the Matt Patricia 2018-19 playoff nfl thread

lol lol lol. as a young pats fan, i hate the 00s pats like no other. and as a chief-symp, too. but....looooool. and as an nfl bulllshit caller too. So satisfying. *blows imaginary smoke* this was good.

i didn't watch a ton of regular season of the early 00s pats, though i def remember several grim depressing winters in new england brightened only by pats playoff wins on sundays. then it's back to freezing temps, grey skies, snow and ice everywhere until like april

awwww it's big vince <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

man bill actually looks happy about the afc trophy? usually he looks like he's about to chuck it in the trash

this was def like top 5 of all the football games i've ever watched. that was crazy.

bill likely respected the opponent and circumstances a little more than usual.

mahomes is great. i'm also trying to process who is this pats team that showed up the last two weeks. the way the season went was hard to believe they could beat kc on the road

bill likely respected the opponent and circumstances

haaaah oh fuck i love this outcome

I know it gets said a bunch but...Romo is crazy accurate when it comes to diagnosing plays on both sides of the ball.

You thought Tom Brady was great tonight? Here's some snippets of Tony Romo's late-game forecasting wizardry. pic.twitter.com/sH09q6IJfj

— Jack Korte (@JackMyNBC5) January 21, 2019

I watched the AFC game (aftermath of a child's birthday party). Everyone was depressed that the Pats got a handjob from the officials.

(Yes, it was my first viewing of an NFL playoff game in 30+ years)

obv Brady must be destroyed

tbf they were kinda weird on both ends. there were a *lot* of very close judgment calls there.

I can't really hate on the Pats, I mean yeah they're obnoxious and yeah the way they cried "nobody believes in us!!" because they opened as a 3-point road dog is pathetic but whatever, every Super Bowl they've played in has been great - beating the Rams as giant underdogs, having a perfect season ruined by the Giants, getting a chance at redemption and having the Giants ruin it again, the Malcolm Butler game, 28-3, the "Philly Special" game where both teams scored on nearly every drive..idk at least with the Pats you have someone to root against

it's just so excruciating to go against them - watching Brady convert on 3rd & 10 over and over again is just so deflating

"roughing the passer" was a sad lol

lagoon that link appears to be dead, do you know how else i could find it?

romo was fantastic

watching Brady convert on 3rd & 10 over and over again is just so deflating

such jokes are really tacky

naw sry bummer, nfl is so dumb abt sharing their clips, nba lets u post whatever xp

re the pats going on about how no one believes in them & everyone thinks they suck -- i really don't recommend tuning in to local boston sports media especially talk radio, but that's where it comes from for sure. all season. i have only listened to a little bit of some jerks on 98.5 because greg bedard goes on there but.. well, top story on 98.5 site rn is one of their own guys 'i declared the pats dynasty dead & i'm a moron'

imo, what Brady is doing at 41 is now in the realm of the unfathomable... when an athlete gets into late 30s you marvel at how they can move with any quickness, and how they are able to recover from games fast enough to get back to practice and make the next game. at 41, it's like, how is he even making those throws now? TB12 is an automaton obviously. it only makes sense to doubt the pats because they so much depend on Brady and what's he's doing at this age is nigh on impossible!

These "no PI call cost Saints the SB" people are insufferable. Didn't see y'all overly concerned by the missed facemask that cost the Rams a 1st and goal

xp totally correct. local media has a tough job given the standards the team has set as far as finding actual things to talk about....so there's a tendency to pick apart the team in extreme detail that is understandable even if the tone (especially on the radio) is ridiculous.

it's funny watching/reading national stuff and everyone mocking the pats for being all "no one believes in us"--it does come from a real place as far as the local media goes, they're not just making it up.

its kind of weird how some fanbases have the need to cling onto the underdog role as though its core to their identity. sportswriters love that "Are the Patriots done?" line because it gets hateclicks but in my experience the number of actual football fans who think that is like...close to zero. remember that Week 4 game, when the 3-0 Dolphins went to Foxboro to take on the 1-2 Patriots - did anyone think that game was not gonna be an embarrassing blowout?

