Bieber, beards and Branches: Football, anyone?
Friday, October 15, 2010
And I’m not sure how the reacquisition of Deion Branch fits in Bill Belichick’s plan to expunge every last Super Bowl memory from Gillette Stadium. Wasn’t the idea to take down all the photos of Rodney Harrison, Tedy Bruschi, etc., to force the current players to develop their own identities? Why, then, would Belichick swap one of the five best receivers in the NFL (Randy Moss) for an oft-injured fossil from the team’s deceased Super Bowl dynasty? Does this mean we can put his pictures back on the wall?
I might not have all the answers, but what I do know is the New England Patriots have dealt with two weeks’ worth of distractions in just a few short days, which doesn’t bode well with arguably their biggest test of the season looming on the horizon. Fresh off a much-needed bye week, the Patriots host the powerful Baltimore Ravens on Sunday afternoon in a rematch of last year’s playoff disaster at Gillette Stadium.
Those who need a refresher course on what happened in January should just rewind to the first play of the game. That’s all you need to see. Ray Rice took the opening handoff 83 yards up the middle – untouched, no less – for a touchdown, propelling the Ravens to a shocking 33-14 win.
The Patriots would love nothing more than to avenge what remains as their only home loss in the last 23 months, but this year’s Ravens are actually deeper and far more talented offensively, which hasn’t always been the case in Baltimore.
Under the direction of third-year coach John Harbaugh, the Ravens added wide receiver Anquan Boldin and T.J. Houshmadzadeh. Derrick Mason, who has led the team in receiving in each of the last three years, is suddenly Baltimore’s third-best option in the passing game, which is a scary proposition for any team with a spotty secondary (hint, hint). And if last year’s playoff game taught us anything, it’s that quarterback Joe Flacco isn’t quite that bad after all.
While the new additions haven’t helped his numbers this year – he’s thrown six interceptions and only five touchdowns – it’s never a good idea to rattle the cage of a quarterback who has three former 1,000-yard receivers at his disposal. Ask Pittsburgh, which watched its perfect record circle the drain two weeks ago when Flacco connected with Houshmandzadeh on a game-winning 18-yard touchdown with 32 seconds to go.
At the center of it all is Baltimore’s defense, which remains one of the best in the league despite the loss of safety Ed Reed, who has been on the physically unable to perform list all season due to a hip injury. Without him, the Ravens are still ranked third in overall defense and second against the run. This could be a deciding factor as the Patriots prepare to enter Sunday’s game without veteran Fred Taylor, who has missed practice all week with a nagging toe injury. No surprise here – Taylor hasn’t played a full season in seven years, so the Patriots should be thankful his 34-year-old carcass has made it this far without turning to dust.
Taking on Baltimore’s front seven with BenJarvus Green-Ellis and Sammy Morris in your holster is a recipe for disaster, so perhaps this would be the perfect time for Brady to reignite his bromance with Branch. The two worked wonders together during the tail end of the Patriots’ dynasty. Branch tied a Super Bowl record with 11 catches against the Eagles in 2004 and had his best season the following year with a career-high 998 yards and five touchdowns.
When he asked for more money in 2006, the Patriots made an offer. Branch didn’t like it, so he held out. Then he filed two grievances against the team for reportedly not bargaining in good faith after granting him permission to seek a trade. The Patriots ultimately dealt Branch to Seattle two weeks into the season, which practically drove Brady to tears. Four years – and several injuries – later, Branch is back where it all began, but he’s also 31 years old and playing on borrowed time after missing 15 games with the Seahawks. Anyone expecting the Super Bowl XXXIX MVP to reemerge from the shadows is in for a rude awakening. Branch might be healthy now, but his tenure in Seattle proved he’s not as durable as we thought he was five or six years ago.
And while Moss might’ve been the biggest asswipe this side of the Blackstone Valley, people forget what kind of impact he had on the opposing team’s game plan. Even when he didn’t catch a pass, which only happened once in three years, he made defenses wary. He also took pressure off Wes Welker, who thrived offensively while everyone else paid attention to the 6-foot-4 gazelle racing down the sideline. Branch doesn’t command the same respect, so now we’ll find out if Welker is truly one of the game’s elite receivers, or just a really fast white guy who everyone ignored for three years.
After all the crap he dealt with the past two weeks, Brady probably wishes he was back at the intersection of Commonwealth and Gloucester Street sandwiched between a Mercury Villager and his driver’s-side airbag. If answering questions about his alleged spat with Moss over unkempt beards and foppish haircuts wasn’t enough, he quickly became the subject of a freestyle rap by none other than Justin Bieber himself, who warned Brady to “leave his hair to the guy who sings ‘Baby.’”
You can’t make this stuff up, nor can you put forth a half-assed effort against the Ravens. The Patriots can't afford anymore distractions between now and Sunday, otherwise this duel to the death will be more lopsided than the one in January.
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