The Patriots put on a coaching clinic in a 27-0 shutout win over former assistant Bill O’Brien and the Texans.
By Michael Vallee
-Masterpiece Theater: While most coaches will tell you players win championships, there is no denying that NFL head coaches have more influence on the outcome of games than any other coach/manager in any other sport, and Thursday night Bill Belichick exercised that impact to the max by exerting his considerable will and superior intellect on the befuddled Houston Texans. The game may have been played on Thursday but it was won Monday through Wednesday when Belichick out-prepared, out-schemed and outclassed his Texan counterparts, offering them a free coaching clinic on how you embarrass an NFL opponent. Sorry Janes and Joes but this victory was all about Xs and Os.
Playing without their starting quarterback, their backup quarterback, their all-world TE and their defensive captain, Belichick rolled into Gillette with a rookie quarterback and a game plan, which proved to be more than enough against the previously undefeated paper lions from Houston. If the coaching disparity could be summed up in one play it was the first touchdown of the game, when the only QB on Belichick’s roster rope-a-doped the over-pursuing Texans defense with a play action bootleg run that led to a relatively easy 27-yard touchdown by rookie Jacoby Brissett. It was a play where Belichick’s brains and watermelon size cojones were on full display for the viewing audience and the rest of the NFL.
It was obvious from the result of the play that Belichick had outsmarted the Texans defense with a play they were woefully unprepared for. A point all but conceded by Bill O’Brien during his halftime interview with Tracy Wolfson. But how about the set of stones it took to make that call. Belichick entered the game with just one real quarterback on his active roster and his best WR as the “backup”, yet was not afraid to send that one quarterback downfield on a designed run. How many coaches in the NFL have the guts to make that call? How many coaches have the job security to make that call? The answer: probably none, which was clearly the purpose of this play, and the purpose of the QB option Belichick called earlier in the quarter. Despite O’Brien having the benefit of coaching with Belichick for five years, the Patriots coach rightly concluded O’Brien would never expect Belichick to have the audacity to expose his only real QB to the punishment of an NFL run. Apparently O’Brien wasn’t paying much attention during his time in New England.
And Belichick was just getting warmed up.
In all three phases Belichick repeatedly schooled his former protégé, who spent most of the game with his mouth half-open looking more overwhelmed than Phil Simms at a symposium on quantum physics. (Actually I could have simply written: looking more overwhelmed than Phil Simms trying to analyze an NFL football game). It is a look Patriots fans are all too familiar with on opposing sidelines. On special teams Belichick repeatedly kicked the ball high and short, either forcing or tempting the Texans to attempt a return. And the Texans looked like a team that presumed Gostkowski was simply going to blast the ball through the back of the end zone and hadn’t bothered to dedicate a minute of practice to kick returns. This generated two Houston fumbles and multiple failed attempts to reach the 25.
On defense the Patriots utilized air-tight coverage and a steady pass-rush to smother the Texans offense, holding them to 284 yards and a big fat goose egg on the scoreboard. This was all set up by another Belichick special: taking away what the other team does best. Employing two deep safeties, New England neutralized the deep threat posed by WRs DeAndre Hopkins and Will Fuller, frustrating a Texans offense that seemed incapable of adjusting. Houston was like a car with one gear, and when they lost it, they were useless.
Offensively, when Belichick wasn’t running his only QB downfield, he was feeding the Texans a steady diet of LaGarette Blount (24 rushes, 105 yards, 2 TDs). This slowed Houston’s aggressiveness in the first three quarters and completely sucked out their will in the 4th quarter. The Texans inexplicably looked like a team that did not anticipate a run-heavy game plan with a rookie QB at the helm. It was amateur hour all day on the Houston side of the field.
And what about the impact of social media hero and desperate attention-whore J.J. Watt? He pulled a Blutarsky, registering 0 tackles and 0 sacks. It was the fourth time he has failed to get a sack against a Belichick coached team. Talented young pass-rushers Jadeveon Clowney and Whitney Mercilus also had no sacks. Again, there’s Belichick taking away what the opponent does best. He was the architect of game plans in the 80s that stopped Joe Montana and Jerry Rice. He neutralized Jim Kelly and the high-scoring Buffalo K-Gun. He derailed the Rams Greatest Show on Turf. He could have prevented Jordan from dunking, Hemmingway from drinking and Bill Clinton from cheating. Belichick is a freak, a wizard, a bonafide coaching savant. It’s week 3 and is there any doubt he will win NFL Coach of the Year? He’s the best coach working today in any sport. Maybe the best ever.
