... or just good football? Former Pittsburgh Steeler Head Coach Bill Cowher suggested, perhaps ill-advisedly, that if the New England Patriots keep destroying the opposition then someone might take a cheap shot at Patriot QB Tom Brady to try to injure him.
"At some point if this continues, someone's going to take a cheap shot,'' Cowher said. "Is that worth subjecting your players to if it comes to that?''
Cowher may have a bit of a grudge here, as the Patriots defeated his Steelers a couple of times in the playoffs en route to Super Bowl titles in 2002 and 2005. And he may believe that "going to the tape" might have led to those losses. But watching the game, as I did last weekend, the Patriots only questionable moment occurred near the end of a drive that started in the third quarter, not the fourth, and would have made a difference of all of four points. On fourth and one at the Redskin 7 with 11 minutes left, Tom Brady ran a QB sneak as the team eschewed the field goal, leading two plays later to a TD pass to Wes Welker.
There are several ways to look at this. One is to whine, "hey, you're running it up by going for touchdowns." Another would be to realize that, had the Redskins defense stuffed the run and taken the ball back, going for it had given the defense a chance to keep the score closer. Why did Belicheck go for it on fourth down? Probably to keep possession and run the clock down more.
All of this is irrelevant. Injuries and comebacks happen when you take your foot off the pedal. If I'm coaching a team I want them playing hard for 60 minutes. And to get that they need to know that I'm coaching all out for 60 minutes. Maybe you bring in a backup QB, as the Patriots did on the next offensive series. But you still call aggressive plays and you play hard. Joe Gibbs, wise veteran coach that he is, said nothing. He knows that if you want to make the game closer the best way is to play better. He'll use the game to teach his team about the weaknesses the Patriots exploited, and to make them better. That's what it's all about.
