Tuesday, January 29, 2002
Patriots need hugs, not disses
NEW ORLEANS — The New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick said Monday he'll announce after practice Wednesday whom his starting quarterback will be, thereby eliminating anything newsworthy or interesting about his team for the next two days.
The Patriots are here. Apparently.
They should have lost two weekends ago, at home in the snow, but for a bad rule validated by replay, which is also bad. There are two words for replay: It. Stinks. Pro football is a game played by humans, judged by humans, then re-judged by videotape. Nothing dulls the tingle of a hot-blooded playoff game like five minutes of watching some zebra crawl beneath a glare-defying hood to study a re-run, then emerge to offer an explanation as complex as a split atom.
They serve a purpose
Tom Brady fumbled against the Raiders, yes he did. The Patriots should be home, buying Doritos.
We don't say this meaning any disrespect to the Pats because, frankly, additional disrespect is not necessary. At this point, dissing the Patriots is a 15-yard penalty for piling on.
We shouldn't diss them. We should adopt them, the way weird ladies living alone adopt stray cats. The Pats opened as 14-point Super underdogs to the St. Louis Rams. Like them or not, the Rams are compelling like a ticking package. They play offense as if they invented it. You can talk all you like about the importance of defense. But offense, like home runs, sells tickets and keeps couch potatoes from going comatose.
There is one sexy team here, and another that arrived on the back of a truck. There is Ali, and there is his entourage. Springsteen needs people to haul his guitars, the president has his handlers. Hertz has its Avis. So, too, the Rams have the Patriots.
Go ahead: Adopt them
That's not to say the Rams are mortal locks to win their second Big Bowl in three years. Just because you're Springsteen doesn't guarantee the house band won't occasionally out-rock you. The Patriots are gutty, resourceful and inspired. They slugged Pittsburgh in front of Steelers fans wearing Mardi Gras beads. The Pats know everyone thinks they're footwipes for Kurt Warner and Marshall Faulk. That's powerful motivation.
Said Lawyer Milloy, the All Pro safety, “Everybody's talking about how lucky we are to be here. We are a good team. We know how to win close games. I don't want to get on the disrespect thing. People are overlooking us, and that's fine. We're all about us. The only way we dug out of the 0-2 (start) was by hanging in there together.”
After the Patriots won at Pittsburgh, Milloy said if his team wins the Super Bowl, “We'll have a party and no one else will be invited.”
Yeah, OK. But you lost to the Bengals.
Ty Law, Milloy's running mate in the secondary — and they will run lots Sunday, like sprinters in a triathlon — offered this bit of moxie Monday, speaking of the Rams flood of receivers:
“If you got a man, cover him. That's it. If you got a zone, protect that zone. A lot of (players) get caught up in: Are they going to have Isaac (Bruce)? Are they gonna have Tory (Holt), or are they gonna have Az-Hakim? A lot of defenders get shook up about it. We just gotta play.”
More power to 'em. Adopt a Patriot Sunday and feel good about yourself.
E-mail: pdaugherty@enquirer.com. Past columns at Enquirer.com/columns/daugherty.
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Patriots need hugs, not disses
