Letters to the Editor
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Fairness, round 146
"Use those other great teams as comparison points. Likely quite a few of them could have beaten other teams by this kind of margin, but they didn't."
I've got to disagree with you, Lynx. That's not even an argument; it's an unsubstantiated assertion based on a gut feeling. If you want that argument to mean anything, I'd want you to really do an analysis of teams that have outscored opponents by wide margins, to show when touchdowns were made at what point in the scoring differential of the game. For all the games in question. Even then, and even with the modifier "likely", I don't think your argument is persuasive without a better offensive and defensive analysis of the teams in question.
So let's talk about last night's game specifically. Take away the last touchdown, because I'm assuming that you're not going to argue that a defenseman running in a pick/recovery for a touchdown is anything other than a normal instinctive reaction. (What? Hobbs was supposed to, in the heat of the moment, think to himself as he caught that ball, "gosh, we're already winning by a wide enough margin, I should run out of bounds to give the other guys a fighting chance"?)
In all seriousness, if the game is out of reach in the 3rd quarter, as it was -- what exactly do you want the Patriots to do? Put in their backup quarterback even earlier? Never pass, run on every single play? Start taking a knee rather than run into the end-zone? Kick field goals instead of go for a touchdown?
To an opponent you respect (i.e. one that you don't write off), what is "respectful" about some of those choices? Kicking field goals might result in a lower-looking final score, but going for it gives your opponent a much greater chance to actually stop you from scoring. It's also difficult to argue, looking at this game and at some of the other games this season, that the Pats switching to an all-running game would have had all that great an effect on the final outcome; maybe opponents could have stopped more of the scoring drives, maybe not. It's an unknown; even though the Pats are playing uncannily well, you also can't argue that a passing game is *impossible* to stop in comparison with a running game. (Which is to say, the Pats sticking with a passing game doesn't mean their opponents have no chance at all to stop them.)
And putting in your backup QB and fourth and fifth string players earlier? A number of people would interpret *that* as disrespect ("you're not worthy of our playing our best guys against you any more"), as well they should. I don't honestly understand the mentality that Brady and Moss and Welker and a number of other players on the team are just "too good", separately and together, and therefore the Pats shouldn't allow them to play past a certain point. (Yes, I understand the injury debate, but I think that is a separate consideration and would prefer to consider it separately.)
Why is being "fair" to the opposing players (with surprising claims about their fragile egos) so much more important than being "fair" to the Pats players whose crime at the moment appears to be that they're at the top of their games, and they want to PLAY? What is, come to that, so awful about them wishing to set records? (Or, why do we cheer on certain players or teams in certain sports who pursue records, but chastise players/teams in other sports for the same thing?)
You're Randy Moss and you've slogged through a number of years when you weren't playing to the level you knew you could, because you didn't have the right pieces around you, and now you're on a team where it's all clicking and it's beautiful -- and people are calling for you to *not play* and sit out half a game because... um, why? Why should you have to stop doing the thing you enjoy and that you're good at?
I don't see what the logic is about expecting a team of professional athletes to start voluntarily *handicapping* themselves in order to... look humble? Not make their equally-paid professional opponents "look bad"? Why is this an ethos in football when it's surely not an ethos in baseball? (Or were you similarly decrying the Indians pasting the Red Sox 13-6 in extra innings during the ALDS?)
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Another way to take a penalty advantageously
Another penalty that the Washington defense should have taken was just before Dallas punted at the end of the game. Washington was out of timeouts and Dallas had just run the ball on third down, leaving 4th and more than 5 yards with the clock running. The teams lined up, and Dallas just waited until the play clock was running low before they snapped. Had Washington jumped offsides, the clock would have stopped, and Dallas would have gained 5 meaningless yards. Even if the rule of running off 10 seconds applied there (does it apply only to offenses?), it still would have saved time for Washington. Ah, the intricacies of clock management!
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I'm Starting To Like The Pats Coach
Since the "cheating" stuff from the media and fans, he's gettin' redneck---"If you faggots want to think we're winning by 40 because of video tape, go ahead."
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Cheating
You're right W.E.S., they probably weren't winning by 40 from that videotape. It is most likely the other ways they're cheating.
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Re: "I'm Starting To Like The Pats Coach"
The only problem with that is they got caught cheating during the first game of the year and then they started on their roll.
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sgaana
I already said what they should do. Put in your backup earlier, run the ball more, go for clock management. None of that shows up in the long term stats the way running up the score does and that's why the Pats are doing it.
And again, you don't say they're not doing it, you just question why it is bad. I say it is bad for the reasons they seem to be doing it.
They may be a good team, they may even be the best playing right now, but you have to admit that playing in a division where no other team hits 500 has to help. They've had an incredibly weak schedule and the 2 teams they played (Colts and Cowboys) that were playing at a similar level had a good shot at beating them until very late in the games.