[quote]chillain wrote:
[quote]strungoutboy21 wrote:
They had no incentive to tip their hand to the Pats earlier? If they won that game they would have got a first round bye and homefield advantage throughout the playoffs. It was probably Houston’s biggest game of the year before the playoff game. There should have been plenty incentive to win the game. [/quote]
It was too early in the year to single out that game. They had to “win out” to clinch the bye for sure, that’s very different than winning that particular monday nighter.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
No incentive to tip their hand? Are you fucking kidding?
Do you really think athletes and teams think this way? Have you ever competed at ANYTHING sports-related where you said to yourself, well, I think I’m not going to try hard to win or whatever because I don’t want to give anything away? Fuck no, and if you HAVE thought that way I’d be willing to bet you’ve never been a professional athlete or anything close to it.
I cannot fucking stand when people say shit like this. It’s like when people say, oh, well they already have everything locked up and nothing to play for so they aren’t going to be motivated to play as hard or whatever. BULLSHIT. These guys are professional athletes. They become professionals on the backs of extreme physical talent but also extreme competitiveness. Professional athletes don’t like to lose, period.
They tried to beat NE as best as they could and with everything available to them. They got beat, badly, by a team that was trying just as hard to beat them. All that other peripheral bullshit goes out the window when the whistle blows and these guys are trying to dominate each other as hard as they can. Athletes don’t think the way fans think. That’s why fans are at home watching and athletes are in the stadium playing.[/quote]
Agreed with most of this, but it’s just as ludicrous to suggest that players/coaches pay no mind to the schedule.
And what about preaseason games? Don’t tell me that players only know fully ON/OFF intensity or that “vanilla” coaching schemes aren’t beyond commonplace.
My point: some games are more meaningful than others.
Look, I’m NOT saying that HOU showed up expecting to lose, only that they knew a loss was hardly the worst thing in the world. Meanwhile their following week’s matchup at IND (off the short week) was much more meaningful and they won that road game handily.
Again, in that monday nighter at NE, I saw zero exotic blitzes/coverages from HOU nor much of an effort to play catchup and we can safely expect NONE of the same next weekend.
[/quote]
The reason you saw zero exotic blitzes from Houston is because Tom Brady might be the best QB against the blitz in the NFL. His passer rating is probably higher against the blitz than it is overall.
Preseason games are an entirely different animal altogether since those games really don’t mean a thing as far as who wins and loses.
I agree that not all games have the same meaning IN RETROSPECT. But at the time, the biggest game of the year is the game they’re playing in, especially when they’re playing on the road against the best team in the AFC the last decade or so and you’re on a team that hasn’t won a single postseason game. At that point EVERY game against a team like NE is huge.
They blew out Indianapolis because Indianapolis is a FAR worse team than NE is. That had nothing to do with the import they placed on one game over another. If the loss were against Oakland instead of NE it might be a different conversation. But it wasn’t.
And perhaps the fact that you saw zero effort to catch up was actually an illusion. Perhaps they WERE trying to catch up but NE just was the better team that night and took away their competitiveness. That happens in sports. I see it a lot in fighting sports. A guy gets his face bashed in often enough in a bout and he just fight back as hard, even though he still wants to win just as badly. But the fight was taken out of him by a better opponent. You have to give credit to the other fighter or the other team at some point too, and I think that Houston/NE game is an example of NE deserving the credit for winning and not so much Houston deserving blame for the loss.
