Keefe To The City

Jan 21, 2014

The Last Night of the Patriot Dynasty

When the Patriots’ season comes to an end, the best thing to do is an email exchange with Mike Hurley and this time we look at what has happened to the Tom Brady-Bill Belichick dynasty.

The Patriots’ season ended with an AFC Championship Game loss in Denver and a year from now when the 2014 NFL playoffs are happening, it will be a decade since the Patriots’ last championship.

Since I met Mike Hurley from CBS Boston back in 2009, we have spent an inordinate amount of time talking about the Patriots’ dynasty and how 2001 to the present day has mirrored what the Yankees endured from 2001-2008. So with the Patriots’ latest run at a fourth Super Bowl being stopped by Peyton Manning and the Broncos, it made sense to send Hurley an email about the Tom Brady-Bill Belichick era.

Keefe: I have been thinking since Sunday night how we are going to open our book The Last Night of the Patriot Dynasty. I have had a few ideas of how to best start what will be a magnificent piece of literature, but I figured it would be best to consult with you over the opening

The only difference with our book and Buster Olney’s book (The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty), which we plan on modeling ours after, is that he had a definitive answer to when the last night of the 1996-2001 dynasty was. So I guess my first question would be: When was the last night of the Patriot dynasty?

Was it that 2005 playoff loss to the Broncos? Was it the 2006 AFC Championship Game loss to the Colts? Was it the Super Bowl XLII loss to the Giants? Was it Sunday night in Denver? Before we get into the Tom Brady-Bill Belichick era and whether or not the duo will ever get that fourth Super Bowl, I need to know when the dynasty ended. Or has it not ended?

Hurley: Hi, Neil. As I read through your email, I could see a vivid picture of you wearing a gleeful smile while tap-tap-tapping away at your keyboard, typing about the downfall of the Patriots. This ought to be a fun time.

To me, the dynasty ended in Denver in 2005, but only in retrospect. At the time, you couldn’t have known the dynasty was over, because they could have gone on to win in ’06 and ’07, and they would have had five Super Bowls seven years. The dynasty would have been alive and well.

But by my definition of a dynasty (there’s no real definition), you have to win championships in clusters. And the Patriots haven’t done that for nine years running.

Keefe: Nine years seems like a long time because it’s Tom Brady and Bill Belichick and the Tom Brady/Bill Belichick Patriots we’re talking about. I know how long that can feel because I watched the Derek Jeter/Mariano Rivera/Jorge Posada/(somewhat) Andy Pettitte Yankees go nine years without a championship while spending a bajillion dollars trying to win one from 2001-2008. But really when you think about it, nine years isn’t long at all for one team to go championship-less. I bet in the offseason leading into the 1970 NFL season, the Jets thought they had a team capable of repeating. Now here we are 45 years since Joe Namath upset the Baltimore Colts and the Jets have never even gone back to the Super Bowl, let alone win it again.

But when you win three in four years, make two more since then and lose three AFC Championship Games since then and your only “down” season in the last decade happened to be when your franchise quarterback was knocked out for the year in the first game of the season and his backup (who hadn’t started since high school) went 11-5, there’s going to be pressure. There has been this aura around the 2005-2013 Patriots the way there was for the 2001-2008 Yankees in that everyone just always expected them be there in the end because that’s what they had gotten used to. But like the Patriots’ heartbreaking losses in the 2006 AFC Championship Game, Super Bowl XLII and Super Bowl XLVI, the Yankees had the 2001 World Series, 2003 World Series and 2004 ALCS.

Last week you wrote about how Boston sports fans shouldn’t take for granted the run the Patriots are on, even if they were to lose on Sunday (which they did) and that other organizations would do unthinkable things just to reach the playoffs, let alone assume they are going to be in the AFC Championship Game.

So why is it that the Patriots are viewed as having a letdown year once again after going 12-4, winning the AFC East again, earning a first-round bye and winning a divisional round game? Are Boston fans who are on life tilt being ridiculous?

Hurley: I think anyone who is freaking out about the loss is definitely overreacting, and as much as I believe that it’s incredibly rare for a team to be able to accomplish this kind of sustained success in terms of winning seasons, I think the Patriots will forever be a victim of their own success. It wouldn’t make sense for all the fans to be happy with just reaching the conference title game when that team built its reputation as a regular Super Bowl champion.

On top of that is the fact that the Patriots no doubt left at least one but maybe two Super Bowls on the board. They should have won in ’06, but they flat-lined in Indy, and they should have won in ’07, but they got smacked in the mouth and had no idea how to respond. And on top of THAT, you’ve got the ever-present reality that the “window is closing” for Brady. Surrounding him with rookies (Aaron Dobson, Kenbrell Thompkins) and nobodies (hi, Matthew Mulligan) while kicking Wes Welker to the curb is a really odd way for the Patriots to do business when their quarterback is 36 years old.

