Pride and Prejudice: Patriots season preview
Welcome to the start of the 2013 NFL season. With a mediocre draft class and free agency rife with disappointment, the 2013 season was just itching for a juicy story line to really shake things up, and with a combination of betrayal signings, murder indictments, and back problems, the Patriots' offense has been decimated. With no aerial attack to speak of, the Patriots may as well let Tebow scramble for first downs. Now you can’t count the Pats out, you never can, but a guaranteed 10 win season is looking less likely everyday. Therefore, without further hesitation the pride and the prejudice, how the Patriots will win the super bowl, and why they will end up in the losing everything……again.
The Pride
“I murdered rock, I injured a stone, I hospitalized a brick, I so mean I make medicine sick.”-Muhammad Ali
The Patriots weren’t always a highflying high scoring football team that would drown their opponents in points. For those of us who remember, Brady and his offense were once an attachment to a much darker force.
The defense.
The Patriots defense of old were bruisers. They were bad men, men so mean they made Kurt Warner question his faith, Donovan McNabb lose his cool, and Jake Delhomme simply run for his life. What happened to these men is a fact of life, they got old and they were replaced, and for the last couple of years no one can say we’ve had a defense that’s nearly as effective. The winds are changing however and this new defense is coming of age. Guys like Jerod Mayo, Adrian Wilson and Don’t’a Hightower are the new guard. Guys who have a chip on the shoulder. Guys who are mad at the world are leading the charge. Maybe the Patriots won't need an offense to score touchdown after touchdown when they have defense that’s pounding their opponents into submission.
The Prejudice
Blivit- 10 pounds of shit in a 5 pound bag
Its easy to say no one saw this coming, well maybe someone did but that person was told to shut up numerous times. The Patriots offense this year looked stacked, three big tight ends - Gronk, Hernandez, and Ballard - all the size of linebackers who can catch like wide receivers and run like punt returners. Not to mention after years of a fumblin, stumbin 4 yards and a cloud of dust run game we finally have a running back core that the offense can lean on. We all wanted Wes Welker to stay, but deep down we all assumed we didn’t need him. So we let him leave. Big deal. While we're at it, get rid of Brandon Lloyd, and don’t bother signing Donte Stallworth either.
Then we find out Gronk might miss half the season with back surgery. Well that’s fine, we will have 2 more tight ends and really that’s all you need. Then Hernandez gets in trouble, and not that good old fashioned Duke Boys style trouble that athletes get in that has no consequences. This is REAL trouble and at the time of Hernandez’s homicide arraignment, I’m sure Boss Kraft was thinking that maybe he should have made a second effort to keep Welker.
So what’s the offense to do? Well, Amendola is untested in this system and is widely perceived to be unreliable. Ballard, although, a beast in his own right can't do the job alone. The run game is a vast improvement over years' past but is really only designed to grind down the clock in the fourth quarter when the game is already won and despite what was previously stated, the defense is still a question mark. So what the Patriots will be calling on is the AFC East, one of the weakest divisions in football, and as long as we win 5 of the 6 divisional games we are practically guaranteed a playoff spot. AND BROTHER THAT’S ALL THIS FAIR WEATHER FOOTBALL FAN NEEDS!
