Best week ever / Worst week ever: Week 1
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BEST WEEK EVER:
YEESH. I hope this section is this hard to write every Monday because everyone played so well. Unfortunately, this week I’m not even sure there's an answer. The game wasn’t ALL bad, but it’s hard for me to land on someone having the best week ever. My initial thoughts were Jacoby Brissett because he isn’t on the team anymore, then he got his doors blown off by Jared Goff and the Rams in front a high school girls soccer sized crowd. Then I thought maybe Julian Edelman because it became so crystal clear he's the glue guy on this offense when we aren’t in rhythm. But then he came out during the pregame celebration hoisting Lombardi number five walking like Tiny Tim from A Christmas Carol.
Devin McCourty and Stephen Gilmore were more realistic candidates because I thought they both played great. However, I can’t figure out who to blame on that busted coverage (I’m leaning Dev) so they don’t get the nod.
In the end, I suppose I’m going with Stevie G. Not a banner day for our veteran kicker by any means, but he was coming off the most tumultuous year of his career last season. And he botched a few kicks in the preseason. On Thursday he was 3/3 on PATs and 2 for 2 on FGs. They were only of the 25 and 32 yard variety, but the good news is they all count as 3 points as long as they split the uprights, which he did every time his foot hit the ball. And he remained a legit weapon in the kickoff game, helping us contain some dangerous KC returners. Congrats Stevie, you’re having the best week ever.
WORST WEEK EVER:
Again, a lot of candidates here. The ones that jumped out at me initially were Danny Amendola and Dont’a Hightower, both of whom left the game with injuries. These are wildly important players on the Pats roster (Amendola more so now with the Jules injury) who have a history of getting banged up. To see them go down so fast after the injuries we've already sustained in the preseason was rattling to say the least. It looks like we might have dodged a bullet with High. I’m hearing he could miss no time but I doubt it. I’m hoping for a week. Dola has a concussion and you can never tell. Some guys don’t miss a single snap in the super bowl (see Edelman, Julian) and some guys retire (see Stork, Bryan.) Let’s hope Dola gets the dancing stars out of his eyes as soon as possible and stops returning punts even sooner.
Neither injured duck is my final decision for this infamous spot today. That's reserved for coach Bill Belichick. I love Bill. We all love Bill. He can pretty much do whatever he wants whenever he wants and we have no choice but to believe in him even if we're confused. He traded Randy Moss mid season. He traded Jamie Collins mid season. He drafted Chad Jackson. He can be confusing at times. But he's always trying to make the football team better.
Well, watching on Thursday night, we looked like a team that was flat out unprepared. Not something heard often around these parts. We all laughed at Maurice Jones Drew when he said Andy Reid is the better coach. That is not the case in the big picture, but Andy had his team ready to play ball better than Bill did in week 1. I don’t want to crush Bill too hard here, that game could have EASILY been a Pats blow out win had a few fourth downs gone our way or if we didn’t give up some home run tuddy passes. But I’d be lying if I didn’t say it was alarming to see how we responded when plan-A went out the window. When Dola and High went out we looked lost on both sides of the ball. It’s like we game planned for everything to go perfectly, and when it didn’t (it never does in the NFL) we were running around like chickens with our dicks cut off. (Am I saying that right?) Bill’s stock answer after every loss is some form of “we didn’t play well enough, we didn’t coach well enough.” We’ve also heard him say over and over “players win games, coaches lose them.” On Thursday, plenty of players contributed to this loss. The way Tom was throwing he couldn't hit water if he fell out of a fucking boat. So I certainly don’t think Bill lost this game by himself, but he sure didn’t help. Sorry Bill, you're having the worst week ever.