So I think you add all those things together, and that explains most of why people are upset around here. But I think folks will have a much bigger problem with the way things are after Brady retires. That’s not going to be very fun.

Keefe: Well, at this rate, maybe Brady will never retire? I think it would be better that way. Just like I think it would be better if Derek Jeter plays forever and if this whole Mariano Rivera retirement thing were just a big joke.

When it comes to Brady, it’s definitely weird that his receiving corps without Rob Gronkowski is atrocious. Julian Edelman became the newest version of Wes Welker (I’m only saying that because I know how much you hate when people say that) and he was a defensive back being asked to defend Victor Cruz two years ago. Danny Amendola didn’t really pan out this year the way people thought he would when Welker left (maybe I can insert our GChat conversation about Amendola) and someone named Matthew Mulligan caught a touchdown pass this season.

The Broncos clearly see their window built around Peyton Manning and have planned accordingly by giving him more receiving threats than the entire AFC East has combined. What I don’t get is how the Patriots don’t realize their window is built around their quarterback as well and all they have done since their last championship is continue to take away each of his favorite receivers. They didn’t want to pay Deion Branch and it cost them in 2006. They got rid of Randy Moss in 2010 for nothing. They low-balled Wes Welker. Why do the Patriots operate this way?

Hurley: Back in the Branch days, Belichick likely felt invincible. Winning three Super Bowls tends to have that effect. All that needless game of hardball did was take a surefire championship away from Brady and the Patriots. Reche Caldwell and Doug Gabriel didn’t work out — who could have known??!!

Moss was different because his skills declined rapidly and he had no idea how to adjust. He became a jackass and they got rid of him as quickly as possible.

Other notable negotiations gone wrong came with two staples of the franchise — Vince Wilfork and Logan Mankins. Both eventually agreed to long-term deals, with Mankins even becoming the highest-paid guard in the league, but the Patriots didn’t make it easy.

And then there is Welker. I contended immediately after he signed with Denver that it was something personal with Bill, and that much was essentially confirmed Monday when Belichick went out of his way to call out Wes for “one of the worst plays I’ve seen.” It was a simple football play that was worthy of a flag only because of its timing, and Bill wants to make it out to be aggravated assault. What a joke.

If Bill wants to be mad about something, he should mad at the GM who treated the franchise leader in receptions and the best friend of the Hall of Fame quarterback like a piece of dirt, all but begging him to leave via free agency. But, well, Bill is the GM, and I’m not sure he’s excellent at that job. Great coach for sure, and he made a good number of key signings to complement those Super Bowl rosters, but he hasn’t been able to build a championship team since losing the players left over from the Parcells/Carroll eras.

Keefe: Tom Brady started his postseason career with a 10-0 record and is since 8-8. No, he doesn’t play defense (like Plaxico), but aside from that blowout of the Tim Tebow Broncos in 2011, he has put together a stretch of mediocre playoff games.

On Sunday, he admitted he wishes there was more he could have done to help the team and this was a week after the Patriots destroyed the Colts with their running game, a game in which Brady wasn’t asked to do much. And on Sunday, Brady seemed way off the mark on deep balls that would have changed the momentum, feel and potentially the outcome of the games on throws he would have complete in the pass. Was that on TB12 or the cast of receiving characters we mentioned earlier?

No athlete gets better with age, especially as they approach 40. Well, unless their name is Barry Bonds and their fitted hat size suddenly becomes 19 1/4. I don’t think Tom Brady is done. Far from it. But how do you explain these last few years of postseason mediocrity?

Hurley: Well this weekend, I think Brady was just OK. He didn’t go all Andy Dalton on us, but with his team having so much less talent than the Broncos, Brady needed to be exceptional. And he wasn’t. It was likely a combination of being sick and also the fact that weird things happen to Brady and the Patriots every time they go to Denver. In the Brady/Belichick era, they’re now 2-5 in Denver, and that includes two devastating playoff losses. But still, if he hadn’t been throwing to Michael Hoomanawanui, Matthew Mulligan (he only had 23 catches at Maine) and Matthew Slater, he probably would have at least put together a more impressive statistical output.

You are discounting his 344-yard, 3-touchdown day against a pretty good Houston defense in last year’s divisional round, but yes, Brady’s been a pretty average quarterback in the playoffs going all the way back to the 2007 AFC Championship Game. I think each game has its own reasons. The Baltimore playoff games, in which the Patriots are 1-2, always seem to come on frigid, windy days that are unfriendly to quarterbacks. In the Jets loss in 2010, Brady threw an interception for the first time in three full months, and he looked like he had no confidence for the rest of the night. Justin Tuck ate him alive in the Super Bowl and made the quarterback’s job tough that night, and on Sunday I think he just didn’t have anything.

