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Three Yards and a Cloud of Little Rubber Pellets

Bill Belichick not only proved last night he could coach the Patriots to a big win without Tom Brady at quarterback. He showed he could do it without a quarterback at all.

The Pats attempted all of three forward passes in their engrossing 14-10 victory over the Bills, a game played in ludicrous weather conditions even by Buffalo December standards. Mac Jones spent a chilly three hours doing nothing but handing off and watching the show. Not even in hot take and quarterback obsessed Boston can his performance be seen as having any effect on the game whatsoever.

Wind is the one element to which professional athletes in any sport cannot really adjust, but merely submit. Wind masters Bryson DeChambeau as easily as it does any 20-handicapper. It can turn Fenway Park into a pitcher's paradise or the set of Home Run Derby. 

The Pats and Bills played in the kind of Great Lakes wind associated with the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. In a burst of inspired passivity, Belichick surrendered to the gale before the game began. The Pats would run and nothing else. They'd run on third and four, or eight, or 14.  If football had ground balls, Belichick would've ordered Josh McDaniels to call them.

The Globe's Ben Volin had a story this morning saying the Patriots "played it safe" in running on every down. Nothing could be further from the truth. It was Belichick's decision that refusing to pass was his LESS risky option on offense, that it was a way to minimize the number of funny bounces and opportunities for chaos (coaches hate chaos). And it was, but it was also a major gamble that what funny bounces did occur would be more for his side than against it.

In theory, a team that averages four yards a carry (pretty much the NFL average) could run on every play and never surrender the ball. Of course, it doesn't work that way. One or two runs get stuffed, it's third and nine and the coordinator tells the QB to sling it. Even more basically, smashmouth uber alles offense only works if a team is ahead. Two first quarter touchdowns by the opposition, and even a team with Barry Sanders and Jim Brown in the backfield is going to start chucking the old melon around.

There were only two big gainers of consequence in the game, the causes of its only two touchdowns. The first was Damien Harris' 64-yard run, a textbook example of what happens when a defense does a goal line sellout when not on the goal line. The other was a funny bounce supreme, the punt that bounced off N'Keal Harry's helmet setting up the Bills' TD.

Now suppose Harry's miscue had come first. Suppose the Bills had a 7-0 lead in the first quarter. Would Belichick have held to his game plan in that circumstance? We'll never know. He'll go to his grave without saying. But the coach's strategy would've been sorely tested.

The major risk, however, of taking the football out of the air is that by minimizing the possible number of big plays, the Patriots were maximizing the probability of a low scoring game, where one slip by the defense or one funny bounce could mean disaster. That didn't happen. But let's not forget how close it came to happening. If the Bills don't shank a 4th quarter field goal, if the Pats get called for PI in the end zone as they should've, Belichick is getting roasted for his choices this morning, not hailed.

In a way, last night was a reverse of another famous Belichick coaching call, the loss to the Colts in 2009 where he had Brady pass on 4th down deep in Pats territory inside two minutes instead of punting. In macro terms, the logic of both decisions was the same. "I will put the game in the hands of my best player (s)," Brady in 2009, the defense last night. When the call didn't work in Indianapolis, Belichick was blasted around the world. It worked last night, so he's a genius again. Wonder why Belichick doesn't care what other people think? It's a survival mechanism.

Football is chaos with a layer of choreography on top. That means all coaching is accepting risk, if not of one kind, then of another. If there's an element of his skill set that sets Belichick apart from the other great NFL coaches in history, the Browns, Lombardis and Walshes, I believe it is this. He is willing not merely to tolerate risk. If Belichick believes he has no other choice, he will embrace it.

posted by Michael Gee @ 10:07 AM