Preamble: I fanatically unconditionally support the Patriots for heritage purposes. I think Brady and his receivers had a spectacular game on their season opener against the Dolphins on Monday.

I have seen a lot of New England press these last few days that follows the narrative of “YOU THOUGHT BRADY DIDN’T HAVE A DEEP THREAT WHAT ABOUT THAT 99 YARD PASS PLAY TO WELKER” This is from the Patriots blog, which will do nothing but compliment the Patriots of course … but let’s be honest.

(( I apologize for not having source material … ))

Brady said himself something along the lines of “It’s not like I threw it 99 yards. I threw a 16 yard pass and Welker took it all the way”

The 99 yard run should really be more of a fault of the Dolphins defense than a credit to the Patriots’ offense. I don’t think risking those deep threat runs are a good idea to be honest; the Patriots proved last season that throwing smart, short route is a smart offensive strategy. By throwing short, safe routes, you prevent turnovers and maintain a consistent drive up the field until you get into the red zone.

I just don’t think New England fans should start claiming we have some sort of unprecedented deep threat. I think Belichick and Brady would agree with me.

So here I was, enjoying a nice autumn Saturday, waiting for some college football to start, and I decided to catch up on some New Yorker articles.  Scanning the table of contents of the Oct. 19th issue, I see Malcolm Gladwell.  “This should be intersting,” I think to myself.

The title was “Offensive Play,” but it’s the subtitle that really gives the summary of this article: “How different are dogfighting and football?”

My initial reaction was filled with anti-elitism.  Here is Malcolm Gladwell, a skinny, nerdy, Canadian-with-British-parents, former runner comparing grown men to dogs, and dismissing an extremely popular sport as morally repugnant.

After reading the article, I still have a fundamental issue with the extent to which this comparison is made, but I left it with a serious bad feeling about football.

(more…)