return to his glory days of duking it out at Mary Ann's.
*Again the Pats ran out of a basic 3-4 and disguised where the fourth rusher would be coming from. But on Adalius Thomas' pick-6, they blitzed Mike Vrabel and Colvin outside and Junior Seau up the middle. All Thomas did was cover the underneath with help from Asante Samuel over the top and Rivers threw it right to him.
*Are the Chargers the NFL's mouthiest team? I can't think of anyone worse, especially given they haven't won anything. Carmella said that at halftime, they were saying "we've got them where we want them." (Apparently where they wanted them was 24-0. Must be a west coast thing.) In the stupid little game promo, they showed LT saying "this game will be two champions. (Of what? The AFC West?) And after Kassim Osgood stripped Hobbs on a nice special teams play, he was slapping Hobbs in the shoulders over it, while the ball was still loose. Then he went and struck a pose on the bench. Again, in a game where his team was being humiliated on national TV.
*So old Norv's got them in the kind of mindset it used to take Marty Schottenheimer until playoff time to achieve.
*Edie Falco was really on her game last night. Another tidbit was that the Jets are saying there was a second camera. Apparently Eric Mangini saw the flash and went running up the grassy knoll but he was stopped by two men in dark suits but he knows what he saw.
*Of course Mangina's just mad because the camera adds ten pounds.
*For some reason, I really like the tight white old school cheerleader outfits the Patriettes switched to at halftime. Though you think they would've come up with some kind of a commercial tie-in with NBC and had them sporting the Hayden Panettierre look.
*The signal coming in from the Charger's sideline: "OUR...QB...BLOWS."