Sympathy For The Devil(s)

Dear Mark Kiszla, Denver Post:

I’m not sure where to begin. After all, as a columnist for a Denver area newspaper, isn’t it your sworn duty to say mean and nasty stuff about all things Raiders?

Where does this completely irrational hatred of a legitimately good New England Patriots football team come from?

I don’t have a problem with irrationality, per se; after all, this is football, which explains why otherwise rational people would pay green, folding cash to see the Bears or the Broncos this season.

What I do have a problem with are the blanket statements you make in this jeremiad against the Patriots that don’t have a shred of evidence to back them up.

Case in point 1: you mention that Bill Belichick can’t be that great of a coach if he had to cheat.

Uh, glass houses and stones, my friend. If you’ll take the Broncos-colored glasses off for a bit, you might remember that the rest of the league was quite incensed with your local team for a long time for, shall we say, “questionable” offensive line techniques.

You say “cut block,” I say “leg whip”…but I digress. Moving along, then.

Case in point 2: you said that “(w)e have the technology to create sports hype, but lack the perspective to appreciate sports history.”

Then, incredibly, you said that the Patriots “…are not even the best offensive machine of the past 10 years,” while making the cheesiest hometown ploy for the champion Broncos of yesteryear. You say that those Broncos could win on any surface.

I can show you that the Patriots have already done that.

16 times, to be exact. Against zero losses. In all manner of conditions. Indoors. Outdoors. Broad daylight. Prime time. Rain, sunshine, heat, cold, from in front, and from behind, they have won all of their games everywhere they have been played.

That is, as you might say, appreciable history.

And as far as that “past 10 years” remark, here’s some more appreciable sports history: the Patriots are the highest-scoring team for a single season in NFL history.

You don’t have to take my couch-potato, blogging word for it. They scored a ridiculous 589 points in 16 games. I have it on the best authority that your beloved Broncos didn’t score that many points in any season…nor did anyone else.

That’s why they call it a “record.”

Then, while deriding the computer geeks who would simulate a 73-0 Patriot victory over the 1940 Bears, you become the same computer geek when you said “…these Patriots are soft, playing a paddy cake brand of pitch-and-catch football that would have had linebacker Ray Nitschke snorting with laughter as Jim Taylor and the 1962 Packers trampled New England.”

Last I checked, the 2007 Patriots will never play the 1962 Packers. And as far as Pittsburgh’s Steel Curtain defense of the ‘70s, that team would not have existed in today’s game because of free agency and the salary cap.

That said, Forrest Gregg would be reduced to a turnstile against Richard Seymour, if not a green smear across the front of Seymour’s jersey, and your friend Jim Taylor would need a backhoe to be taken out of the frozen tundra after meeting Messrs. Vrabel, Bruschi, and Seau. Joe Greene didn’t see tackles as big and athletic as Matt Light, and Donnie Shell only saw receivers as good as Moss in practice…and he couldn’t catch those guys then, so why would I expect him to catch Moss now?

And in any case, neither of those teams went undefeated, for all of their greatness. All the Patriots did was beat everyone in front of them.

No one thinks less of Joe Louis for that “Bum of the Month” group of heavyweights he relentlessly pounded back in the ‘40s, and the Patriots have arguably played better opponents than anyone you can mention.

The only other team worth mentioning, the ’72 Dolphins, played two teams with winning records in their pursuit of perfection (and did I mention that they had two fewer games to deal with?).

The current Patriots have played and defeated seven teams with winning records, six of whom are currently in the playoffs and one (Cleveland) that just missed. In other words, nearly half their schedule has been against the varsity and they still won out. And three of those games (against the Cowboys, the Colts, and the Giants) were on the road.

Just for giggles, there’s that utterly ridiculous Tiger Woods thingy you threw in: “Sure, it’s natural to root for greatness. It’s just that golfer Tiger Woods and actor Tom Hanks make it so much easier to stand up and cheer…”

Tiger Woods makes it easy to cheer? The man is as implacable as death itself and as unreachable as the north face of the Jungfrau. He holds grudges at least as long as Bill Belichick does, and he inspires just as much hate among his competition as Coach Hoodie does.

Anyone else remember Fuzzy Zoeller, before he got exiled to the Chateau D’If for insensitive remarks after Woods’ first Masters victory? Anyone else remember perpetual motormouth and Chicken Little Emeritus Rory Sabbatini, who hasn’t been right yet for all of his clucking to the contrary? Anyone else remember Vijay Singh publicly gnawing on his liver while his caddy wore a “Tiger Who” hat?

Yeah, the PGA tour just loves Tiger. Find a tournament organizer who has to try to sell a PGA event that doesn’t feature Woods, and ask him what he thinks about the Greatest. Golfer. Ever.

And I couldn’t close without pointing out what has to be the biggest, dumbest statement you make in the entire misguided diatribe: you call out Tom Brady as a player.

I’ll give you the first one calling him on being a man (fathering children out of wedlock just ain’t right), but let’s be honest: it ain’t nearly as bad as a guy you see a lot more regularly in Denver, Mr. 9-For-9 Himself, Travis Henry.

But I’ve got to call a party foul on you for the second statement; you remember, where you slow everyone down “…before anyone starts mentioning Brady in the same breath as Johnny Unitas, much less Joe Montana.”

I really hate to break it to you – okay, I really don’t – but Brady is the best. Quarterback. Ever.

Let me repeat that.

Tom Brady.

Best. Quarterback. Ever.

If you compare their first seven seasons, Tom Brady is better than Joe Montana in every meaningful category. He has started more games (94, to Montana’s 79). He has completed more passes (2294, to Montana’s 1627) for a higher completion rate (63% to Montana’s 62.3). He has thrown for more yards (26370, to Montana’s 19262) and for more touchdowns (197, to Montana’s 133), and he even has more interceptions (86, to Montana’s 67)…but that last stat is somewhat misleading. See, Montana threw a pick once every 38.37 pass attempts, whereas Brady tosses an interception once every 42.34 pass attempts. I’ll help you there: that means that Montana threw picks a little bit more often.

As far as that nebulous thing called a quarterback rating, Montana’s is a gaudy 90.5 for his first seven years.

Brady’s is 92.9.

Oh, and Brady has exactly one more Super Bowl title to his credit at this stage in his career than Montana did at a similar juncture.

Having actually seen guys like Dan Marino, John Elway, the aforementioned Montana, the current stat gobbler Peyton Manning, Warren Moon, and a host of others, I can only apply the same logic that Hall of Fame voters used when putting Gale Sayers into the Hall after a truncated career: did you see him play?

No one manages the end of a game better than Brady does, and only Montana and Roger Staubach (and perhaps John Elway) deserve to be in the conversation. No one inspires his teammates more, and here he compares more than favorably with the fabled Johnny Unitas.

It sez so right here that Unitas and Randy Moss would have had a fistfight on the first day of training camp if they’d played together. Brady openly lobbied for him, and their matchup has only been the finest quarterback-to-receiver tandem ever.

Hell, the guy is even Broadway Joe Namath’s match for swinging with hot chicks…and I’m sorry, but not even Namath in his prime could get close enough to Bridget Moynihan for an autograph, much less anything more, er, well, you get the idea.

So, in closing, please feel free to hate on the Patriots somewhere privately, where impressionable children can’t see you.

And if you need to feel better, you can always go right back to kicking the benighted Raiders.

Thanks,

Van Walker
A nobody with a blog and an opinion