Underdog
I’m not a huge sports fan, but I like a good story line. New England Pats have one. Pats get a win over Favre’s Jets with Backup QB Matt Cassel, underdog in for an injured Brady, in his first start since high school. Cassel finally gets some respect. Boston Herald’s Tomase, Cassel stands tall:
If Matt Cassel plays this game eight weeks from now, the Patriots probably prevail by a lot more than yesterday’s eminently satisfying 19-10 takedown of the Jets.
In fact, if we learned anything watching Cassel manage the offense in the victory, it’s that he probably is going to improve quite a bit between now and January.
Boston Herald’s Guregian, Pats defend their reputation:
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. - The oddsmakers jumped off the Patriots bandwagon. Even some of their most ardent supporters abandoned them in the wake of quarterback Tom Brady’s season-ending knee injury.
Forgotten was what remained, what Brady left behind in the locker room.
The Pats still possess some pretty good playmakers, which has been the hallmark of three Super Bowl championships. They aren’t all injured and out for the season.
Remember Kevin Faulk? How about Richard Seymour? Rodney Harrison? What about a defensive unit that pretty much stymied Brett Favre and the new wave Jets offense yesterday?
Or what about Bill Belichick?
History tells us the Patriots coach thrives on challenges. He can game-plan with the best of them, and he also can light a fuse and motivate when the chips are stacked against him.
Sunday, the Pats upset the Jets, 19-10, on a steamy afternoon in the Meadowlands, largely because Brady backup Matt Cassel (16-of-23, 165 yards) managed the game just fine and the defense played the kind of football that generally gets teams far in the playoffs.
The Pats rose to 2-0 on the season because their defense took over and their offense, with some major help from Stephen Gostkowski (four field goals) did just enough to take down Gang Green.
This isn’t the recipe the Pats had last season with Brady slinging the ball around in a record-setting offense, but it’s a formula that still works.
Tomase’s blog, Cassel as a leader:
The Patriots are instructed not to critique the performance of teammates — positively or negatively — in the media, which can make asking questions like, “Could you critique Matt Cassel’s performance today” tricky. Fullback Heath Evans remained true to this mantra, but did say something interesting about Cassel.
“I can only comment on the things I can comment on,” he said. “I don’t know how you’re supposed to throw the ball, but at the end of the day, when I saw him in the huddle, I saw a confident leader. That’s something I can comment on, because I saw it time after time. I saw him make a mistake and just forget about it. I saw the play you’re talking about (an overthrow of Randy Moss that Cassel bounced back from), it’s like it didn’t even happen. I can tell you from my experience, it’s tough letting negative plays go. He was able to do it tonight.”
For his part, Cassel (16 of 23, 165 yards) never let any of the criticisms he endured in the preseason shake him.
“It’s never about the doubters,” Cassel said. “It’s about having belief in yourself, and I’ve always had the belief in myself that I could go out there and do it.”
Buckley, Who’s Overrated Now?
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. - “Tom Brady’s hurt!” screamed Ellis Hobbs. “He’s not here! The Pats can’t win! The Pats can’t win. Yeah, right!”
He delivered these words to anyone and everyone as the Patriots filed into their cramped, sweat box of a locker room at the Meadowlands early last night after emerging with a 19-10 victory over the New York Jets. It was the Pats’ second victory of the young season but, on another level, it was their first taste of being the plucky underdogs in a long, long time.
Hobbs was right: The Pats didn’t have their glamour-boy, all-world, Hall of Fame-bound quarterback. They instead handed the offense to Matt Cassel, a man who, to hear some people talk, is a kid from LA who had just happened to win the “Be a Quarterback for a Day” contest.
That’s what gave the Jets and their fans a week-long visit to the optimism buffet: They were going to beat the Patriots - beat ’em badly - and, in the end, yesterday’s game was going to have the Very Important Football Experts facing yet new challenges as they dreamed up new superlatives for Brett Favre.
God, how it must bite to be Jets fans right now. They had freakin’ Brett Favre as their quarterback. The Pats had Rudy. Yet when it was over, it was Cassel who stood before the cameras and the microphones with a big ol’ smile on his yap, so comfortable in his shoes he was able to joke about his inexperience by saying, “It was my first start since, what, seventh grade?”
For years now, the Pats, in preparing for the next game on their schedule, have been inventing all kinds of variations on the we-get-no-respect theme. They were playing over their heads. They were lucky. They cheated. And now, this: They can’t win without Tom Brady. On that last one, the Pats had enough bulletin-board material to wallpaper the inside of the Sistine Chapel.
“We understand how wishy-washy people are,” said Rodney Harrison. “We can’t control the so-called experts on TV, sitting on their butts, saying we’re terrible or don’t have a chance. We have to prepare and go execute on the field, because all you know-it-alls can’t do anything between the lines.”
Cassel did not play a “great” game. What he played, and at the risk of damning him with faint praise, was a capable game. He dropped a short pass into the hands of Kevin Faulk for a 14-yard completion on his first pass attempt as an NFL starter, and it seemed - right there - that there would be no QB controversy this week.
Did he rifle a touchdown pass into the end zone? No. Did he underthrow Randy Moss on a deep ball in the fourth quarter? Yes.
But did he look comfortable and in control out there?
Yes.
…
The Pats are right where they want to be: They are underdogs.
The Jets are where nobody wants to be: overrated.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:13 am on Monday, September 15, 2008
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