Derrick Henry Crushes The Evil
Praise be to Derrick Henry, glory to his name. Slayer of Evil. Crusher of Massholes. Birthday Badass. Hero of the people.
The evil has been defeated. The dream we dared to dream came to be. The Patriots will not repeat as champions. They will not reach the AFCCG. They won’t even be here next week. They are gone. We are free. The AFC is wide open. Praise be to Derrick Henry.
The Titans proved they belonged in this dance. Normally 6th seeds are sacrifices to the playoff gods but this weekend chaos reigned. The Titans just looked better. They came out stong, ran into some difficulties, but played the long game. Vrabel coached it superbly, his crowning moment being when he used Belichick’s own bullshit against him in the 4th quarter. The Titans exploited a method of running out a lot of clock by committing penalties with over 5 minutes left, which causes a time runoff. They soaked out 1:45 of the 4th quarter between plays. A risky move when you are up by one point and about to punt it back, but it worked. Presumably, Vrabel learned this move from Belichick after he did it against the Jets earlier this year. I love it when Bill finds those stupid loopholes because it’s what makes him brilliant, but I love it even more when a team has the balls to do the same to him.
Derrick Henry is officially the man and now I can’t help but wonder why the hell he hasn’t been doing this before this season. Did Matt LaFleur hate him personally? Derrick Henry is a giant tree trunk of a man and watching him plow into the Patriots was like watching the Ents fuck up Isengard in The Two Towers. It was the man’s birthday and his present was crushing the skulls of the Patriots linebackers who tried to tackle him. Consider me officially a Derrick Henry fan. Derrick Henry fucks.
Big ups to everyone on the Titans, even the damn punter Brett Kern with the absolute coffin of a punt to put the Patriots on the half yard line with 15 seconds left. Ryan Tannehill and AJ Brown didn’t have a great game, but it didn’t matter. This team has been finding ways to win and I love them.
And good riddance to the death star, at least until September. I’m not ready to call this the end yet. This was undoubtedly a bad year by Patriots standards but they’ve risen from the ashes before. I kept expecting the offense to figure it out all season long, but they just…never really did. Many are already speculating on whether this is the end of Tom Brady, even just as a Patriot. I don’t think so. I don’t think he wants to go out on a pick-6 at home in the wildcard round. The thing about having EXTREME COMPETITOR BRAIN is a blindness to the decline of your abilities. This year was Tom’s first year looking like a mortal in a long time and much of it is hard to pinpoint blame for. The skill positions were injured and depleted. The playcalling subpar. The line was a tire fire. The entire offense was the problem. I don’t know how much of it is on Tom being old. We can say one thing for sure though. Tom is no longer good enough to carry the offense by himself, if he ever was. The system failed him this year, and in turn he failed the system. It’s not a good sign for the future.
But I just can’t see him giving it up like that because he’s got COMPETITOR BRAIN and that is a disease of ego. He wants to play. He’s too big a franchise legend to get cut even if Bill probably wants that by now. I think he’ll be back next year, maybe on a shorter deal, and next season will be the true test. Dynasties in sports rarely fall in an instant (Golden State Warriors excepted). They fade slowly. Things begin to crumble. Pieces begin to leave. Success seems just a bit harder and harder. This season certainly felt like the beginning of an end for Tommy Boy. How long that end takes is up to him. I think if he comes back and the Patriots have a similar year next year, that’s probably it. Longer than that at this level of play or worse would probably end in embarrassment. So I will hold off on celebrating the end of the dynasty for now but keep an eye on the team with great interest. Maybe, just maybe, we can finally see the light at the end of this tunnel.
Rooting for a Titans/Vikings Super Bowl, will gladly settle for anything that doesn’t involve the Packers or Seahawks.
Lord Chaos took the year off for College Football but has returned to the throne for the NFL Playoffs.
Brady is not going to go out bouncing a pick-six off the hands of a bum in the wildcard round. I can only hope that the NFL finally gets to see a Brady-less Belichick team and a Belichick-less Brady.
Maybe Elway is going to try repeating his fling with Manning?
The Saints lost. The Patriots lost. The Eagles lost. This is the best timeline. I’m personally pulling for the Titans, Texans, or Vikings. I just want to see a Superbowl that ends up with a team winning their first.
We just need Marvin Lewis in Dallas and Jason Garrett with the NYG for maximum chaos and/or schadenfreude 😀
The Cowboys hired Mike McCarthy as head coach, and Garrett is rumored to be going to the Giants as offensive coordinator. That’s pretty close.
It’s not the best timeline until the Packers lose.