I don’t think he’s done either, as he’ll be 37 years old next season. Peyton Manning is 37 and he seems to be doing pretty well out there in Denver. I really think Belichick needs to feel the urgency (like, starting right this very second) to “load up” like he did in 2007. There aren’t a ton of great free agents available (Emmanuel Sanders, Eric Decker might be at the top of the heap), but back in ’07, Randy Moss wasn’t available. Belichick got him anyway.

I think the time is now to make a huge move for a great receiver (will Larry Fitzgerald squander his entire career in Arizona?), add another two in free agency, and give Brady the tools to actually compete. If they don’t do it now, we may never see Brady win another Super Bowl. And whether you love him or hate him, you have to admit that’s a tremendous waste of Hall of Fame talent.

Keefe: It’s a tremendous waste of talent because I do like Tom Brady because he’s a Yankees fan, but I’m happy the Patriots continue to not give him the necessary pieces to succeed because if they were to give him real NFL receivers, it would mean happiness for Boston sports fans.

Six years ago, the Patriots were one win away from football immortality and Tom Brady was one win away from ending any conversation or debate as to who the best quarterback of all time is. A fourth Super Bowl in seven years to cap off a perfect season would have been one of the most unbelievable accomplishments in the history of professional sports. And even though the Patriots didn’t win that game, he still had the chance to get that fourth Super Bowl two years ago against the Giants once again.

He still has the three Super Bowls, but they came nine, 10 and 12 years ago. He’s certainly in the conversation as the best ever, but he isn’t the definitive answer he could have been. So what are we to make of Tom Brady’s legacy now even if the book isn’t closed on him yet?

Hurley: I had to deal with seeing the word “legacy” thrown around 24/7 last week in advance of the AFC title game, so thanks for bringing that back. Really, thanks.

Winning another one surely would augment his resume (obviously), but no matter what he’s done in the past nine years and no matter what he will do for the next three, it doesn’t erase the past. And that past has him winning three Super Bowls, which is something only three other guys have done in the history of the sport. You’re right about ’07, and that night will go down as the biggest missed opportunity in NFL history. The 1972 Dolphins might not even have been that great for all I know, but they’re still famously celebrated today, 40-plus years later, for their perfect season. The 2007 Patriots team was going to be that, with two extra wins, with the best quarterback ever, in the best offense ever. They were going to be the best team in the sport’s history, yet because they couldn’t match the Giants’ effort, they became just another Super Bowl loser.

So yeah, Brady’s LEGACY won’t be what it could have been, and maybe should have been. But he’s still right there in the special group of the best quarterbacks of all time. I’m not saying he’s better than Joe Montana, but what often gets lost in his 4-0 record in Super Bowls is his overall postseason record of 16-7. Brady’s record is 18-8.

Fortunately, Ryan Mallett doesn’t look like he’s quite as talented as Steve Young, so Brady should get his chances to write the final chapters of his LEGACY with the Patriots before his WINDOW CLOSES.

Keefe: The Patriots have won 176 games since the start of the 2001 season, including 18 playoff games, but the two times you had trips to the Super Bowl on the line in the last two AFC Championship Games, they lost. The loss on Sunday cost you a trip to New York City.

Here in New York, it’s been hockey season and only hockey season since Nov. 24 when the Giants lost to the Cowboys. It’s hockey season in Boston now too. Maybe I will see you on March 2 at Madison Square Garden for Rangers-Bruins. Between now and then, think about how we should open our book.

Hurley: I have a pretty strong suggestion for the book cover: Friggin’ Jay Alford.

Podcasts • Yankees

Jan 17, 2014

Podcast: Erik Boland

Erik Boland of Newsday joins me to talk about the Masahiro Tanaka sweepstakes and what the future holds for Alex Rodriguez following his 162-game suspension.

We are a month away from pitchers and catchers reporting to Tampa and right now the Yankees don’t really know who exactly will be reporting. The starting rotation still has some holes to fill and hopefully one of those holes will be filled by Masahiro Tanaka who has narrowed his field down to three teams, which includes the Yankees.

And when it comes to spring training, the other big question is whether or not Alex Rodriguez will show up. After being suspended for all of 2014, A-Rod gave an unusual speech saying basically that Major League Baseball is doing him a favor by giving him a year to rest mentally and physically.

Erik Boland, the Yankees beat writer for Newsday, joined me to talk about the Tanaka sweepstakes and what the Yankees will do if they don’t land him, what A-Rod’s next move is and if A-Rod will ever play for the Yankees or in Major League Baseball ever again.

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Rangers

Jan 16, 2014

Rangers-Red Wings Isn’t So Rare Anymore

The Red Wings are at Madison Square Garden for the first time in almost two years and that calls for an email exchange with “J.J. from Kansas” of Winging It In Motown.

