Notes on yesterday's Patriots game, after being there on a beautiful cool, breezy Halloween evening, and then settling in for a viewing afterwards:
- Adrian Peterson still hasn't crossed the goal line. Not when we watched it live (from that end of the stadium even), not watching it on myriad replays on Gillette's often malfunctioning big screens, nor watching it later on TV. Jerrod Mayo had a spectacular hit on him and he was well short of the mythical "plane". Heck, the TV announcers didn't think it crossed the plane either. Not sure what replays the officials were looking at but we wuz robbed on that one. And it knocked Peterson out for a series even - that's how hard he got hit in mid-air.
- On the other hand, Ben-Jarvis Green-Ellis was definitely in on his TD mid-air spin move. While it was on the other end of the stadium, it still looked good to us and replays showed it, although my home viewing did bring up the possibility of his elbow being down, which we didn't notice at the time. But even if his elbow did touch the ground, the ball was still over the line.
- What's up with Tom Brady? There were very few of the pinpoint accurate laser beams we've come to expect from Tom Terrific. Instead, it was a parade of throws to the feet and, most commonly, behind the receivers. One thing I could really see from my end zone seats were just how many wide open receivers he was missing. Sure, his spin-a-rama TD throw to Brandon Tate was a thing of beauty, but I wish he'd start hitting the easier passes a little more frequently. The bizarre juggling catch Tate had earlier in the game, on the pass that should have been intercepted, never should have been that close. Tate was wide open but Brady was late delivering the ball and it was still behind him. Injury to the shoulder or elbow? Maybe the knee is still bothering him?
- Speaking of the bouncing almost interception, what the hell was Childress thinking when he challenged the play? I'd love to know what he thought went wrong. The ball clearly just went through the defensive back's hands (you know what they say about defensive backs - if they could catch the ball they would be wide receivers), never came anywhere near the ground, and Tate most clearly had full possession when he was downed and even then never lost the ball. Very strange. Troy Aikman speculated somewhat incoherently that perhaps Childress was gunshy after blowing a few challenges earlier in the year, but I'm not sure that makes sense.
- Think it is about time one of the Patriot linebackers start covering the back coming out of the backfield? Wow, a couple of times there wasn't a red jersey within 20 yards of the receiver.
- Speaking of red jerseys, Troy said he really liked the look but as my friend said, they remind us too much of the bad old days. I actually prefer the away throwback jerseys anyway, white with red trim.
- Still unexplained are the two half-hearted quarterback sneaks from the 1 yard line as the clock wound down after the Law Firm's wonderful 20 yard run. I was hoping for some info, or at least speculation by the TV announcers, but they were prattling on about something or the other and not even paying attention to the play. The sneaks didn't look very serious, more like time killers. I know the Vikings were out of timeouts, and it shaved about a minute and half off the clock, but still - a TD there makes it a two score game and surely that's enough? But it was like they knew they could score whenever they wanted and just punched it in on third down. Still, a little weird.
- A lot of purple at th
e game. Not sure when the last time the Vikings came to Foxboro (it must be ten years or so), but the local Viking fans came out in droves. Probably the biggest showing for a visiting team after the Dolphins, who always have a ton of fans at the game. - For some reason, they felt the need to burn a Moss jersey in the lot where we tailgated before the game. I'd say the crowd was ambivalent at best. A smattering of boos and applause for the one Moss catch. Not sure what ovation he was talking about in his postgame conference.
Leave a comment