the local perception, especially in a place that's completely obsessed with the team, is pretty different from the national one.

it's actually crazy, i thought we had reached patriots saturation around here a while ago but it's gone to a completely different level since deflategate.

this is all pretty absurd, i mean in 1999 Joe Montana leading the Niners to the 1981 Super Bowl crown (18 yrs prior) seemed like ancient NFL history but here Brady is on the cusp of another championship after having won his first 18 years ago. I mean....absurd.

yea I mean with the ebb and flow of the NFL it really felt like losing that Super Bowl and then Brady tearing his ACL Week 1 of 2008 could have easily been the end of it. like, he's still a no-doubt HOF'er even if he had never stepped on the field again

another fun Brady stat, he's 3-0 in playoff overtime games now, and in all three the opponent never touched the ball

bob sutton fired as chiefs defensive coordinator

tony romo with blood on his hands

xp interesting that all players who scored in that 1st ot win (tuck rule game) are still active! except for james jett who is now 48 and retired that year

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/200201190nwe.htm

This playoffs had good potential to have a cool weird match-up in the Superbowl and for it to end up the Pats vs. the Rams. Fxxx this...

I guess it might be cool to see Eric Dickerson pop up someplace on radio or TV, but this match up is lame.

Even the Boston big money crowd seems bored as I guess they are having issues selling some packages etc. At least so far, it is the easiest Superbowl ticket to get in years.

should be a good game, just a hard one to care about

I liked this piece from Slate I found:

https://slate.com/culture/2001/12/bledsoe-vs-brady-who-should-the-patriots-pick.html

The Bledsoe-Brady controversy is a perfect example of how the introduction of a salary cap has turned NFL conventional wisdom on its head. Indeed, the irony of the situation is that all the Boston talk-radio cranks convinced that Brady is a better quarterback are almost certainly wrong. Sure, the guy has fine mechanics and uncanny poise in the pocket. But despite his torrid start, four teams with solid pass defenses—Buffalo, Denver, Miami, and St. Louis—contained him handily. Brady’s rolled up his biggest numbers against the Colts, whose pass defense would have trouble keeping some 1-AA college teams out of the end zone.

Bledsoe, on the other hand, has about as good a stat sheet as you can compile in nine years of professional play. He made the Pro Bowl in his third year and led the Patriots all the way to the Super Bowl in his fourth. In 1995, he became the youngest player ever to throw for 10,000 yards; his current career stats include 136 touchdowns and nearly 30,000 yards. And he’s done all this despite an ever-changing roster of coaches that would make George Steinbrenner blush. Belichick is Bledsoe’s third head coach; the Pats’ current offensive coordinator, Charlie Weis, is his fourth.

So if this were simply about which quarterback has more talent, you’d be a fool to choose Brady. But think about what Bledsoe could fetch if the Patriots, a team with gaping holes all over the place, traded him. In April, the Atlanta Falcons gave up a first-round draft pick and a solid wide receiver-kick returner for Michael Vick. Bledsoe would probably claim an even higher bounty: Paul Zimmerman, Sports Illustrated football Svengali, recently suggested Bledsoe would probably fetch a starter plus two first-round draft picks.

Jettisoning Bledsoe would also take his $7.5 million per year contract off the books—Brady makes only $300,000 per year—next season or the season afterward, freeing up money for a desperately needed offensive lineman or two, plus a playmaker at wide receiver. (Because of the complicated rules of the cap, the Patriots could get rid of Bledsoe next year or the year after without taking a debilitating hit, though it depends in part on how they get rid of him.) In other words, you’re trading proven greatness at quarterback for four or five starters. Even if Brady turns out to be mediocre, all the extra quality players make the transaction a net winner for the team, and the surest way to turn this year’s squad—which is performing far beyond its talents, thanks to good coaching and a bit of luck—into a serious Super Bowl contender.

