Pats Playoff Notes: Bring On Tebow!

Pats Playoff Notes: Bring On Tebow!

My first inclination was that we here in New England should be happy that it is the Denver Broncos and not the Pittsburgh Steelers who are coming to Foxboro on Saturday. After all, the Steelers already dominated the Patriots this season in their 25-17 victory on October 30th.

Pittsburgh sacked Tom Brady 3 times and hit him 4 more times. They also dominated time of possession by a 2 to 1 margin.

Conversely, the Patriots dominated the Broncos in Denver on December 18th. After trailing 13-7 at the end of the first quarter, New England throttled the Broncos to the tune of 34-10 over the next 3 quarters of play for a final of 41-23.

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But this may be a different Denver team the Pats will be facing Saturday night. Yes, Tim Tebow is still quarterbacking the Broncos and, as you saw, he still has some of that "Tebow magic" left in him for late game-winning drives.   But there also appears to be a different mentality in the way they are doing things on offense.

For the entire regular season, Denver preferred to play it safe by running the ball on early downs only letting Tebow throw the ball when it was absolutely necessary on 3rd and long.

That was not the case in their Wild Card playoff win over Pittsburgh on Sunday. Offensive coordinator Mike McCoy let the Golden Child air it out on first and second down catching the Steelers’ defense off guard. It is what helped Denver advance to Saturday night’s Divisional Playoff Game against New England.

If you have watched the Broncos play this year then you know that throwing the ball isn’t necessarily Tebow’s strength. He is, by no means, an accurate passer having completed just 46.5% of his passes during the regular season.  And he hasn't put up the most impressive numbers throwing the ball.  Part of that is his fault and part of it falls on the Denver coaching staff and front office.

The coaching staff can be blamed for being much too conservative with their play-calling. That is, until Sunday’s playoff win. The front office can still be blamed for trading away his best weapon – WR Brandon Lloyd to St. Louis as soon as Tebow was anointed the team’s starting signal-caller. It was a clear message from the people upstairs that they didn’t really care if Tebow succeeded.

But here they are, getting set to play the Patriots at Gillette Stadium in a primetime playoff game Saturday night. And while the wise guys in Vegas have installed the Pats as prohibitive favorites, so too were the Pittsburgh Steelers in their Wild Card game at Denver and look where they are right now. They’re cleaning out their lockers and getting ready to hit the golf course.

It wouldn’t appear that Denver’s best chance of upsetting the Pats would be to get into a track meet with Tom Brady and the New England offense. Still, they have to be pleased with the results of opening things up offensively against the Steelers. Now they’re probably licking their chops thinking about what they could do to a very suspect Patriots’ defense.

A large part of me is happy that it is the Denver Broncos and not the Pittsburgh Steelers coming to town Saturday night. But another part of me is thinking that I should be careful what I wish for because I may not be happy with the end result.

NOTES:

-The two big stories last week regarding the Patriots were Bill O’Brien getting hired as the head coach at Penn State and Josh McDaniels coming back to New England.

This is a great opportunity for O’Brien and one that he probably couldn’t afford to turn down. Not that other offers wouldn’t have come in the future, but Penn State is one of the premier college football programs even with all of the problems they have had as of late.

It’s unfortunate that some former Nittany Lions have acted like idiots and voiced their displeasure over O’Brien’s hiring. If you’re a loyal member of the Penn State football family, you should support the head coach no matter where he did or didn’t go to school. A large part of me wants O’Brien to win and win big at Penn State just to make LaVar Arrington and Brandon Short look like the morons that they are.

-McDaniels' return to New England is both welcome and surprising news. It’s welcome news in that there should be a seamless transition from O’Brien to McDaniels as offensive coordinator next year because he has already held this position in New England having done so very well.

What’s surprising about his return is that this is the first time that one of Belichick’s top assistants has returned to New England since leaving. Normally, Belichick develops another coach to take over for the departed, but this will take no development on his part. That’s a nice change of pace for the organization.

-Another area where there will remain continuity is in the front office where Director of Player Personnel Nick Caserio will apparently remain here. According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the Indianapolis Colts attempted to pursue Caserio to replace the recently fired Bill Polian but the Krafts apparently convinced him that staying in New England was the better choice. Considering all of the front office and coaching personnel lost by the Patriots in recent years, this also is a welcome piece of news.

-It was also announced Saturday that former Patriots’ head coach Bill Parcells is among the 15 finalists for induction this year into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. In this writer’s opinion, Parcells should be in without question. Winning two Super Bowls with the Giants may be at the top of Parcells’ resume, but a close second should be what he did for the Patriots’ organization. New England was the laughing stock of the NFL before Parcells’ arrival in 1993. He single-handedly changed the culture within the franchise from one of disarray and losing to one of great organization and winning. He also led the Patriots to Super Bowl 31 where they lost to the Green Bay Packers.

Some people say that Drew Bledsoe was most responsible for the Pats turnaround while others point to owner Robert Kraft. For my money, Bill Parcells was THE man who turned things around and made the Patriots relevant once again.

-Former Pats' RB Curtis Martin is also a finalist once again.  Martin is the NFL's 4th all-time leading rusher having gained 14,101 yards in his 11-year career.