It feels like Rangers-Red Wings never happens. That’s partially because it rarely has until now. The two teams met this season on Oct. 26, but thanks to the lockout last year, they didn’t meet at all in 2012-13 and just once a season prior to that. So when the two Original Six teams meet on Thursday night at Madison Square Garden, it will feel more important than a normal regular-season game and that’s because it kind of is. Thankfully with realignment, we will get more than just one Rangers-Red Wings game a year now.

With the Rangers and Red Wings playing for the second of three times this season, I did an email exchange with “J.J. from Kansas” of Winging It In Motown to talk about the Red Wings playing in the Eastern Conference, how they were portrayed in 24/7 leading up to the Winter Classic and what’s been going on with them over the last six weeks.

Keefe: After a long, long time as an Eastern Time Zone team playing in the Western Conference, the Red Wings are where they should be when it comes to alignment thanks to the realignment. The Red Wings might be out of place in the “Atlantic” division, but at least they are in the right place when it comes to traveling. (The Red Wings shouldn’t feel too awkward about playing in the “Atlantic” with Columbus and Carolina being considered “Metropolitan.”)

What were you feelings about the Red Wings’ move back to normality and playing in their own time zone when the plans were announced? And what do you think of the realignment now 46 games into the change?

J.J.: Being honest about the switch to the East, since I’m in the Central Time Zone, it wasn’t really a big deal to me, but I always liked the concept. I especially liked that the schedule-making would adjust to leave the Wings with only two trips out West where we’d have games starting at 10 p.m. EST or later. Ultimately I was happy that the travel schedule wouldn’t be as brutal for Detroit, but this never felt to me as the eventual correction of old wrongs like it has to much of the older generation of Wings fans who didn’t grow up with the Central Division.

This season has been a weird, bittersweet experience for me. I haven’t experienced the weird playoff quirks yet, but I do like the new realignment plan as far as it’s worked on the NHL regular season. The adjustment has come in how I watch games on off days for the Wings. I’ve always preferred to watch division rivals’ games and root for whichever outcome would most benefit the Wings. In doing that, I didn’t watch a ton of Eastern Conference hockey in the last few years and as a result, it’s almost been a culture shock for me readjusting to a bunch of uniforms, players, and styles I to which I haven’t grown accustomed (not to mention half a league’s worth of local announcers). In the West, I can still pick out which line is on the ice for teams based solely on how the forwards skate. I haven’t gotten used to that yet in the East save for a few of the very familiar or standout players (the Penguins, Rick Nash and Phil Kessel).

Keefe: There isn’t a bigger 24/7 fan than me and I hope that my dream of it being stretched into covering a team for a full season will one day be realized. (Kind of like what ESPN did with The Season and the Red Wings in 2002-03 and the Avalanche in 2003-04, only better.) Who wouldn’t want a full season of the show?

Two years ago when the Rangers and Flyers were the stars of 24/7 for their Winter Classic in Philadelphia, it made the show that much better having “my” team be covered in depth for a month. This year you had “your” team as one of the co-stars of the four-episode series. What did you think about how the Red Wings were portrayed?

J.J.: I’d LOVE to see a full season of 24/7 … centered around somebody else. I don’t know if I’m just looking for excuses or my dumb caveman brain is sliding a bit of causation into the correlation between the Red Wings being on 24/7 and the Red Wings playing like crap in the weeks where the HBO cameras were following them around, but it seemed that while the cameras were rolling, the Red Wings were just not comfortable.

Overall, I think HBO did the best they could with the Wings, but I’m caught between wanting to have seen much more and wanting to respect that they’re professional hockey players and stay away from their private lives. I would have loved to have seen more of Pavel Datsyuk, but he’s a private guy and if he doesn’t want to deal with the HBO cameras that much, then so be it.

Keefe: This season of the show gave me a better understanding of the Red Wings and there were three things I really took away from it (aside from disliking Dion Phaneuf more). The first was how strong of a presence Mike Babcock has with the team and the organization. I have long thought that Babcock is the best head coach in the league (and that’s likely why he is also the Team Canada coach), but my opinion was only reinforced with the show and the way he handles managing his team on and off the ice.

The second was how badly the Red Wings have been crushed by the injury bug over the first half of season. Sure, the Rangers lost their best two players in Rick Nash for 17 games in October and November and Henrik Lundqvist for a week in October, and you could throw Ryan Callahan in there too, who has also missed 17 games. But those injuries are nothing compared to what the Red Wings have endured. Seeing Babcock write and re-write and erase the names on his lines and depth chart whiteboard was remarkable and almost made me feel like he was managing the 2013 Yankees and their injury bug. I guess I know why the Red Wings are a point out of the playoff picture.

And the last thing would be the way Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg are perceived by the younger players on the team, almost as if the younger players haven’t grasped the idea that they are in the NHL and playing with Datsyuk and Zetterberg. The way the younger players glowingly talk about the duo and look up to them shows how the team has changed and turned over since the two entered the league 12 and 13 years ago.

