Posted by Teddy Panos, Sun Staff
Satisfying the need to vent while waiting for someone to explain the unexplainable:
-I bet that late Sunday night, the words "what the hell just happened" were texted more often than an American Idol contestant number in May.
The messages started flying back and forth on my cell phone the second Kevin Faulk was ruled down short of the first down marker and continued well beyond 1am, leading to a sleepless night and long day at work Monday.
I'm still waiting for one person to give a satisfactory reason why the decision to go for it on 4th and 2 from their own 28-yard line was a wise one. Oh, there've been a few Bill Belichick sycophants who've used convoluted statistics and percentages to justify the call, but anyone with a set of eyes and a shred common sense knows better. The risk simply wasn't worth it, as the final score would indicate.
The most telling thing: even the most loyal Belichick guys like Rodney Harrison, Tedy Bruschi and Steve DeOssie very publicly blasted their former coach.
-The controversial ending overshadowed Tom Brady's phenomenal performance.
Tom Terrific looked the part Sunday night, finally answering the question "will the real Tom Brady ever come back?" Now if we could only figure out when those pesky aliens from another planet will return the real Bill Belichick.
I know he's a genius and all, but Belichick has made some truly baffling decisions at the worst possible times in the last two true big games he's coached. Besides Sunday night's brain freeze, the hooded one still hasn't provided a satisfactory answer as to why he went for it on 4th-and-16 instead of attempting a 48-yard field goal in the Giants Super Bowl.
-You want to know what I really think? I think the pendulum has swung completely to the other side.
It used to be Belichick and the Patriots were in Peyton Manning's head, forcing the Colts all-world QB into uncharacteristic bad decisions. Now it's the other way around, with the threat of Manning driving a team 70-yards to paydirt causing one of the greatest football minds of all-time to do something not even a coaching simpleton like Barry Switzer ever attempted.
-So where does this rank on the list of horrific Boston coaching decisions? I'd say somewhere near the top, right alongside:
1) Grady Little leaving Pedro in past 100-pitches in the 2003 ALCS
2) John McNamara not removing Buckner for defensive purposes in the '86 World Series
3) Don Zimmer starting petrified rookie Bobby Sprowl over Yankee killer Bill Lee in the fourth game of the infamous 1978 Boston Massacre
4) Darrell Johnson opting to use untested rookie Jim Burton in Game 7 of the '75 series against the Hall of Fame loaded roster of the Big Red Machine (Notice all the Red Sox related boneheaded moves on my list?)
I'd have to say Belichick's blunder might be worse, because he's better than that. The other four coaches were only living down to their expectations.
That's the view from here...how do you see things? What's your nominee for worst coaching decision in Boston history?
The problem is that BB has started to believe the "genius" label given to him in all media outlets. I think he feels he really can pretty much do what he wants and come up roses every time. Hey, it *did* work for him for a long time and against a QB who is not super-human like Manning it probably would have worked out this time. I don't think he's going to change, either. He'll keep on making these types of decisions that'll have people shaking their heads and, win or lose, will explain it away in a single sentence. That's just who he is and how he coaches.
As long as he is successful a lot more than he fails he's golden but it makes me think that, perhaps, when he has a roster with less talent and starts to lose the majority of these it could get ugly when it comes time for BB to go - whether on his own terms or not.