November 30, 2008: The Beating Tom Brady Should’ve Taken, But Escaped
Pre-Game Commentary Week 1
By PalmerSucks
September 8, 2015
By all accounts, game 12 of the 2008 season was a terrific one for Stillers fans. The Stillers went up to Foxborough, a place where they’d often struggled, and simply stomped out the New England Patriots. As lopsided as the 33-10 score looked, it didn’t do justice to what an utter and complete ass kicking this was. The victory was sweet, a good old-school physical Stillers beatdown, and Stiller fans everywhere celebrated the entire week afterwards.
Everyone except me, that is.
For me, the game was more about who didn’t play that week. For me, the victory was dulled by the absence of one player, a player who should’ve been sharing his teammates’ pain, but thanks to a freak injury got to watch his poor back-up absorb the pounding instead, safe and sound from the warm, cozy comfort of the owner’s box.
That player was Tom Brady, and to this day it makes me sick he wasn’t in uniform taking his lumps that game.
The Stillers had beaten Brady before, but never in Foxborough, where he’d tortured them in the past. But this time the Stillers brought their championship ’08 defensive unit, in my opinion the best of the decade. Harrison was in his scary Deebo prime, Woodley was in shape still, and together just terrorized QBs. Aaron Smith still manned the DL and Troy Pola still had the legs to roam the entire field like a crazed bandit. Going into the game the defense hadn’t allowed a single opponent to reach 300 yards of total offense. They looked truly dominant.
That day they simply dominated the Patriots, as I’d never seen them dominate them before. The Patriots all-pro left tackle, Matt Light, couldn’t handle Harrison, and their quarterback, Matt Cassel, became a punching bag, going down five times and getting hit and hurried most of the game. But other players had it even worse: Ryan Clark just plain laid out Wes Welker, knocking him out of the game, and the great Randy Moss grew a pair of alligator arms that caused him to drop two key passes. Stiller defenders flew around like witches on brooms, laying the hurt all afternoon. By the fourth quarter the Patriots offense had been scared into submission.
Watching Brady participate in this whooping would’ve been a true pleasure. Instead, we got to hear Patriots fans afterwards whine that their golden boy didn’t dress. I’ve had this debate with Pats fans who claim the outcome would’ve been different had Brady played, which is ridiculous. Tom Brady is a lot of things, but mobile isn’t one of them. Compared to Brady, Cassel is Usain Bolt, and if anything, the boot-footed Brady would’ve been sacked more times and taken more abuse than his understudy. When an offensive line is overrun the way the Patriots’ line was that day, I don’t care who the QB is. That team is toast.
What’s more, going into the game the Patriots were rolling along with Cassel just as well as – maybe even better than -- with Brady, Cassel throwing for more than 400 yards in the two previous contests and racking up red-hot 103 and 114 passer ratings. That day though the elite Stiller D bludgeoned him into a 19-for-39, 169 yard, 39-rating nightmare. The cooled-down Cassel threw no TDs and 2 interceptions, and simply had no chance under such relentless pressure.
Tom Brady’s worst losses have come when he’s been pressured, as he was in both Super Bowls against the Giants. Let me tell you, what the Giants did to New England in either of those games was nothing compared to how the Stillers manhandled the entire Pats’ offense that game. And the man who escaped the massacre, the way he always seems to wriggle out of things, was Tom Brady. That’s why when you hear about how he “owns” the Stillers, I laugh. His record should include the worst defeat he’d ever taken, but didn’t.
Fast forward to 2015, in another contest against the Stillers he almost missed. The defense he’ll be facing, of course, is a far cry from that great ’08 unit. The Stillers bring in a new scheme and new faces to replace household names, and so far in pre-season the results have been ugly. How bad has it been this pre-season? Opposing QBs completed a ridiculous 80 percent of their passes, for an embarrassing cumulative 122 passer rating and not a single interception. The Buffalo Bills, aka “the team without a quarterback” found that just about any QB they stuck in there could look like Jim Kelly in his prime.
No wonder then so many people are predicting Brady will simply sauté the newly rebuilt Stiller D – many of them being Stiller fans. Around the ‘net and on the talk shows you’ll hear chatter about New England laying a 40 or even 50-burger on the Stillers Thursday night.