J.J.: As the Wings have seemingly come farther away from Stanley Cup contention in the last few years, the fan base has grown a bit restless with Babcock. He’s never given the local writers much of a glimpse behind the scenes and has always done a great job dodging attempts to get the kind of glimpses that reporters could run with on a story. We’ve always had a bit of a sense as to when he was either taking blame or sending a message to the media about his players, but without the behind the scenes access from 24/7, all we really had was a picture of a cagey coach who favors veterans to youngsters without any real in-depth explanation. Seeing how he interacted with the team, especially the youngsters, has been a big positive for me this season.

As far as the injuries, I’m among the fans asking for an audit of the Red Wings’ procedures as far as training and conditioning goes. I know that the common joke is that the Red Wings are old, but the rate of injuries and the type that we’ve seen most common (groin) is just disconcerting.

I think personally that part of the younger players idolizing the core veterans was partially scripted to make up for the HBO cameras’ lack of access to Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg. Hank (our Hank), was featured in that segment where he’s skating on his pond, but that’s pretty much all you got from him. It is very clear that what earned Datsyuk and Zetterberg their way in the NHL was each of their work ethics (even the old guard guys like Steve Yzerman commented on it before they left) so if the youngsters look up to them that much, it’s just the personnel changing around them and not the attitude.

Keefe: It doesn’t seem like a team with Datsyuk and Zetterberg and Daniel Alfredsson (even a 40-year-old Alfredsson should struggle) and strong depth and secondary scoring options should struggle the way the Red Wings have for the first half of the season. Can the 20-16-10 start to the season and being on the playoff bubble be chalked up as a result of the incredible rash of injuries or is it something more than that?

J.J.: I hate to keep using injuries as an excuse, but the sheer amount of change that happens to the Wings as a result of them can’t be ignored. The Wings’ system is based on puck movement more than grinding and that’s the kind of players they have. when players switch in and out of the lineup or up and down lines, the timing of everything falls off just a little bit and puck possession can suffer. When you have so many injuries that you have to change the system to a more dump-and-chase style, then you’re facing the whammy that is the Red Wings aren’t a team that was specifically built for that system, so they have some guys playing in roles that they’re not as well-suited for.

Despite that, there are three issues which are not injury related which have also combined to hurt the Wings. The first is that the young defensive corps is still learning the ropes and do not deal with aggressive forechecking as well as more-veteran players do. This slows down transition and causes them to spend more time in their own end facing shots. Second, the play of Jimmy Howard has not been as dominant as it has and that has cost them some points. Finally, for whatever reason, the Red Wings are 1-7 in the shootout this year, which has also stripped them of points.

When everything adds up, the Red Wings are not as bad a bubble team as their record indicates. I don’t think that they’re a top contender, but a healthy Wings team that gets even a bit luckier is an upper mid-tier contender at least on par with a team like Montreal or Tampa.

Keefe: The last time the Rangers and Red Wings met (Oct. 26), the Rangers were finishing up their season-opening nine-game road trip and arrived in Detroit with a 2-6-0 record and were coming off back-to-back losses to the (at the time) lowly Devils and Flyers. After giving up a devastating late second-period goal to Daniel Alfredsson with 11 seconds left in the second to give the Red Wings a 2-1 lead, Mats Zuccarello scored just 2:18 into the third to tie the game. Then in overtime, Derick Brassard scored with 13 seconds left to give the Rangers the win and their first win in Detroit since Jan. 30, 1999. Yes, 1999! Once again … that’s 1-9-9-9!

This time the Rangers and Red Wings meet with the Rangers playing their best hockey of the season, despite their 2-1 home loss to the Lightning on Tuesday night (it was the first time the Rangers failed to score more at least two goals since Dec. 10, which is actually unbelievable considering it used to happen every other game). The Rangers have won eight of their last 12, earning 17 of a possible 24 points and taking over the first wild-card spot in the standings. The Red Wings, on the other hand, have traded wins and losses for nearly a month and have won consecutive games only once since the start of the December.

What has been going on with the Red Wings over the last six weeks as they come to Madison Square Garden on Thursday night?

J.J.: The recent play of the Red Wings is a reflection of what we’ve talked about above. Whether it’s injuries, distractions, and flat-out unimpressive play, Detroit isn’t a very good hockey club right now and their recent record shows that. At some point, they’re going to start getting healthier and more consistent and will start stringing victories together more often, but there’s not an expectation that’s going to happen this week. None of the injured forwards are expected back for Thursday’s game and in fact, the Wings will be without one of the best players they’ve had the last few weeks, as Tomas Tatar went back to Slovakia this week to attend his father’s funeral after playing both Saturday and Sunday with a heavy heart caused by his dad’s passing last Friday.

