To quote John Belushi - well, I already did, actually. His famous line from Animal House pretty well sums up my feelings towards Tom Brady's devastating knee injury.
I will admit, as soon as I saw Brady stay down clutching his knee, one thought and one thought only raced through my head - "Our season's over". Even though he got up and walked off with help - a fact, prior to the grim diagnosis, that several of my friends were quick to point out must mean he wasn't injured that badly - I knew better. My dad had torn his ACL playing soccer a long time ago, and not only drove himself home that night - he played the entire rest of the game. And since Brady's leg during the hit showed some hallmarks of "how to tear your ACL", I was steeling myself for the worst. After he walked off the field, I walked down the hall to my friends' room, fully intent on proclaiming our season over. But a funny thing happened in the 45 feet or so I had to walk - I realized that it wasn't. Sure, our preconceived notions of another possible perfect season and near-certain Super Bowl win were down the drain, but the fact remained that the Patriots are still a very good football team - even if Matt Cassell hadn't started a game since high school (although it's not his fault he's backed up two Heisman winners and one of the greatest QBs ever). We've still got Moss, we've still got Welker, we've still got Maroney, and we've still got one of the best front 7's in the NFL - we may not go 18-1, but I'd be willing to bet we easily win the division and make at least the AFC Championship. The Colts have not looked great so far, and neither have the Jaguars or Chargers, all of whom were supposed to contend with the Pats for. By comparison, the Steelers and the *surprising* Broncos have looked very good. Still, I think the Pats match up well against all 5 of those teams. Don't write them off yet.
However, the same unfortunately cannot be said of my beloved Eags (That's our shorthand version of the BC Eagles - long story) Which is why I added the "sometimes" to Belushi's quote. I thought maybe giving myself a lot of time to let the stinging 19-16 loss to Georgia Tech (yeah, haha, funny pun - except not really) percolate in my mind would give me some perspective. Not exactly. The truth is this - Chris Crane is not ready to lead the offense. Columns in the Heights have tried to tell me otherwise, first pinning the blame all the way around on the young team, and then on Coach Jags. The first column makes somewhat of a good point, in that this is a young team having lost a ton of veteran leadership last year, and Crane doesn't deserve all the blame. It's true, he doesn't - except in games like this last one, where he threw 2 interceptions, lost a fumble, and took a safety that he saw coming while only up 6 points - ALL IN THE SECOND HALF. Not to mention the countless awful incompletions he had (such as throwing an 6-yard pass to a wide-open crossing Ryan Purvis at his feet) and the failure to convert a crucial 4th down on the last possession, when he first didn't see a completely wide-open receiver in the flat and then overthrew an open Brandon Robinson. The only deep ball he threw - and with good reason - was overthrown by 7 yards over the wrong shoulder. Okay, so not all the blame is on Crane actually. The defense deserves some of it for again missing too many tackles, most importantly on the go-ahead touchdown. But a good majority of it goes to Crane. Going into the red zone 5 times, and getting 1 TD, 3 FG's, and 1 turnover is not encouraging.
The implication that Jags is to blame, though, is ludicrous. While Crane throwing the ball 35 times is not the best way to win a football game, that's in an ideal situation - which our offense was not in. Jeff Smith was banged up from the first game and largely ineffective, Josh Haden went down with an ankle injury in the first half and didn't come back, and anyone else rushing the ball had no luck. So unless the columnist's advice is to advance the ball by kicking the ball down the field, the only choice Jags had was to throw the ball. I'll draw your attention to something else too - Crane really only started to throw the ball around after Haden was put out of action. Prior to that, it looked much like the Kent State game. Smith and Haden were splitting carries on most of the snaps, with a few options (including some funky play-action option draw-type thing) thrown in for good measure. Crane only threw the ball sparingly before he was forced to. So moving on to this weekend's game against UCF, I unfortunately am not optimistic. This is the same UCF that put a scare into USF recently, which I can't see us being able to do. If Haden is able to play, then this game might - might - be close, but otherwise, I can't see us hanging with UCF. The defense holds up well enough and Aponavicius kicks 2 field goals, but we lose 21-6.
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