With Brady suspended there has been some talk recently about what life will be like for Patriots fans when he retires. But what about when Belichick retires? The game plans, the innovation, the experience, the drafting, the foresight to let popular veterans nearing their end walk away……soon it will all be gone. And while I have confidence that the Krafts won’t replace him with Mike Mularkey, whoever fills those massive shoes will be a clear downgrade and nights like Thursday will be few and far between. For almost two decades fans have grown accustomed to watching Patriots teams that are smart, focused and prepared, but someday they won’t be. Perhaps only then will we truly appreciate what we have witnessed the last 15 years.
-Dumb and dumberer: While the genius of Bill Belichick was the star of last night’s show, the surprising stupidity of Bill O’Brien certainly played a supporting role. What exactly was he thinking running the ball not once, not twice, but three times on 3rd down in the first half? If you are playing a rookie QB that struggles with the passing game, don’t you want to build a lead and force him to throw? It’s almost as if O’Brien forgot what team he was coaching and thought he was preparing New England’s game plan. Osweiler isn’t Dan Marino but O’Brien was coaching like he had freshman starting his first game at varsity. And it never ceases to amaze me how poorly NFL coaches use their timeouts, and Thursday O’Brien was no exception. First he calls a timeout in the 2nd quarter giving the Patriots extra time to decide if they want to challenge an awful spot that cost them a first down. Then he calls a timeout with a minute left in the half and New England possibly driving for a late FG. The Patriots inevitably took a knee but that timeout made zero sense.
-Well at least O’Brien can take some solace in knowing that his old employer Penn State (Jerry Sandusky, Joe Paterno) defeated Temple (Bill Cosby) in the Sexual Assault Bowl. No word on whether Jameis Winston was invited to midfield for the coin toss.
-It’s ironic that Belichick embarrassed a former assistant because the one knock on his legacy is that his assistants have struggled when they leave New England. Unlike the Bill Parcells and Bill Walshes, Belichick doesn’t have much of anNFL coaching tree. Romeo Crennel, Eric Mangini, Bill O’Brien and Josh McDaniels are a combined 92-134 as NFL head coaches and O’Brien is the only one with a winning record. While some consider this a negative, I actually think it enhances his legacy. It proves that there is no secret sauce to New England’s success. There is no secret formula that can be easily transferred elsewhere. It turns out Belichick is just an innate football mastermind and when his assistants leave they can’t take that with them.
-Maybe no stat better sums up Belichick than this: He is 5-0 with quarterbacks making their first ever start and 4-0 since taking over in New England. In those four games the QBs threw no interceptions.
-Phil Simms is Terrible, Part 1: Simms begins the game by calling Jacoby Brissett, “Brissitt”. This week Bressett was literally the most talked about football player in America and Simms has probably heard his name pronounced correctly over 100 times this week. But I guess that, plus 4 days of show prep and sitting three feet from a guy that is actually pronouncing the name correctly was not enough to penetrate that ball of granite between Simms’ ears.
-Belichick Trophy: Count Hall-of-Fame wide receiver Michael Irvin as a big fan of Belichick. On Twitter Irvin declared he would literally hire an engraver to change the name on his Super Bowl trophies from Lombardi to Belichick if New England could beat Houston with a 3rd string quarterback. A nice compliment but I do have some questions: What are all those Lombardi Trophies? Replicas? They can’t be the real thing, right? Does every player get a replica Lombardi Trophy when he wins a Super Bowl? Did Michael Irvin have them made on his own? Does the control freak trademark-obsessed NFL allow that? Why am I the only one curious about this?
-Home dogs: The Patriots entered Thursday night’s game as a rare home underdog with some sports books. The line moved around but some books had them +1 at kickoff. This has happened only three other times in the last 13 years:
-2005: The undefeated 7-0 Colts came to Foxboro as 3 point favorites and beat the Patriots 40-21. It was the first time Peyton Manning had ever won on the road versus New England. Prior to that game he was 0-7 at Foxboro.
-2013: Manning again entered Foxboro favored, this time with the Denver Broncos. The Patriots were +2.5. New England won 34-31 in OT after Belichick elected to take the wind and give Denver the ball to start overtime.