Derrick Henry broke a sixty year old record in high school. The all time leading high school record was Ken Hall since 1953. Derrick Henry broke that a few years ago. Let’s see how far El Tractito can go
Just to point this out, Alabama will not win the National Championship and New England will not win the Super Bowl. For years, it seems like when one wins the other loses. But not this year. Also, RIP Siants =( May chaos reign!
I can get over this loss way easier at least. I like how the national media tried to drum up some more bad blood between the Saints fans (on the alleged OPI) and the refs and the fan base doesn’t care.
That’s because if OPI had been called, it would’ve been totally weaksauce and the Vikes defense would’ve probably held anyway. Suck it, mass media!
Saints played horrible. They deserved to lose that one. I’m still not sold on Cousins and the Vikings though. Last time they had a big emotional win in the playoffs (against the Saints no less), they handily lost the next week.
Brady can’t be on any shorter deal than he was on unless he retires. His current contract is a one year deal that expires with the start of the league year in March. (Technically it is 2 years but it literally has auto-void language that terminates it after 1).
I think Belichick will (and should) walk away from Brady and begin the rebuild, if Kraft allows it. And if Kraft doesn’t allow it then things get really interesting.
Kraft interfered before when Garappolo was traded, which led to Belichick trading Garappolo for a bag of balls in a fit of pique.
Hopefully Kraft has learned his lesson and will let Bill make the football decisions, even if it means Brady leaving.
Yes I am still salty that the Patriots don’t have Garappolo for the next ten years.
Belichicks personnel decision-making is one of the main reasons for the Patriots dynasty. The Pats consistency over such a long time shouldn’t be possible in a salary cap league like the NFL. While they may not have been as talented as the 49ers dynasty pre salary cap (top 4 defense 12 of 16 years!) they’ve been doing it longer (top 8 defense 12 of 19 years!) with way more rules. That’s insane. It’s one thing to pay for the best team and to have HoF players all over your roster. It’s a whole other thing entirely to wheel an deal the way the Pats do and do it well pre-rookie salary cap and post rookie salary cap.
Got to have Henry grabbing Tannys out of the sun’s corona now. New Elite Moneys comics, here we come…!
If the Titans win the Super Bowl, Tannehill will be shown with Superman-like powers given to him by getting jettisoned into the sun. He can say that at that moment he was reborn as a true……titan.
*side-eyes Dave in retrospect*
I knew we were done for when I found myself looking up other sports New England is doing better than New York in
I didn’t even bother to watch the game. I saw the Patriots are undefeated at home against the Tits and against Tannehill. It’s the Patriots in post season, I didn’t wanna watch that SHIT. Then I saw the final score and it honestly felt like I won the Super Bowl!
I believe the reason is no Gronk. If you look back at Brady’s play, he has been bailed out more often by Gronk than by any other player he’s played with. It’s like Moss making Culpepper look good, as soon as he is gone, the mistakes are no longer covered up.
So now here’s the question: what team is gonna be stupid enough to hire Josh McDaniels as their head coach even after this?
Honestly I don’t think Brady is the problem. He’s still fine, and I think he’ll be back and fine next year
I like how everyone hates the Pats for doing what teams are supposed to do… win.
You spelled “cheat” wrong.
I mostly hate them for their obsession with being seen as the underdog, really. Manning’s Colts knew who they were and were never so insufferable
thank god for butthurt pats fans
life just isnt worth living otherwise
I still don’t understand the pick-six play. It’s FIRST AND NINETY-NINE with FIFTEEN SECONDS left.
The only possible chance is to chuck it as far as possible and hope for a jump-ball catch or (more likely) a bullshit DPI call.
And Tahmy throws a checkdown? Did they spy on Alex Smith by mistake?
Tommy Boy doesn’t have an arm anymore
As much as I would love to see a Vikings/Titans Superbowl, it’s not going to happen.
The Packers are going to win the Superbowl, as much as it pains me to say it. The NFL wants a legacy team to win in the 100th year. What would be a better narrative than the team of Lombardi hoisting the Lombardi to usher in the next century of the NFL?
The Packers are a mediocre team that has a lot of balls bounce their way this year. Their seed level is disproportionate to their actual talent.
What about the 9ers? they’ve had great history and very well could be the, quote, “legacy team” the NFL has hoist the trophy? It’s also a beautiful comeback story for Brady Jr, as well, and you know Goodell would jizz in his pants if Garoppolo becomes the next Brady.
My new favorite fun fact I’ve been spouting out for the past few days: Week 17 vs the dolphins and the wildcard vs the titans were the first consecutive games in Tom Brady’s career where he’s thrown a pick six. BOTH of these throws were taken back by players who once played for the Pats (Eric Rowe and Logan Ryan)
I assure you that this game sucked for Jags fans. I live in west Florida so it has been nice to share things with all the local Saints fans (even they have LSU… I am a Seminole). BTW: Miles Jack was not down.