Blogs • Giants

Jan 16, 2014

NFL Championship Weekend Picks

There are only two Sundays left in the season and three picks left to make in what are the best two possible Championship Game matchups.

There is so much at stake for all four teams and their quarterbacks and their coaches this weekend that is almost feels like Roger Goodell was somehow able to produce the matchups for the AFC and NFC Championship Games. But we know that’s not possible. It’s impossible. A commissioner of a league can’t determine which teams reach their sport’s final four. You probably wouldn’t have gotten the best of payouts if you had done a futures wager on the matchups this weekend, but it was predictable way before the first week of the season, way before Eli Manning threw an interception on his first pass attempt of the season in that first week. (What? You thought I would forget about Eli Manning in my picks even though he hasn’t played in a meaningful game since Nov. 24?)

So here we are in the last second-to-last football Sunday of the season with 256 picks down and three to go.

New England +5.5 over DENVER
It feels weird that this will be the early game on Sunday, but when you have a West Coast team hosting one of the two games, this is what happens. Peyton Manning-Tom Brady won’t feel the same or as important as it should at 3 p.m.rather than in darkness with one of the two Super Bowl teams already known and a legacy-changing game on tap. But the best part about this game taking place is that it will actually take place and we won’t have to watch anymore storylines get squeezed out of it the way NBC kept reaching for new ideas for post-Michael Scott episodes of The Office.

Four years ago on the Friday before Super Bowl XLIV, I wrote the following:

This Sunday should be about Peyton Manning joining an elite group of quarterbacks and adding to his case as the best to ever play the game. It should be about Bill Polian justifying the benching of his starters so we don’t have to hear about how it backfired all offseason. It should be about the Colts taking over for the Patriots as the team and face of the NFL.

Instead of any of those things happening, the Colts lost, lost me my Colts -5 pick, gave Jeremy Shockey a Super Bowl ring and made everyone forget that Peyton Manning had gotten over the Super Bowl hump three years prior the way that people around here forget that A-Rod single-handedly won the Yankees the 2009 World Series. Now Peyton is being given another chance to get back to the Super Bowl and get that elusive second ring that many believe would put him on top of all all-time quarterback debates.

There is so much at stake for the legacies of Peyton Manning and Tom Brady that it’s hard to decide who has more to win or lose with a win or loss (though it won’t matter for anyone if the Seahawks or 49ers win the Super Bowl). When I try to sort out the history involved with this matchup and if either of the two go on to win at MetLife in two weeks, I feel like I’m filling out a W-4, except in this case I can’t call my mom to ask if I should be putting a “0,” “1,” or “2” in the designated space.

Peyton Manning is playing in his third AFC Championship Game (all against the Patriots) and needs to win this week and again in two weeks if he really wants to be in or lead the Best Quarterback Ever conversation, which I’m pretty sure is the only thing he cares about in his life. If he wins this weekend, he will be one win away from returning to the Super Bowl after two seasons removed from potential career-ending neck injuries, and he will be one win away from winning his second Super Bowl that Pierre Garcon dropped for him four years ago.

Tom Brady is playing in his eighth AFC Championship Game in 12 years and is still searching for Super Bowl No. 4 thanks to Eli Manning. But if he wins on Sunday, it will be his sixth AFC title and he will have been the starting quarterback for the Patriots in the Super Bowl at age 24 and also at age 36, which seems like the most amazing and ridiculous TB12 fact.

Peyton Manning vs. Tom Brady has been about the Best Regular-Season Quarterback Ever vs. The Winningest Postseason Quarterback Ever, which has seemed appropriate for a guy that seems to be all about personal stats and records and another guy who only cares about the final score. One of them has to win on Sunday and then one of them will be one win away from becoming The Best Ever. Five points seems like too many to give with these two.

San Francisco +3.5 over SEATTLE
The No. 4 and No. 8 teams from My Super Bowl XLVIII Dilemma. On a neutral field, I would have to think the line for this game would be 0 or at most it would be Seattle -0.5 since they are being given that extra half point for being home in a Championship Game despite playing an evenly-matched divisional rival. The line is right where it should be and right where the 49ers should want it to be.

In the Colin Kaepernick era, the 49ers have played in Seattle twice and have lost both games. They lost 29-3 in Week 2 this year and they lost 42-13 in Week 16 last year. The difference in the 2013 game was Kaepernick’s three interceptions, the 49ers’ five turnovers (to the Seahawks’ one) and Marshawn Lynch’s 98 rushing yards along with his two rushing touchdowns and one receiving touchdown. The difference in the 2012 game was Russell Wilson’s four touchdown passes and Lynch’s 111 rushing yards along with a rushing and receiving touchdown. The 49ers have turned into a different team for their trips to CenturyLink Field, but this postseason, the 49ers have turned into a different altogether.