To be sure the task of stopping New England will be difficult, but I’m not sold on total Stillers meltdown based on just pre-season. For one thing, the D has been playing without guys like Timmons and Tuitt. Most of the guys you’ve watched get toasted are now bagging groceries somewhere. What’s more, and what nobody is talking about, is that this year’s New England team isn’t as good as the one from last season.
For one thing, their secondary has issues with Revis gone, with the Pats forced to use safety Devin McCourty at cornerback. They’ve also lost a lot with Wilfork, and teams have found it easier to run on them. But here’s something else not everyone has been talking about: the absolutely crummy numbers Tom Brady has put up this preseason.
Granted, there are excuses to be made for him, such as the fact he’s played some without his top receivers and the fact he might be distracted by a certain suspension-related drama. But I’ve seen some of his games: his passes have often sailed high or turfed lawn. So let’s play a little game of “what if?” for a second.
What if there really is something to this whole Deflategate flap, and Brady did actually get some of his game from rendering his footballs so squishy? The new rules passed this summer make it harder than ever to play psi games, and Brady no longer has the “Deflator” on staff to help out. What if one of Brady’s passes sails early, and gets picked? What if he becomes a far less effective QB in the post-Deflator era? Sure, maybe he’ll come out smoking as everybody seems to expect, but keep this though in mind just in case.
I had looked forward to a shoot-out, but the absence of Bryant, as I covered in my previous commentary, kind of makes this game anti-climactic for me. Though I think the Stillers should air it out minus Bryant anyway, my fear is that they’ll lapse into ball-control, and the offense minus Bell will resemble the one that faced Baltimore in the playoff game.
The pressure will be on the Stillers offense in a way it won’t be on New England’s. The Stillers can’t afford three-and-outs or turnovers. If they can’t score, they at least need to keep the ball moving downfield. Likewise, the Stillers defense, should it get chances for turnovers, can’t afford to miss. The normally sure-handed Brandon Boykin showed he belongs in a Stillers uniform when he dropped a sure pick-six against Buffalo. Things like that can’t happen Thursday night if the Stillers hope to win.
ABOUT TOM BRADY AND THAT “OWNERSHIP” THING
Patriots fans like to brag that Tom Brady “owns” the Stillers, but contrary to popular delusion, his presence behind center doesn’t guarantee victory. I personally witnessed the Stillers “own” Brady at Heinz Field in 2011, by taking away his interior-pocket comfort zone. The 25-17 score wasn’t as close as it looked, as only Stillers red-zone goofs kept New England in a game where they were dominated two-to-one in both total yards and possession. Brady was credited with 2 TDs, but one of them came off an eight-yard “drive” set up by a pick return.
The ’11 defense, which wasn’t half as good as the ’08 unit, handled Brady easily (so much for that argument about the ’08 game, Patriots fans). We’ll find out soon enough if the ’15 defense can begin to measure up, and what Keith Butler has in store for him scheme-wise.
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I think Belichick’s defensive game plan is obvious: double or even triple-team Brown, and dare Wheaton to beat you. Then stick at least one safety up in the box every play. He’s probably also seen clips of sticky-hands Heath Miller now dropping passes, and won’t concern himself much with the aging TE.
If the Steelers can put up a few TDs, then it comes down to whether or not the Stillers can put interior pressure on Tom Brady. Brady has no problem dealing with outside rushers, as he’s maybe the best in the game at sliding over and creating passing lanes. What he struggles with is inside pressure, that won’t allow him to step up into the pocket (something the NY Giants defense achieved consistently in their Super Bowl meetings).
Tom Brady is now the most overrated QB of all time. Now, before you have a stroke, remember I didn’t say “Tom Brady sucks”; I’m merely saying this relative to his now being called the “best ever” after barely squeaking out a Super Bowl win. For all his excellence, Brady doesn’t handle pressure and hits as well as other past greats – he’s surprisingly easy to handle when your rushers can penetrate the inside gaps. In fact, the main reason the Patriots won the Super Bowl is because Seattle couldn’t muster the kind of pressure they put on Peyton Manning the previous year.
