When Tom Brady asserted that he “sucked” in Sunday’s AFC championship game, not many people were in a rush to disagree with him.

Upon a second look at the game, perhaps Brady was being a bit hard on himself, or so at least one Patriots reporter believes.

Brady got the job done – Greg A Bedard’s game review, which has consistently been one of the best weekly columns of this season, notes that Brady actually played well on Sunday, and that playoff football is completely different from regular season football.

Tom Brady Will Bounce Back With Strong Super Bowl Performance and 19 Other Patriots Thoughts – Jeff Howe thinks that Brady will have a big Super Bowl performance, though I’m not so sure, as Bedard notes above, the playoffs are a completely different style of football.

46 lines on 23 issues – Tom E Curran has some very interesting observations and thoughts from Sunday, including Ravens CB Chris Carr calling Brady an “arrogant [bleep] ” after the game, and memories of Asante Samuel’s selfishness.

Scouts’ Super Bowl Take, Part 1: How to beat the Giants – We’ll see tons of columns about “how to beat the Patriots” in the next two weeks, I’m grateful to Christopher Price for going in the opposite direction, which is what I think most fans around here really want to read.

Revenge a real factor for Patriots – Karen Guregian talks to former Patriots Rodney Harrison, Heath Evans, Jarvis Green, James Sanders and Ellis Hobbs about how they would feel about another shot at the Giants.

Not an instant replay – Shalise Manza Young runs through the rosters and notes that a lot has changed since 2007.

Heaps of hype, memories – Not bad, Farinella, not bad.

Giants quite familiar to Patriots – Guregian’s notebook has Bill Belichick recalling his time with the Giants. The Globe notebook from Michael Vega has Bernard Pollard with plenty of sour grapes. The Patriots Journal has Belichick without much to say about Rob Gronkowski’s ankle.

The Bruins lost 5-3 in Washington D.C. last night, in their final game prior to the NHL All Star Break.

The Bruins need a break – DJ Bean says that like a little child, the Bruins need some time out to think about what they’ve done in recent weeks.

Bruins could use a break – Joe McDonald concurs that the All Star Break is coming at just the right time for the Bruins.

Team is used to Thomas’s ways – Fluto Shinzawa suggests that Thomas’s decision, however, may be the first step in goalie and team parting ways. It could be Tuukka time sooner than we think.

I’m glad to see Larry Johnson is continuing to put his all into his cartoons:

Well, at least he added the whistle, right?

Published by Bruce Allen

Automattician.

17 thoughts on “Brady Didn’t Play That Bad In AFC Title Game. Wait, What?”

  1. The best part is the whistle is the most poorly drawn part of that tracing, i mean drawing.

    Also, what's the deal with Chris Carr? Pollard mocks the dink and dunk, Carr screams arrogance at throwing the ball deep. Maybe next time Brady will just kneel 3 times and roll the ball to him.

    Like

  2. Has anyone ever called LJ on this garbage on his radio show for example? This is blatant; people have been fired for less.

    Like

  3. Larry Johnson is a fraud's fraud. This holier than thou crap cartoon is from the same guy who made light of the arrest of a Red Sox scout for masturbating on a hotel balcony by turning it into a cartoon. Fortunately for us, there were no pictures of that for him to trace. I'm glad that he put Paterno's name in the caption since there is no label on him in the picture. What a no talent hack.

    Like

  4. As it regards Brady's performance, its all colored by the ill advised pass attempt to Slater. While the offense couldn't convert in the redzone, in part due to run stuffs, they were pretty damn efficient with their limited possessions. They only had two real possessions in the second half because of the Woodhead fumble and Brady interception. 10 points from those 2.

    Like

  5. Mazz apologized but it was funny in the audacity he had the "get out of country" about Tim Thomas. It sounds like the media are leading the charge to get Thomas out of town but the Bruins are also not providing resistance. Only now are people retroactively "condemning" Theo on the same move but opposite sides of the fence.. nice job.

    At least it isn't throwing the r-word around yet but I'm sure Jason Whitlock/Jemelle Hill/Rob Parker is prepping the column. Sure that is the best way to "get someone out of town?" Thankfully the national media has moved on from this because I'm sick of this.

    Off question, but in listening to D+C pontificate about the Sandusky stuff again, why doesn't Entercom move them over to WRKO?

    Like

    1. Right…since Whitlock made Pats/Ravens a blacks vs. whites thing, much like Easterbrook made Colts/Pats good vs. evil.

      Like

    2. In all fairness to Mazz, I didn't hear what he said in full context (just the Toucher and Rich edited version), but if it wasn't an editing fabrication, its a new low for the guy as far as I'm concerned (whose already quite low since the only word in his vocabulary is SUCKS). Tim Thomas was the #1 reason the Bruins won the championship and now Mazz wants to get rid of him and kick him out of the country because he doesn't agree with him politically. No one in this media seemed to care whatsoever when Theo skipped out on meeting Bush.

      Like

    3. Mazz has it all wrong. If you don't agree with the guy in office, you don't leave. You stick around and try to get him (or her) voted out of office.