In my Wild-Card Weekend Picks, I said:

Usually every team has at least one letdown game during the year (and in the case of the 2007 Patriots, it comes in the Super Bowl … yes, I had to) and for the 49ers, you would have to say it came in their 27-7 Week 3 loss to the Colts since their 29-3 Week 2 loss to the Seahawks happened in Seattle. But since Week 3, the 49ers have been as good and consistent as any team in the league.

Since then, the 49ers have played their most complete football of the year, once on the road against one of the few elite quarterbacks in the game in a brutal place for road teams to play and again on the road against the best front seven in the game against a 2-seed coming off a week of rest.

The Seahawks were able to hold off the Saints (who might be the worst road team in the NFL, and certainly have the biggest contrast in play between the Superdome and the road) last week, but didn’t look great doing so after having embarrassed the Saints in Seattle in Week 13.

Everyone seems to be riding the Seahawks here because they’re home and because of the 12th Man and because of the way they handled the 49ers in Seattle this year and last. And everyone seems to be penciling in the Seahawks for New York City the way they were prior to their Week 16 home loss to the Cardinals. But the 49ers aren’t the Cardinals. They’re better. And right now they’re better than they have been all year.

Last week: 2-2-0
Regular Season: 117-136-10

Blogs • NFL

Jan 3, 2014

My Super Bowl XLVIII Dilemma

The New York Football Giants aren’t going to win Super Bowl XLVIII, so it’s time figure out who it makes sense to root for and against this NFL postseason.

Someone will win Super Bowl XLVIII, but it won’t be the Giants.

With the Giants officially on Day 5 of the offseason (I say “officially” because you could make the case that some of them have been in offseason mode for weeks and some never even left it for the regular season) it’s the eve of the NFL playoffs and Wild-Card Weekend. Since the New York Football Giants aren’t going to the playoffs for the fourth time in five years and therefore won’t be going to The Dance at their own home on Feb. 2, I decided to dust off an idea I had for a column three years ago when I ranked the 12 playoff teams in order from which team I would most like to see win Super Bowl XLVIII to which team I don’t want to see win at all. Here it is:

1. Bengals
What is there not to like about the Bengals? Or should I say, what is there to not like about the Bengals? Unless you really hate gingers and therefore Andy Dalton or want to see the Bengals playoff win drought endure another year, there’s no reason to care if the Bengals win it all.

2. Colts
Out of the entire 2012 Quarterback Breakout Class, it’s possible that Andrew Luck has received the least amount of hype and attention for the player who was drafted first overall, had the highest expectations and career projection coming out of college and was being asked to take over a franchise from Peyton Manning. Luck hasn’t disappointed with back-to-back playoff appearances in his first two years, which were supposed to be rebuilding years in Indianapolis and hasn’t done anything in the spotlight to draw negative attention (at least since becoming a Colt since there was that whole private security detail that he employed on campus at Stanford).

A Colts Super Bowl win means a Chuck Pagano Super Bowl win. It also means a Jim Irsay Super Bowl win and what’s better than having a loudmouth owner who called out (and he had a point with what he said) the Peyton Manning Colts for not winning multiple Super Bowls?

3. Broncos
Three years ago I had the Peyton Manning Colts ranked first, but things have changed. I wouldn’t mind if Peyton got his second ring, but coming in the same year in which his brother threw a league-leading 27 interceptions, as a Giants fan it wouldn’t be the best situation.

If Pierre Garcon didn’t drop a pass that would have broken open Super Bowl XLIV or the Colts weren’t taken by surprise by an onside kick or if Peyton Manning himself didn’t throw a devastating pick-six then Peyton would already have his second ring, would be 2-0 in Super Bowls and considered the greatest ever. Instead he’s just the greatest regular-season quarterback ever not the greatest quarterback ever. I wouldn’t mind if that changed this February, I just wish it wouldn’t have to come in a year when Eli wasn’t so awful.

4. 49ers
The 49ers destroyed my 10-to-1 Championship Games parlay last season when they completed a 17-point comeback against the Falcons and won the NFC. I’m still upset about that when it comes to the 49ers, but nothing else.

5. Panthers
I’m still mad at the Panthers for their Super Bowl XXXVIII loss to the Patriots that gave the Patriots their second Super Bowl in three years. And I’m still mad at the Panthers, well mainly just Jake Delhomme, for destroying that divisional round game against the Cardinals in 2008 with five interceptions, costing me the Panthers -10 pick. But it’s 2013 and the Panthers’ Super Bowl loss to the Patriots was a decade ago (and if the Patriots don’t win Super Bowl XLVIII we will enter 2014 with it being a decade since their last championship despite many acting as though they won it as recently as last February) and Jake Delhomme is no longer a Panther or an NFL quarterback. And wouldn’t you be excited to watch the Panthers’ Super Bowl XLVIII DVD with the story about how Ron Rivera went from as close to being fired as you can be to leading the 1-2 Panthers to a championship?