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THE PATRIOTS ON OFFENSE:
New England runs a rather unusual passing scheme. Rather than relying on jet-burner wideouts, theirs centers around “possession” receiver Julian Edelman and tight end Rob Gronkowski. Often Edelman will run picks for Gronkowski, as he did on one of the Super Bowl’s key plays, a third-down conversion where he took out 245-lb. KJ Wright. (Of course, Gronkowski’s own downfield ability is well known, and in the past he’s abused smaller Stillers safeties for big plays.) One killer play in particular has Edelman running a 10-yard comeback route, spinning deftly off the defender to create separation (the Patriots ran a shorter variation near the goal line against Seattle, resulting in a huge late-game TD). With Gronkowski running deep intermediate routes and Edelman chipping in the shorter ones, the Patriots are a handful for both safeties and linebackers. The Stillers must also be aware of trick plays with Edelman, who played quarterback in college.
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The Stillers will be dealing with an overheated chowderhead crowd drunk on banner raising and victory over Goodell, and a team that will be making the obligatory chip-on-the-shoulder thing out of Deflategate. All week you’ll be hearing the sports media slobbering about how “mad” Tommy is and how they pity the fools who will be suffering his wrath. But there is one sure way to put a stop to Revenge Tour ’15: a couple of good hard James Harrison hits, to do the job the judge refused to do. And if it’s a little borderline, this time I have a feeling the Commissioner won’t be so eager to come down on the man like he did last time. Think Harrison isn’t a little cheesed off seeing Brady walk? It’s time to put anger into action. It’s time to cut short that victory lap and wipe that alligator grin off Brady’s face.
You want bulletin-board material – how about this? The script is now written for the Tom Brady Victory Story, with the Stillers playing the role of the background bad guys. The story goes like this: Tommy wins in court, then marches in triumphantally for the banner-raising ceremony. It’s a foregone conclusion he leads the team to the big win, just to make the story complete.
So what’s it going to be Stillers? Will the defense rise up, or will they again depend on Roethlisberger to pull enough plays out of his behind to keep them competing? Remember though, the last time they tried that. The Stillers hung in there until a single offensive mistake stopped their scoring momentum, and not even 4 Roethlisberger TDs and a figgie could prevent a loss.
That day the Patriots hung up 55 points. There are folks out there who think they could do even better this time around. So why not go with the crowd, and play like you’ve got to score even more? Run Archer deep, wheel out Coates and toss in a ‘tonio Brown option pass. Maybe even send out Vick for a series and have him chuck it deep with that cannon of an arm. The Stillers offensive lineup without Bell and Bryant is fairly vanilla – you’re going to have to add in as much spice as possible.
I believe the Stillers can win if they can press the New England receivers, disrupt their timing and allow their rushers a chance to get to Brady. The “LeBeau approach” – giving up cushions and free releases in return for not giving up long pass plays, won’t work against this quarterback. Like it or not, the Stillers defense is going to have to make some contact and take some chances.
BRADY BY THE NUMBERS
An interesting phenomenon occurs when you look at Tom Brady’s yards-per-passes attempted averages in his games against Pittsburgh:
YPA vs. Stillers (wins): 8.8
YPA vs. Stillers (losses): 6.0
YPA (Career): 7.4
Brady’s been pampered with excellent protection most of his career, and nowhere has this factor weighed in than in his games against the Stillers. In their two wins, the Stillers have held him well below his career 7.4 YPA, just as they’ve allowed a much higher average in their losses. But note the mathematical symmetry: Brady’s YPA in the losses are 1.4 points below his career average, just as his average rises exactly 1.4 points higher in his wins. This suggests he’s been practically as good when not under pressure as bad when the Stillers have been able to harass him. Whether or not they can pressure Brady is likely what will determine the outcome of the game on Thursday, too.
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NOTES: The Stillers released my draft favorite Anthony Chickillo and 4th-round pick Doran Grant to make room for waivers pick-up Jordan Todman (no doubt after the Stillers realized Dri Archer was their new number-two RB). I understand the need for a back, but Jonas Gray was out there after being cut by New England. Gray is not only of the few NFL backs to rush for 200 yards in a game, he also was a potential treasure trove of intelligence about the Patriots. Instead the Stillers bring in Todman and nobody says a word; it’s just another sunny day for Teflon Kevin Colbert and Magic Mike Tomlin. The Grant cut was absolutely ASININE, risking losing a high draft choice who’s looked good at a position where the Stillers desperately need help. Fortunately they were able to re-sign both Chickillo and Grant. I was encouraged to see the Stillers sign CB Ross Cockrell, a player I thought they should’ve drafted originally.