The Blue Bleeders must really be hemorrhaging now after last Sunday’s debacle at Foxboro Stadium. Just in case you somehow got off of the planet and didn’t return until just now, I will repeat the score for you, 45-7, New England Patriots. This is the second time this season the Pats have given the Horseshoe an embarrassing spanking. You will recall that on the eleventh Sunday of the schedule, November 16 to be exact, those very same Patriots laid a 42-20 shellacking on our boys from the Lucas Oil Corral. We thought that was bad. Little did we know, huh? What makes it worse is that they beat us pretty much the same way in the playoffs that they did in the regular season. They ran the ball down our throats. In November a third string runningback named Jonas Gray came off the bench and carried the ball for New England 37 times for 201 yards rushing. On four of those carries he made it to the end zone. Considering that for the whole season Mr. Gray carried the ball just 89 times for 412 rushing yards and 5 touchdowns total, you can see just how much Jonas has to be grateful to the Colt defense for. Yet, the team learned nothing from that first encounter with the Pats. Last Sunday, LaGarrette Blount, who now is the second string runningback for New England, ran 30 times against the Colt defense and gained 148 yards on those carries and more importantly, he rushed for 3 touchdowns.
The week before in the New England victory against the Baltimore Ravens, Blount had carried 3 times for a single yard. So what does that tell you? The Big Blue is susceptible to the inside run. The Patriot offensive line blew our defensive front seven away, allowing Blount to rip the defenders away. Mr. Blount had played for the Patriots during the 2012 and 2013 seasons. The Pats did not pick up his new contract and he signed with the Steelers at the beginning of the 2014 season. While at Pittsburgh he saw very little action — mainly because the Steelers’ second year runningback LeVon Bell was having such success carrying the ball for Pitt. LaGarrette did play in the Steelers’ rout of the Colts on October 26, gaining 21 yards on 6 carries. On November 17 after seeing no action in a game against the Tennessee Titans, Blount left the game early without permission and did not apologize or even contact the team. The Steelers released him and he resigned with New England. There are those that say Blount acted with the intent of being able to resign with the Patriots. Anyway it wound up being bad news for the Colts.
If the Colts learned nothing about handling the Patriot offense from their first encounter, the New England defense learned plenty about handling the Colt offense. They completely dominated the offensive line and shut down the Horseshoe offense. The Colts couldn’t run or pass and Number 12 was kept in check. Last Sunday’s game was a more convincing victory for New England than their November regular season victory over the Colts.
Before the game and because of the Colts victory over Denver and Peyton Manning, there was some pregame talk about the Colts upsetting New England and avenging their humiliating November loss to the Pats. Some of the TV talking heads and Internet bloggers had the Colts upsetting the Patriots. I recognized this as an attempt to keep up the interest in the game and add TV viewers, but please! The last several days the football experts have tried to provide us with a lot of complicated reasons why the Patriots won and the Colts lost. It’s as simple as this: The Patriots have a better, more talented team than the Colts do, they played much better than the Colts did last Sunday, and they scored more points than the Colts did. The Pats obviously have the Colts’ number and love to twist the knife. Also it could be that the Colts simply ran out of…well, ah…. “Luck”.. . so to speak.
Inflate Gate
There is now a new controversy concerning the play of last Sunday’s game. The Patriots are being accused of using under-inflated footballs during last Sunday’s game. So what? you say. Well, a football such as the pros use becomes very hard and heavy when it gets really cold, such as it was last Sunday in Foxboro. It can also become very slippery when it’s wet, like it was during the game. Using an under-inflated ball can make it easier to hold while running with it, throwing it, and kicking it. It’s definitely against the rules. The Pats have been known to really stretch the rules and apply their own interpretation of them if they feel it’s to their benefit. Right now the Patriots are not really worried and are cooperating with a league investigation. They certainly did deflate the egos of a lot of Colts fans. Tom Brady commenting on his radio program called the deflated ball accusations “the least of his worries.” Each team has to provide twelve balls for its own use during the course of a game. The balls are exchanged when the opposing offenses come on and off the field. If the accusations turn out to be true, would it really have affected the outcome of the game? Well, only slightly. It was New England’s overpowering offensive line and defense that beat the Colts, not a deflated ball. Even if the charges turn out to be true, it will not change the outcome of the game. The Colts will still be the losers and the Patriots will still go to Arizona to play in the Super Bowl. If the charges are true, the Patriots will face a heavy fine and the loss of one or more of their upcoming number one draft picks.