The Nest

As I feared (and mentioned in an earlier article), the league will be gunning for the Patriots this season. It doesn’t matter that they lost in the Super Bowl to the New York Giants earlier this year. What matters is the swagger in which they pulled off the other 17 wins. The Pats deserve to hold their heads high for the feat they pulled off inspite of losing the last (and most important) game of the season.

What I didn’t expect was that it would happen at the beginning of the first quarter of the first game. Sure, I know that Kansas City safety Bernard Pollard didn’t intentionally tear Brady’s knee apart but when a 6 foot – 225 lb man in full football gear lands on another man’s exposed knee, something’s gonna give! In Brady’s case it was his anterior cruciate ligament (acl).

From Wikipedia:

The anterior cruciate ligament (or ACL) is one of the four major ligaments of the knee. It connects from a posterio-lateral part of the femur to an anterio-medial part of the tibia. These attachments allow it to resist anterior translation of the tibia, in relation to the femur. More specifically, it is attached to the depression in front of the intercondyloid eminence of the tibia, being blended with the anterior extremity of the lateral meniscus. It passes up, backward, and laterally, and is fixed into the medial and back part of the lateral condyle of the femur.

In English it’s one of the tendons that connects the upper leg to the lower leg.

Cassel has stepped in to do a yeomans job filling in for the downed quarterback and with Belichick’s guidance will hopefully improve with every game (barring injury).

Turns out Brady’s injury was just the first in a line of maladies dogging the Pats so far this season though. Safety Rodney Harrison will also miss the rest of the season with a thigh injury. Laurence Maroney after just 3 games is out for the season with a shoulder injury. The list goes on and includes names like Sammy Morris (knee), Jarvis Green (ankle) and Nick Kaczur(ankle) with the latter two being listed as questionable.

It seems the deck is stacked against them this season as the cornerstones of the New England dynasty slowly crack and crumble. If not for the determination of their head coach and the wisdom of the organization, I could easily write them off and adopt a “wait ’til next year” attitude. But Bill Belichick doesn’t give up that easily. He has masterfully woven a safety net of potential remedies for the what if scenarios that befall any team at this level of play. Injuries are a part of the game and the Nashville native knows that and prepares for it. His strategy is to have multiple players able to assume multiple roles throughout the team. A modular team that when one part breaks, detach it from the machine and replace it with a new one. It sounds cold when phrased that way but Bill is pragmatic if nothing else. It’s a harsh game (to put it lightly) and if you’ve put all your eggs in one basket, you’ll see any chances of success in the NFL fade quickly. With the part labeled “Brady”, Belichick simple loosened a few screws removed the damaged module, retrieved the new part from his supply cabinet, installed it and moved on.

Because of that stubborn, pragmatic viewpoint and the calm confidence they exhibited when faced with seemingly insurmountable obstacles in the ‘07 season, I believe, as I’m sure the majority of Pats fans, that they could possibly take it all the way and (hopefully) learn from their mistakes in Superbowl XLII to bring home another title.

patriots football
belichick rodney harrison brady super bowl acl bernard pollard