Tuesday, December 1, 2009

The Latest Team To Quit On A Game This Year: The New England Patriots

We talked quite a bit about teams quitting in the beginning of the year but then that sort of faded as we got further into the year, well, it happened again and it happened on Monday Night Football to the team that won more Super Bowls this decade than any other team. That's right. The New England Patriots quit.

With 5:40 left in the game and down by 21, Bill Belichick pulled Tom Brady in favor of Brian Hoyer. Now surely he was not putting him in to start a QB controversy or he is even remotely thinking about starting Hoyer the next game. He wanted to put him in for mop-up duty or just to see what the kid has. Just one problem: the game is not out of reach at that point!

Now I know what you are saying, but JFein, down by 21 points with 5 minutes left in the 4th quarter is surely a game over, no? Well, you're wrong That game is not over. How can I say that? There is precedence for such a comeback. I take you back to Monday, October 6, 2003. Down by 21 with 3:43 left in the game, Manning led a successful comeback to force OT, an OT that we all remember by one word: Leaping.

But the bottom line, the precedent was there not only at the end of the game, but how many times in general have we seen a team explode for 21 points in a period of 5-minutes in a game. Granted it does not happen every day, but it happens and who knows what would have happened had the Pats kept playing. Maybe Brady continues his dreadful day or maybe he rebounds, the world will never know as the Hoody decided to play Brian Hoyer and thus gave up on trying to win that game.

Congrats to the New Orleans Saints on a well-deserved win. Now here's hoping that they don't suffer the let down the next week as we see so many times when we see a team win a big game like that.

1 comment:

  1. Yea,seems to me when the Pats where beating teams during the undefeated season B.B. motto was 'we play 60 minutes of football". I guess that only pertains if your up by at least 20,if your down more than 20 you just quit.

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