The New England Patriots 2014 Playoffs Thread

I am at peace with the loss, but then I went in expecting to lose. That we had any chance in this game at all says more about Seattle than anything else. We are basically stuck with the worst coach in NFL history to ever win a Superbowl and he needed one of the best QBs ever and a Defense playing well above its means at the right time to do it. McFatty is the Eli Manning of head coaches. No one knows how that idiot has a ring, but he does. I am and will always be a Packer fan, but I refuse to get emotionally invested in this team again while he remains the coach. Seven straight years and we have a bunch of one and dones with one fluke against an aging Steelers team to show for it, despite having the most talent on the offensive side of the ball we have ever had in team history. The only point where I had even a glimmer of home is the 3rd Qtr FG drive where Rodgers clearly said fuck it and audibled into some passes, but aside from that I knew we were losing this one the entire game and was certain of it after the fake field goal.

Unfortunately, we are stuck with him until Rodgers either quits or bitches about him (Rodgers is too nice to do this), so we will continue to be the one and done kings of the NFC North until the Vikes dethrone us in a couple more years. This is like the entire decade of Favre all over again, where you have one of the best QBs playing the game, sit well under the cap year in and year out, but never give the team the tools to push past the final round. McFatty just signed a long term contract and if years of Ted the Ghost Thompson and watching Jerret Bush or Bostwick fuck things up has taught me anything, its that Ted sticks with his pet picks no matter what. Except I think this particular loss is going to wreck the franchise as surely as the one SF suffered last year. Players know this coach has no balls and will look to make money and get rings elsewhere. In two years this is going to be a complete replay of the Mike Sherman years all over again, squandering an all time QB by refusing to get talent while he suffers under a coach who is kept employed by riding his back.

As for the game, I think that the article linked above sums up McCarthy's fuckups rather nicely, but also:
1) Mathews- This asshole has been playing dirty the last couple games, which is normally the sign of a roided out D player who is trying to make up for loss of physical ability. His cheap shit needs to stop and we need to line up a long term replacement plan for him.

2) AJ Hawk- This dude should have been cut over two years ago. If Sunday's loss accomplishes nothing else, maybe it will finally get him off the fucking field for good. He cannot cover or tackle. And his poor decision making finally cost us a game on the largest stage.

3) Bostwick- The fact that no one knew his name before he shit the bed on the onsides kick tells you how bad out TE situation is. On a team with no TEs worth half a shit, this guy manages to be even more invisible than Quarless. He should be cut, if only to make an example out of people who try to play hero, but he is one of Teddy's personal pet projects so we get to sit through Jerret Bush 2.0 again.

4) Slocum- People want to pin shit on Capers, but the only new talent he has gotten in years has been Peppers and Dix (both excellent). The real coach McFatty should toss under the bus is Slocum. We had seven blocked kicks this season (franchise worst) and was the brains that put a rookie second year second strong TE with alligator arms on the fucking Hands team in the most critical game of the season. Oh, and apparently he (and GB) were the only people in the entire country who didn't know that fake FG was coming. Unlike Capers, this jackass has had a lot of talent to draw from and this has gone on for years. The only person more deserving of getting fired than Bostwick is this asshole.

5) Clock Management- Most coaches struggle with it, but really McFatty is the worst I have ever seen, and I have watched a lot of Andy Reid and Jim Harbaugh games. If fatass can't manage to look up from his clip board and cheeseburger long enough to handle the playclock or stop giving the opposing team extra time with needless timeouts in critical moments, then he had better defer those privileges to someone else.

6) The Tighness of McCarthy's Asshole- This game was a case study in why I hate him as a coach, but throwing the hand cuffs on Rodgers in the second half and trying to hit some arbitrary number of runs for his stat sheet is unforgivable. His lack of aggression has killed us in winnable games, as has his tendency to coach a flat team in games we should trounce (Bills, KC two years ago, ect). Average coaches let teams back in the game. What does that say about a coach who has Rodgers and a two score lead in the Championship game?

Anyhow, I am checked out on this. It sucks, but it was not unexpected. Getting blown out might have been better, because we would see real change. With the historic meltdown last night, we are going to be slowly picked apart by free agency and Rodgers will go the Manning Favre route of piling up meaningless stats and having his prime years squandered, because the homers will stick by TT and MM thanks to the one lucky run we had. If you really look at the team though, objectively, we have had two blowouts to the Giants at home, two losses to the mighty Kseperbro, and an assortment of one and dones since Fatty took over. Better coaches than him have gotten canned for that.