In a pre-game interview Eli said that the key to winning the Super Bowl is scoring more points and controlling the ball.  

Gisele, do you suppose that the Patriots heard these words and sniggered?  Eli was just joking about the “scoring more points.”  Everyone knows you can’t win without having more points – it’s a tautology!  Also, everyone should know that if team A dominates the ball, Team B will be at a disadvantage and likely lose the game.  There is no confusing Team A with Team B in Super Bowl  LXVI.  Agreed?

Gisele, do you suppose that your Tom and his teammates were ignorant of this most basic precept?  Well, they most certainly played as though they did!  They played as though it were an altogether new concept!  They played as though they failed to hear the first part of Eli’s sage comment.  In other words, they played as though “scoring more points” was the extent of their game plan.  Right?  Isn’t that tantamount to having no plan . . . no plan at all?

Funny thing, Gisele, at first blush it appears that neither your Tom nor coach Belichick is blamable. Tom was not charged with devising a winning game plan and Belichick relegated himself to more or less the team’s personnel director and inspirational leader.  

When, if ever, is the quarterback’s opinion not to be considered?  Never!  Hence, shouldn’t Tom have asserted his opinions more forcefully?  In fairness to him, perhaps he opined his opinions very forcefully but they were largely dismissed. Nevertheless, can you imagine great quarterbacks of a different stripe acquiescing to a doomed strategy?

As for Belichick, always having excellent assistant coaches whom he could rely on explicitly, he was wont to delegate responsibility.  However, due to the recent inauspicious shake up in his coaching staff, he should have rescinded the authority he had delegated to his assistants. He should have assumed full control.  He failed to take over as offensive coordinator and he failed to devise a unified game plan, i.e. one that calls for the offense, defense, and special teams playing in sync with one another.

You see, when quarterback coach/offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien announced he would soon go to the greener pastures of Pennsylvania to prepare Penn State for great success, Belichick reacted quickly hiring Josh McDaniels as his replacement. 

It was a brilliant decision . . . kind of!  It’s kind of like . . . being on the stool and off it in turns with an important job to do but not knowing quite how to do it.

Josh McDaniels, who had been with the Patriot organization from 2001 through 2008 and was the quarterback coach/offensive coordinator for those last four years, was the perfect choice to replace O’Brien. At once, Belichick relieved O’Brien of all his responsibilities save one, play calling!

Reader, can you imagine how disconcerting these fleeting allegiances must have been to the Patriot players?  O’Brien was defecting to Penn State as McDaniels was defecting from St. Louis.  How do you suppose the players would have reacted if O’Brien and McDaniels respectively donned Nittany Lions and St. Louis Rams baseball caps?  How ridiculous would that be?

Even more ludicrous would be this following scenario: O’Brien becomes enraged at Tom Brady, again, as he had been once before a few games ago.  That time Brady had failed to follow O’Brien’s instructions to a T.  Suppose this time Brady actually countermanded one of O’Brien’s plays!  How about if he had countermanded two, or three, or all of them! 

No doubt Brady’s insubordination would have driven O’Brien half crazy, but he no doubt would have checked himself and chastised Brady with a measure of civility, so as not to turn the whole team on him like a pack of dogs.    

Gisele, is that what actually happened?  Did Tom countermand any of O’Brien’s plays?  Did he treat him as though he were a no count? 

Gisele, did Tom tell you whether McDaniels had the authority to preempt O’Brien if the latter’s play calling was clearly errant?

Imagine how ludicrous it would have appeared if O’Brien and McDaniels didn’t see eye to eye on play calling and lit into one another!  Likely the players would let them have at it.  Maybe Belichick would then have plopped himself on the stool . . . so to speak.

Gisele, Tom must have informed you of this unsavory situation long before game time.  Blaming the Patriots’ receivers for the loss is simply wrong.  Those dropped passes, as you refer to them – there were three supposedly – if caught would have been spectacular catches.  

Imagine you yourself, Gisele, on some women’s football team as a wide receiver.  Do you really think that you could catch any of those so called “dropped passes”?

Face it, Gisele, the Patriots lost because they did not have the ball long enough and had not a game plan.

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