6. Chiefs
If the Chiefs win the Super Bowl then that means the Eagles didn’t win the Super Bowl and it means Andy Reid has won a Super Bowl and the Philadelphia Eagles organization still hasn’t and that means chaos for the city of Philadelphia and Eagles fans. But if the Chiefs win the Super Bowl it means that Alex Smith was the quarterback who led them there and I’m not sure I want anything to do with a sport in which Alex Smith is a winner and possibly Super Bowl MVP.

7. Saints
Jeremy Shockey isn’t there to win another Super Bowl, so the Saints have moved up from their No. 8 spot in 2010. And without Shockey there, aside from Sean Payton wearing a visor, I have nothing against the Saints except for how they screwed me in the final minute against the Patriots and how they screwed me again against the Jets. The only reason I don’t want the Saints to win the Super Bowl is because everything I have come to believe about them and written about them and how they are a different team outside the Superdome will all be meaningless. And that’s because if the Saints win the Super Bowl, they will have won four road games and four outdoor games and that’s a scientific impossibility.

8. Seahawks
In a world where college coaches will do anything and I mean anything to get a better job, Pete Carroll is the poster boy for how to get ahead after he left USC with a two-year bowl ban and the elimination of 30 football scholarships for another shot at the NFL. Back in 2010, I didn’t care if the Seahawks won the Super Bowl (despite those things) and had them ranked third, but they aren’t entering the playoffs as a 7-9 division winner looking to make a mockery of the NFL’s postseason format, so that’s why they have fallen.

9. Packers
Here’s what I wrote about the Packers in my Week 15 Picks:

Since Aaron Rodgers has become the Packers starting quarterback, here’s how their seasons have finished:

2008: Missed playoffs
2009: Lost in Wild-Card round
2010: Won Super Bowl
2011: Lost in divisional round (first game)
2012: Lost in divisional round after beating Joe Webb and the Vikings in the Wild-Card round

So in the last five years with Rodgers as the starter, the Packers have won five playoff games with four of them coming in the same year. And if the “Miracle at the Meadowlands” doesn’t happen, the Packers don’t even make the playoffs in 2010 let alone win the Super Bowl.

I wrote all that because I was trying to show that Aaron Rodgers isn’t worthy of the “Best Player in the League” title he has seemingly been given in a league that boasts maybe the best two quarterbacks in the history of the game and the most dominant running back since Barry Sanders. And after two months without him playing, all it took was one season-saving 48-yard touchdown pass for everyone to push Peyton Manning, Tom Brady and Adrian Peterson and others like Drew Brees and LeSean McCoy aside for the Aaron Rodgers Is The Best campaign to return to form.

10. Chargers
In the same season in which Eli Manning threw 27 interceptions and lost to Philip Rivers and the Giants went 7-9 and missed the playoffs, it would be very bad if Rivers and the Chargers then went on to win the Super Bowl. I want the 2013 Giants season to be gone and forgotten and right now that process has started, but if the team Eli Manning said he wouldn’t play for and the quarterback the Giants would have possibly then had win the Super Bowl, Eli Manning and especially 2013 Eli Manning will be at the forefront of Super Bowl storylines for the next month.

11. Patriots
I once wrote how a Red Sox-Mets World Series would be the worst possible championship scenario for me and I’m thankful that I was only a month old when that scenario was created in 1986. My last two teams present the second-worst possible championship scenario for me.

Nothing has changed for me and my feelings for the Patriots over the last three years and because of that, here is what I wrote about them then:

There is no way I want the Patriots to win the Super Bowl. None at all. I would rather walk across the George Washington Bridge naked, during rush hour, while it’s freezing rain than see the Patriots win.

However, a Patriots’ championship would put a serious damper on the possibility of adding more chapters to The Last Night of the Patriots Dynasty book that I plan to write with Mike Hurley.

12. Eagles
This is my nightmare! Well, it’s just one of my nightmares. My real nightmare happened in October and October 2007 and October 2004. My hatred for the Eagles is so strong that last week I found myself rooting for the Cowboys in the winner-take-all Week 17 game and actually felt a little depressed after Kyle Orton ended the game with a Tony Romo-esque interception. That’s what the Eagles can do to me. They can make me not only root for the nearly-equally-hated Cowboys, but also have a Cowboys loss negatively change my mood when I should be happy and celebrating Jerry Jones’ Dallas disaster going another year without a Super Bowl.

If Philadelphia trades Cliff Lee to the Yankees between now and Super Bowl XLVIII I’m willing to at least think about changing their spot. But without The One That Got Away holding a Yankee Stadium press conference between now and Feb. 2, I want to hear anything but “Fly, Eagles Fly.”