-2014: The Patriots were +2.5 in the “Onto Cincinnati game” which followed the infamous “They’re not good anymore” nightmare in Kansas City. New England throttled Cincy 43-17 and won the Super Bowl 4 months later.
-Phil Simms is Terrible, Part 2: During the first possession of the game Simms was openly wondering what defense the Patriots would run because “The Patriots have backed off the first two passing situations.” This was the 3rd play of the game and the first two plays were runs. I literally have no idea what the hell he was talking about.
-It’s hard to overstate how dominant the Patriots defense was Thursday night. The Texans did not run A SINGLE PLAY in New England territory until there was one minute remaining in the 3rd quarter. To pull that off in today’s high-scoring NFL, and on a night when your offense punted seven times, is mind-blowing. And an NFL shutout is equally rare. Last year, out of a possible 512 opportunities, there were only two shutouts.
-Jacoby Brissett played a decent game for a rookie but was far from the sniper Garoppolo was the first two weeks, going just 11 for 19 for 103 yards. He did show a lot of guts adding 48 yards on the ground but he might have paid a price for that toughness. It is being reported that Brissett likely injured the thumb on his throwing hand in the second half. This might explain why he finished the game just 2 for 6, often badly missing the mark on some throws.
-It is likely Brissett was drafted partially as the result of a glowing recommendation from old friend Bill Parcells, who has watched him since high school. Parcells said of Brissett, “I have very high regard for this young man. He’s an awesome kid. He’s very bright. He has zero personal issues. He’s a very dedicated, committed guy…” Parcells also said “He’s a Curtis Martin type player”. Whoa, let’s hope that last quote isn’t true. Otherwise that means he is a disloyal punk that is going to leave the Patriots high-and-dry by signing a poison pill contract with their hated division rival Jets.
-Keeping with the Belichick theme: Here is a taste of what it’s like behind the scenes of the Patriots and it speaks volumes about what is important to New England and its coach. In a recent interview on WEEI, Danny Amendola explained how when you sign a free agent contract it is pretty standard to hold a press conference, but when he asked Belichick about this Bill responded, “No, we’re not doing any of that shit.” Classic Belichick. And if you really think about it, why do teams hold these elaborate press conferences when they sign a player? At that point the guy has done nothing for your franchise and for all you know he might be a bust. Players should be celebrated for winning games, not taking your money.
-Phil Simms is Terrible, Part 3: Simms said “There is plenty of time; the Texans have all three timeouts.” In fact, the Texans only had two timeouts. What are the odds that Simms knows that those little dashes under the team name represent timeouts? I say 2%.
-Why do officials completely ignore the “uncatchable” part of pass interference? There were multiple PI calls in Thursday’s game where the ball sailed several feet out-of-bounds. Pass interference is already called too often and is far too punitive to the defense so can they at least call it the way it is written in the rules.
-Generally speaking I have never liked kickers but punter Ryan Allen was spectacular against the Texans. New England had more yards on punts than on offense (333 to 282).
-With two fumbles on two punt returns, look for Cyrus Jones to be exiled to punt return purgatory. After the second one Belichick was probably feeling like the rookie should suffer the same fate as another famous Cyrus.
-Phil Simms tries to say stuff: “You prepare for them. You say I’m ready for this defense, and they show none of this, and it was just like spaghetti on a plate, all the stuff they were doing”
-Let’s end with one of the biggest no talent, ass-hat, windbags working in the media today. In case you missed it, upon hearing that Jacoby Brissett was likely going to start at QB Thursday night, NY Post columnist and obsessive Patriot troll, Bart Hubbuch wrote on Twitter, “Totally not-shocking fact: The Patriots have never had a black QB start a game in their 57-year history”. As if accusing Bill Belichick, Bob Kraft and basically everyone that has ever worked for the Patriots of being racist wasn’t bad enough, shortly after he tweeted that nugget, this coward shutoff his phone and shutdown his Twitter account.
But there is some good news (sort of). The slimy weasel has returned from his brief exile, so feel free to make his life a living hell by flooding his Twitter account @BartHubbuch with responses. You might want to start with the fact that the Patriots drafted a black quarterback in 1969 which was WAY ahead of the curve and right around the time that Bill Russell was leading the Celtics to another championship as the first black coach in NBA history. You could also remind him Belichick drafted Rohan Davey in 2002. After that feel free to have your tweets get progressively meaner and more personal, after all, the guy is basically calling your city racist. And like David Ortiz said, “This is our fucking city”, so tell Hubbuch to piss off.