      The whole "Feds are coming to take your property" thing is real. It's called taxes. The money you earn is your property Felger and Mazz. Taxes take it away from you. It doesn't mean men in black suits are going to surround your house and take it away from you.

      And Thomas said nothing about Obama himself. He said the Federal Government. It's a point that just about everyone missed today and yesterday.

      Like

  6. Brady threw quite a few flat-out bad passes. I don't see the point in arguing it. Just because he wasn't terrible all game doesn't mean you don't see the flaws. This is playoff football, and he just wasn't on his game. If he plays like that against the Giants, the Pats get spanked bad.

    Like

  7. Well, I knew it was going to happen eventually. Yesterday we started hearing about the scoreboard being wrong before the Billy Cundiff kick. Some of the Ravens actually started thinking this was done on purpose. Today, this of course led to "spygate" talk on F&M. These two morons just can't help themselves. Maz came up with this beauty. He said, "Bill Belichick only has himself to blame for the league's belief that he cheats at every opportunity." Felger played the role of parrot by saying, "You're absolutely right Maz." The fact that F&M actually gave credence to some hanky-panky with the scoreboard is beyond crazy. By the way, I do not think Belichick or the fans care in least about how the league perceives the Patriots. They need to move on. As smart as Belichick is, I have a hard time believing he went to the scoreboard operator during the week and said if a Ravens player fumbles the ball forward in the last two minutes act like you do not know the rule and give them a first down. It will screw them up when they want try a field goal. They'll rush the kicker and hook it left. I think that seems a little far-fetched.

    Winning talked about Maz's outburst yesterday. Maz telling Tim Thomas to leave the country because of his political views was right up there in some of the dumber things he has said. But I think it points to a bigger problem that I talked about a couple of weeks ago. Maz is lazy and completely ill-prepared when he either rights or goes on the air. To make up for it he decides that speaking outrageously and saying "sucks" will cover up for his incompetence. It doesn't. It makes it worse.

    Speaking of Tim Thomas, Michael Wilbon on PTI mentioned other great athletes who did not go to the White House for a championship celebration. One of them was Larry Bird. When Bird was asked why he would not go, Bird, with maybe the cockiest thing he has ever said, told the media, "He knows where to find me."

    Jason McIntyre of the Big Lead had a terrific profile and interview with ESPN Radio's Colin Cowherd. As some of you may recall, Cowherd had some of his listeners take down the Big Lead's site for four days a few years ago. Cowherd has been very apologetic since then and will occasionally promote the site on his show. The interesting part comes halfway through the piece when he started talking about not always towing the company line. Cowherd abruptly stops and looks at the PR person who was there throughout the interview. That person was non other than the creator of "Scott's Shots" David Scott. My guess is Scott gave him a look of, "Don't go there." It is a good profile piece that you would enjoy whether you are a fan of Cowherd or not.
    http://thebiglead.com/index.php/2012/01/25/the-co…

    Like

    1. On scoreboardgate, John Harbaugh came out today and did the right thing. He completely extinguished the issue. I think the link came from nationalfootballpost.com but each media outlet closed the issue today. Ultimately, it's his sideline and he also had a timeout left. Thankfully, your usual "spygate" bomb throwers like Mike Florio also put the issue to rest over a few days because Ravens fans have been trolling message boards non-stop with it.

      I heard that PTI segment as well. I was proud of Wilbon for sticking up on him because he's toe'd the r-word stuff before, if you recall when the plantation comments came out from Bryant Gumbel. He could have gone there, easily, because many journalists do, but didn't. Also, thankfully, the national media has moved on. Sports Tonight (late with Felger and Mazz), from when I briefly tuned in before caught it, are already talking about how the Bruins will handle his departure. I wish someone would call him out about this because of the double standard when it came to how the French media are treating the Habs and how he went nuts over this.

      Like

    2. Here's the most idiotic thing about ScoreBoardGate:

      THE RAVENS HAD A TIMEOUT.

      Take your loss and STFU, Ravens.

      Like

    3. On T&R yesterday, they said that it's the NFL, and not the team, that operates the scoreboards during the playoffs. Don't know if that's true or not, but why would they make that up? Also, I don't get the whole "the down threw me off" thing. After all, in OT, typically, you try to kick an FG on third down rather than fourth down, so that if there is a bad snap, you still have an opportunity to kick on fourth down. So I would have thought that if they thought it was still 3rd down, if anything, he would have been more relaxed.

      Like

      1. Gerhard, this is why T&R should stick to the yuks. The NFL controls the clock only. The home team controls everything else including the the score, down and yardage, and everything else.

        Like

        1. Which is why coaches tell their teams to only pay attention to the down and yard makers on the field and not the scoreboard. Harbough to his own credit ended the story by saying we knew the down and distance…his kicker just blew it.

          Like

      2. Team employee operates the scoreboard. NFL paid employee operates the clock. NFL paid employees operate the down markers on the field. Down markers on the field are the OFFICIAL OFFICIAL what is going on. Harbaugh admitted this and did the right thing (as said above) with putting the issue to rest. It looks dead today, thankfully.

        Doesn't surprise me at all that T+R got it wrong. "LOL WHATEVA" <spend the next minute laughing at each other>

        Like

Comments are closed.