Not Going Anywhere

11.27.2008 1:37AM

To Trade Brady, or Not To Trade Brady
Hall of Fame QB Warren Moon, ESPN commentators think Pats should trade Brady
Written by: Boston Sports SID

Before reading this blog please take a minute to partake in brief game of Jeopardy. Please answer in the form of a question: (The answer will be at the end of the post.)
The single, stupid, idiotic, dumbest idea ever proposed by a national media conglomerate.

Bill Belichick has made bold moves in the past, such as trading Drew Bledsoe, releasing Lawyer Milloy as well as letting Ty Law, Adam Vinatieri and Asante Samuel walk when they reached their free agent years. But there is one thing that Belichick does not do. He does not make moves based on whim. Every decision the Patriots make is carefully calculated and bounced off other members of the Patriots staff to assure himself it is what is best for the football team. So to think Belichick would even consider the option of trading Tom Brady, as a big time media conglomerate brought up, is ridiculous.

Many national football commentators and fans outside New England will point to Bledsoe’s week two injury against the Jets in 2001 is what led to the emergence of Brady. Now after Brady went down with his ACL tear in week one, this might be the emergence of Matt Cassel?

Well here is the flaw in their argument. How did the Patriots do with Bledsoe at quarterback? They made it to the Super Bowl in 1996-97 against the Green Bay Packers and lost. With the Brady, the Pats became the first dynasty of the new millennium winning three championships in four years and were minutes away from winning their fourth last year. Plus Bledsoe was at the tail end of his career whereas Brady is still in the prime of his and at least five years left in his career.

To think that Belichick is going change his M.O. just so he can sooth his ego, as some commentators think, is absolutely absurd. Belichick is a CEO and like any CEO of a highly successful multi-national, million dollar corporation, he is going to do what is best for the company. Does he think he can win without Brady? Probably but does that mean he is going to drop the guy who brought him three championship rings and has potential for more?

Yes Brady is coming off a nasty ACL injury but people are making it sound like he contracted gangrene and had his left leg amputated. As of today, there has been a recent report from the quarterback himself telling Boston’s ABC affiliate on Tuesday, he is doing well in his recovery from surgery as well as a staph infection. The television station also noted that Brady appeared to be walking without a limp. This is all fans and media have to go because we know the Patriots treat injuries like state secrets. (Maybe the CIA should hire Belichick for their covert operations?)

What is getting the fans and commentators worked up, is the uncertainty of the future and the question of where is Brady going to be in eight months. But you know what? Brady does not have report to training camp until the end of July. It is not like July is going to come tomorrow. It is eight months away. Eight months is a long time in the sporting world. Eight months is two months short of many internships. Eight months is a baseball season that includes both Spring Training and the post-season. Many things can and will happen between now and the time Brady reports to camp. The future is always uncertain. When it is certain, people tend to call it the past.

Things always have a way of working out. Remember back to Spring Training 2006? The Red Sox had seven starters on their roster heading into Spring Training and they figured seven was too much so they traded Bronson Arroyo to Cincinnati for what they thought was young power hitter in Wily Mo Pena. Well as the season progressed and Matt Clement landed on the disabled list, Josh Beckett was having a hard time adjusting to the American League and David Wells was David Wells. They ended up finishing the season in third place behind the Yankees and Blue Jays with four-A guys making the starts in August and September. The Sox could have definitely used Arroyo at the tail end of 2006. But they learned that you can never have enough pitching because even if you have 20 starting pitchers in spring training, things always have a way of working out.

It is no different than what the Patriots are going through right now. What we need right now is a Rosevelt Colvin “calm down.” The Pats will have bigger questions in the off-season, mainly improving the secondary by stacking the deck with the defensive backs as well as re-signing nose tackle Vince Wilfork. The quarterback comes in third when it comes to the needs of the team.

Eight months is along way away and things have ways of working themselves out.

