Belichick’s biggest win ever

By Os Davis  |   Wednesday, October 22, 2008  |  Comments( 5 )

New England Patriots
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Forget Super Bowl XXXVI, never mind the 2006-07 divisional championship, disregard last year’s Week 17 matchup against an overly frisky New York Giants club, and even leave his first as New England Patriots coach: Monday night’s victory over the Denver Broncos may well have been the most important win Bill Belichick has scored in his tenure as Pats head.

Commentary: Aside from what New England stood to lose by losing – realistic hope of overtaking the Buffalo Bills in the AFC East this season, untold siphoning off that intangible fear factor inspired in opponents – Belichick’s very reputation was, if not at stake, certainly at risk of becoming utterly veneer-less among the punditry.

Though only an alternate universe’s football fans will really know for sure, a loss to the Broncos might have triggered a subsequent quiet acceptance of the spoiler role and created a non-caring graveyard spiral of a disappointing season. The mainstream media would have us believe that Randy Moss was (and still may be) this close to pulling an angrier, quieter Terrell Owens routine. Empirical data – i.e., watching the games – seemed to suggest meanwhile that this team simply has little confidence in Matt Cassell, a heretofore undeniably fair feeling after working with a Tom Brady.

The Patriots went into the game with a suddenly makeshift running attack of Sammy Morris, the always dependable Kevin Faulk, and RF365 favorite BenJarvus Green-Ellis; a frankly recently laughable secondary that has looked even worse than that eminently beatable bunch of 2005; and an offensive line that, even when healthy, looked terrible (who said first that Nick “The Narc” Kaczur’s drug problem would become a team problem? Ahem.)

Belichick fashioned a game plan accepting his limitations, yet playing it in that indomitable Patriot style: Twice going for it on fourth-and-short and going to the hot hand (hoot foot?) of Morris; generally mixing up the ground game to contrasting styles against a tenuous-at-best run defense; and throwing multiple guys back into coverage to stop the pass-wackiest Bronco team in years.

And the Patriots did it against the NFL’s great anti-Belichick force: Mike Shanahan. (Talk about your classic lesser-of-two-evils matchup for much of football fandom, eh?) Entering the game, Belichick’s Patriots were just 2-5 against Shanahan-led Bronco teams and the first of these was The Hooded One’s very first New England win back in Week 5 of year 2000! What other franchise has gone anywhere near 5-1 against Belichick’s Broncos as Patriots head coach?

Yet questionable, Brady-less New England made it look one-sided, made “Monday Night Football” look akin to a rerun highlight clip (Patriot-wise) of 2004 or 2007. (Incidentally, it's surely no coincidence that the coach went back to the now-infrequently seen Buddha-esque torn hoodie look for the Broncos.) Belichick even went so far as to call a hurry-up offense with the Patriots up 34-0. Showboating? Maybe, if you insist on calling it that. Preparing Cassel for the long grind ahead through the season and into the playoffs? Oh yes.

Playoffs for these Patriots? After this win, you bet. The 4-2 Patriots are now thoroughly in the thick of the AFC and AFC East playoff hunt, and the certain confidence-booster may be enough to keep them at this higher level of play for some time. Tell you what: With Cassel finding ways to work with his sorry non-support up front and guys like Jerod Mayo improving in leaps and bounds game to game, this Patriots team is just going to get more dangerous the longer it sticks around.

Nice motivation, coach.

Injury watch: It’s early and the Patriots are mysterious, but we do know that Laurence Maroney has finally taken thousands of fantasy football owners out of their misery by landing on the IR – so much for that breakout season. Sadly (Patriot-wise), Rodney Harrison is also gone for the remainder of 2008.

Fantasy football impact: Without Harrison, do you still start the Patriot ‘D’ or ‘DST’ against the St. Louis Rams? Sure, if you have no better options. Owners who gathered Moss may finally see some (perhaps intermittent) payoff for drafting Randy high. As throughout the season, the Patriots have few big stat guys and the running game is still wildly unpredictable – good ol’ fantasy team killer Belichick ...
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About Os Davis

Os Davis has taken a twisted route to get to RealFootball365.com in his nearly 17 years in professional writing, working in any number of capacities in the sportswriting, news reporting and film criticism worlds. In print media, Os has served as editor at a few publications, including Albuquerque's...
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