If Bledsoe really wants to stay with the Patriots—and, to his credit, he’s been the epitome of a loyal, club-friendly athlete for his entire stay in Foxboro—he’s welcome to take a pay cut. Otherwise, he should go. Harsh? Perhaps. But that’s the new reality of the NFL. Someday, the Tom Brady decision will turn out to be an object lesson too.

Oh, and what happens if it turns out he's actually the GOAT and Bledsoe was just above average?

lol beautiful

TBRR, though, back in those days, I thought Brady was an ok QB, who got super lucky with an outstanding supporting cast that made him look better than he was. Certainly the fact that he's been underpaid all along is the key to why they've been able to put together so many high quality teams.

it's hard to remember specifics but brady was so obviously *different,* i think part of it was being freed of expectations but they were so much looser with him whereas you could look up "labored" in a thesaurus and find bledsoe as a synonym. no disrespect to drew who is a great dude by many accounts but there was always part of him that seemed to be playing football out of obligation.

i'd like someone to dig up some actual bledsoe truther articles. there are boston media guys who never recovered from bledsoe being their main locker room source and ensuing bitterness.

brady was p much a ~game manager~ his first couple few years def wasnt clear he was gonna go nuclear, the thing that was clear tho was that the league was passing bledsoe by his feet were way too slow he just stood back there and got the shit sacked out of him, so the choice was p obvs at the time imho

from the outside looking in it was clear Bledsoe was about as legit a big game quarterback as Elvis Grbac or Jake Plummer, and Brady clearly had confidence and smarts and a Montana vibe and certain leadership skills that were impossible to teach. I mean hindsight and all but to read this in 2019 is extremely wonderful:

Bledsoe, on the other hand, has about as good a stat sheet as you can compile in nine years of professional play. He made the Pro Bowl in his third year and led the Patriots all the way to the Super Bowl in his fourth. In 1995, he became the youngest player ever to throw for 10,000 yards; his current career stats include 136 touchdowns and nearly 30,000 yards.

i mean holy cats

it's kind of crazy though to think that Drew Bledsoe's true legacy is as the guy who got Wally Pipped by both Tom Brady and Tony Romo, and was released by Buffalo so the Bills could bring on the J.P. Losman era.

also I guess it was just a different era but it is astonishing to me that his career passer rating was 77.1!

pains me to defend the nfl but those 'four super bowl officials have ties to southern california' stories are terrible and outlets should feel ashamed for running them

weird how the refs always seem to be biased against the Patriots

tom brady was born in california; perhaps he is a sleeper agent

ummm northern california hello

hmm orchestrating a move to send his backup QB to his hometown team and then he immediately is injured

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CsHAt3SUsAAvBSn.jpg

from the outside looking in it was clear Bledsoe was about as legit a big game quarterback as Elvis Grbac or Jake Plummer...

― omar little, Monday, January 28, 2019

aw this seems a bit unfair

ROB RYAN is yr new *inside* linebackers coach for the hatcats

no word on who will coach the right guards

These are supposedly the most popular #SuperBowl snacks in each state. Baked chicken breasts for CA? 😂😂😂 When in the history of EVER have you munched on baked chicken breasts while watching football??? pic.twitter.com/jl13XiNBAC

— Elina Shatkin (@elinashatkin) February 1, 2019

betcha can't eat just one

"Bledsoe was about as legit a big game quarterback as Elvis Grbac or Jake Plummer..."

Bledsoe did get wins to get them in the Superbowl twice, when you add in coming off the bench to beat the Steelers in Pittsburgh during the 2002 AFC title game.

I think the big thing for Bledsoe is that Parcells left and they just could not get above .500 those couple of years with Pete Carroll. In hindsight, it is pretty wild that Pete Carroll was the head coach between those two considering the success with USC and the Seahawks.

There was a handful of guys that were in those early Pats Superbowl teams that were also from Parcells time.

If this is the end of the road for the Pats, I will grant that playing the Rams does have some symmetry.

I was being hard on Drew. It’s just sort of a weird way for his career to go, considering he was a #1 overall draft pick and did in fact have some success.

lol at the proliferation of "cake" as superbowl snack