Super Bowl

Why Belichick and Brady Will Not Win the Super Bowl

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There is nothing more irritating than hearing from the Boston media and Masshole Nation that the New England Patriots are going to win Super Bowl XLIX in Glendale, Arizona. Let’s not let history prevent the ‘In Bill We Trust’ sycophants to believe in anything else, Belichick’s Patriots are nearly a virtual lock to be victorious in the final game of another arduous NFL season.

Though this would contradict history, there are very few folks in New England, who can envision a scenario, where the dynamic duo of Bill Belichick and Tom Brady do not capture their fourth Super Bowl. No coach in NFL history has ever gone ten years between Super Bowl wins, and that is the feat Belichick will attempt to achieve.

The longest span between Super Bowl wins was achieved by Joe Gibbs, in his first stint in Washington, where saying Redskins was politically correct within the Beltway and where his squads held aloft the Vince Lombardi Trophy in 1983, 1988 and 1992. Gibbs’ nine-year span is the mark that Belichick will try to overcome.

The history of football does not lie. It is a game that devours its young. It is a game that routinely destroys coaches by the enormous time commitment required; head coaches who burn out, breakdown and watch the game inexorably pass them by. The game holds no promises and a Super Bowl victory is far from guaranteed.

The oldest coach to win a Super Bowl was achieved by the then 65-year-old Tom Coughlin with his New York Giants in 2012. Ironically, the Giants victory came against Belichick’s Pats.

Bill Belichick will be 62 when Super Bowl XLIX is played on February, 1, 2015. In the history of the Super Bowl, only four head coaches have led their teams to a championship and been over the age of 60.

At the age of 61, Weeb Ewbank won Super Bowl III with his underdog New York Jets in 1969. Super Bowl XXXIV was garnered by the 63-year-old Dick Vermeil, who conquered burn out from his Philly years and led the St. Louis Rams to a title. 61-year-old Tom Coughlin’s New York Giants beat the greatest team ever assembled by Bill Belichick, according to Patriots Nation, ending the Pats’ 18-0 run into the postseason and securing the Giants a third Vince Lombardi Trophy in 2008. And cheatin’ Pete Carroll’s Seattle Seahawks shellacked Peyton Manning’s Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XLVII, 43-8, when Petey was 62,

Yes, a coach can win a Super Bowl in his sixties, and perhaps Belichick is the best candidate to do that but the history that suggests otherwise is immense. In 48 Super Bowls, only four winning head coaches have been in their sixties. An actuary would not place money on Belichick and his New England Patriots.

If the age of Belichick doesn’t dissuade a deep belief in the invincibility of Belichick’s 2014 Patriots, how about the age of starting quarterback Tom Brady? Brady is 37. At the age of 37 and 38, Denver’s John Elway won back-to-back Super Bowls in 1997 and 1998. At the age of 37, Jim Plunkett quarterbacked Al Davis’s silver and black Oakland Raiders to a 38-9 drubbing of a Joe Gibbs’ Washington group with a 35-year-old Joe Theismann under center. Elway and Plunkett are the two oldest quarterbacks to win Super Bowls.

The data would show that nearing the age of 40 does not equal Super Bowl wins for quarterbacks. As much as pundits like to laud the role of experience, the game of football is usually played best by young men, who can withstand the physical pounding of a sixteen-game regular season and then entry into a postseason playoff tournament. New England zealots will highlight the advances in conditioning and sports medicine that allow today’s athletes to defy the creeping effects of age, but that belief is not demonstrated in the history of the game.

Possibly a 38-year-old Peyton Manning or a 37-year-old Tom Brady can buck the odds, but their lack of youth is a problem that cannot be ignored. Manning and Brady are riding Canton-bound careers to football Valhalla, but age will win out. For those citizens in Patriot Nation, who fervently believe that Brady will play effectively into his forties, this would be a rationale only a senile Al Davis would offer. Clearly Manning’s Broncos and Brady’s Patriots appear to be the elite of the AFC, but this is a cruel game that is adverse to romance and fairy tales. Brady and Manning are staring at long odds as their bodies creep nearer to 40 than they do to 30.

The Belichick and Brady collaboration is nearing its end, and there may be one last title to grab, but ten years without a Super Bowl ring would suggest New England’s halcyon days ended some time ago.

Quick Hits : Johnny Football’s Middle Finger

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The Cleveland Browns have announced that Johnny Manziel will not start the season under center, but that Brian Hoyer will get the starting nod at quarterback from first-year coach, Mike Pettine. Manziel will be the starter no later than Game 4. In fact, on a Vegas prop bet, take the under for Johnny Football’s first start. 

I love that Manziel gave the finger to the Washington Redskins’ sideline.When did cursing and crude hand gestures become a criminal offense on a professional football field? The NFL will reach into Manziel’s pocket and get some cash for the use of his middle finger, but the NFL also fines its players for wearing their socks at an improper length. 

Johnny Football

When speaking about the militarization of local police departments, in conjunction with the violent protests in Ferguson, Missouri, it has become common to report there are over 300 million guns in the United States of America. If that figure is correct, and there are over 300 million guns in America then there should be well over 300 million bullets available to Americans. With those numbers, how does the U.S. not survive a zombie apocalypse? Do the math and we should be okay. 

Did Robin Williams’ death raise awareness of depression or Parkinson’s Disease? When someone dies tragically, I cringe when someone states that this will “raise awareness.” Did the mass school shooting in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, raise awareness on our inept mental health system or the inadequacy of our gun control laws? I hope it raised something, but did it motivate change? Most people will mourn the loss of Robin Williams’ comic virtuosity, but it will probably make little impact on our society’s view of mental illness. 

Everyone has a favorite Robin Williams’ movie, and living in or just outside of Boston for a long time the natural pick would seem to be Good Will Hunting, but I’m going to dig a little deeper into the early part of Williams’ movie career and select another film set partially in New England, The World According to Garp. Williams plays it fairly straight as T.S. Garp, who is the only son of feminist icon, Jenny Fields. Director George Roy Hill stays true to John Irving’s  novel – Williams plays Garp as a teenager and as a father of two boys as the movie skillfully captures the full life of T.S. Garp. 

To quote Jenny Fields: “You know, everybody dies. My parents died. Your father died. Everybody dies. I’m going to die too. So will you. The thing is, to have a life before we die. It can be a real adventure having a life.”

John Irving raising the arm of Robin Williams (T.S. Garp) in victory. 

There will never be another stand-up comic like Robin Williams. His stand-up performances were a work of true incomprehensible genius. His improvisations were mind-blowing. 

To share my inner fantasy geek with my very large readership, I am a habitual viewer of TNT’s Falling Skies and FX’s The Strain. 

I want to go on Charlie Rose and converse with him in American Sign Language. 

Johnny Manziel should date Khloe Kardashian. 

If Steve Ballmer wasn’t worth approximately $18 million dollars after purchasing the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers, would his 5-Hour Energy salesman motivational shtick be more appropriate for a late night infomercial, a sales seminar event at your local shitty motel ballroom, or found Sunday at a mega church? 

Ballmer

The last Super Bowl won by New England’s Bill Belichick and Tom Brady was on February 6, 2005. The Patriots defeated Freddy Mitchell’s Philadelphia Eagles, 24 – 21. The Patriots are once again anointed perennial contenders for a 2015 Super Bowl win, in Glendale, Arizona, but the Belichick and Brady show is going on nearly ten years without another piece of NFL hardware to put in owner Robert Kraft’s office. I get tired hearing of the Patriots’ superiority.  

Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony both have clothing lines at Kohl’s. Apparently their divorce does not extend to this department store.