-- BOSTON SPORTS SID

ANSWER TO THE JEOPARDY QUESTION is:
Should the Patriots trade star quarterback Tom Brady?

Never judge a book by its cover

11.13.08 11:10PM

Things are never as they appear to be
Unnamed Jets player cowardly calls out Pats defense

A member of the New York Jets offensive unit told New York Post columnist Mark Cannizzaro, in today’s newspaper, the Patriots defense was “vulnerable.” In addition to saying they were vulnerable, he added the Pats were “slow and old.” The player did not want to go on the record because he was afraid of giving New England bulletin board material.

Now I will agree the Patriots are vulnerable in the defensive secondary but some of the other things I have been hearing about the Patriots defense is malarkey and this takes the cake. Once I heard the nonsense the same nonsense, referred to by the national commentators about the Pats defense, come out of a Jets player’s mouth, I knew I had to comment.

First off, this is stupid on the Jets player's part. Just because you did not put a name to the comment does not mean it is not going be going on the Patriots locker room bulletin board? Where is that logic? The Pats will use any verbal threat against them no matter who said. All you did Mr. Anonymous Jet was throw your entire team under the bus because the Patriots will just go for the jugular and step on the throats of the entire Jets team than go after one play like they did to Anthony Smith of Pittsburgh last year.

And secondly, the myth of the Patriots defense is old is nothing more than a fallacy. Many national commentators and fans like to believe this myth because for the last five years, the five corps members of the Patriot defense have played together for the last five straight years. But in reality does that make the defense older? Like Jamie Hyneman, from the TV show Mythbusters, I was set out to dispel the notion New England was an aging defense and succeeded.

Much like the Red Sox have been doing recently of incorporating the younger guys with the veterans, the Patriots patented the trend. They started on the defensive line because every defense starts with the front line. If there are holes, the size a tractor trailer can pass through in the front line, then the opposition’s artillery will easily run right through. In 2001 Bill Belichick drafted a young 22-year old defensive end out of a Georgia, Richard Seymour and inserted him into a line of veterans. Two years later, Belichick did the same with 2003 first round pick, Ty Warren and the next year with Vince Wilfork. Now here we are five years later, with the same front three still all under the age of 30.

Sure Tedy Bruschi and Mike Vrabel are getting up there in age but this past off-season Belichick made it a point to get young on defense. With the 10^th overall pick in this year’s draft, Patriots selected the 22-year-old out of Tennessee, Jerod Mayo, who is currently leading the team in tackles through nine games. In one sense the Patriots are slow; they are slowly incorporating youth with the veterans. It is the only way to re-build their franchise without looking like they are re-building

It is the M.O. of a championship team. They are constantly rebuilding their system like at the college level. Did the Red Sox look old this past year? Yes. They had an aging and diminishing catcher, third baseman and designated hitter that are the face of the franchise. But after incorporating Jonathan Papelbon, Jon Lester, Dustin Pedroia, Jacoby Ellsbury, Justin Masterson and Jed Lowrie with the good group of veterans each of the last four years, they have two World Championships to show for it. Belichick is no different.

When it comes to football, Belichick’s heartless. He knows there is no room for loyalties when winning is at stake. It is a cruel "what have you done for me lately" business. He released Lawyer Milloy, a player who Belichick liked so much, back before the season in 2003 when he thought the safety no longer could help the team. He let Ty Law, now with the hated Jets, and Willie McGinnest walk when their skills were diminishing. And every time he let a player go, either on defense, offense or special teams, more times than not, Belichick has made the right move.

It may appear to the casual football fan the Patriots are getting older on the defensive side of the ball but you have too look a little closer and go deep into the endzone to see the truth. The average age of the Patriots defense, at 27.6 years of age, is not just younger than the offense (28.1) but they are younger than the Jets defense (27.7) on the other side of the field. So I sign off once again digging through the memory bank to the days of elementary school to “never judge a book by its cover” because on the inside things are not always as they appear to be on the outside.