Boston is a rabid sports town. The fans obsess about the local teams and are currently enthralled with the Boston Bruins playoff collapse, the Celtics success versus the Cavaliers and the struggling Red Sox. On Monday, the Bruins unveiled a statue of Bobby Orr commemorating his Stanley Cup winning goal in 1970.
Boston’s five term mayor Thomas Menino spoke at the unveiling about Boston sports teams and embarassed himself with two major gaffes. You can see video clip below.
I am currently watching the Pats-Broncos game and am pleasantly surprised. I was concerned this AM thinking about the upcoming games because of how good Cutler looked in the few games where I saw him. He is certainly not looking very good tonight and the defense is getting pressure on him which is a nice change.
The one downside is the running back sitaution. Sammy Morris was fantastic in the first half and is now out. The new guy looks okay at best. Hopefully he does not have a serious injury and Lamont Jordan will be back as well.
The other intangible point is that the team just looks very motivated tonight. They have a hunger that was missing from past games. Now, if they can only maintain that for future games.
I watched the Pats game on Sunday with great interest. The team was coming off a win vs. the Niners and before that a loss to the Dolphins. I was interested to see how the team would perform against the Chargers, a team that has had a tough year, and has a reasonably strong offense and defense.
The game was a tremendous disappointment. We all knew that the Patriots offense would suffer with the loss of Brady; however, most people thought that the offense would do okay and the defense would help. The defensive perspective was fueled by the addition of Dom Capers, the return of a 100% health Richard Seymour and numerous additions in the secondary. (Of course, the Pats lost Asante Samuel, but the thought was that improvements in other secondary players would help.)
My frustration with the game yesterday was that the defense looked hopeless. Rivers picked the secondary apart and they gave up far to many big plays. Part of the problem was that the front line did not get enough pressure and the secondary simply could not effectively cover the Charger’s wide receivevers. This was a huge problem all night. Compounding these defensive issues is an effective offense, but I would give the offense a bit more leeway given that Cassell is the QB.
In short, the Pats offense and defensive are looking terrible right now. The offense is understandable given the Brady injury, but the defense is not. They should and must do better if they expect to even make the playoffs. I have no idea what it will take for the defense to step it up. If they continue to play like they did on Sunday, it will be a painfully long season and they will be lucky to go 8-8.
The Pats Dolphins game was horrid. I have always been concerned about the offense given that Brady went down, but the game was a complete mess on both sides of the ball. I could see if they lost because of their offense, but in this case the entire performance was pitiful and the defense was porous at best. Heck, it was questionable whether they could even stop our local pop warner team!
I have no idea what went on and think that it was just a general lack of intensity. That is no excuse, these guys are paid millions of dollars for their intensity and desire to win. There is just no excuse for such a poor showing. The ultimate frustration is that the Pats had this great streak going and to lose it like this is just awful.
The Pats now head into the bye week and a definite low. Hopefully they emerge from this two week hiatus with a renewed focus on winning. If not, we are in for a long and painful season.
I have been a bit remiss in not posting recently in the blog. One of the biggest sports stories here in Boston has been the injury to Tom Brady’s knee. It was a very bad thing for the team and the result was that Matt Cassell had to step in. Given Matt’s non-existent NFL starting experience, the big question was how he would perform.
The good news was that he performed well. He certainly was not spectacular, but he did enough to enable the team to win. Clearly the defense played tremendously well and they deserve quite a bit of credit for the win.