Tag: Bill Belichick

Go-Go Gadget Play!

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As longtime supporters of the New England Patriots organization, Nerds on Sports got a special sneak peek at some of Bill Belichick’s trick plays for this weekend’s Big Game. Here are some highlights:

Ain’t life a blast?Boy Scout: Brady fakes the toss, then pitches the ball to Maroney while Ben Watson opens a lane to the outside. Maroney then draws a Sig Sauer P226 and shoots Sam Madison, Aaron Ross and Gibril Wilson. Belichick claims that nothing in the rules expressly forbids the use of a handgun, arguing with the ref and giving Brady time to rest between plays. Bruce Willis dances a jig.

uWEE-hee-hee-HEE!Fallen One: Only two wideouts on this play; everyone else drops back to block or protect the pocket. Linemen form a multi-story tower built from the remains of a world shattered by a madman’s ambition. Giants’ linebackers enter tower and attempt to sack Brady, at which point he unleashes attack that reduces them all to 1 hp. This may end in an incomplete pass or a sack, but will almost certainly result in several Giants defensive players being taken out on the next down (as Tom Coughlin has likely used up all his Elixirs getting Kiwanuka and Shockey game-ready).

Tom Cruise rates this play OT-VII.Valkyrie: Heath Evans takes the direct snap. Evans substitutes the ball for a briefcase lined with lead and filled with sensitive explosives. Evans “fumbles” the ball on the tackle, allowing one of the Giants’ linebackers to recover. As the linebacker runs the briefcase down field, the vial of acid that shattered in the fumble eats through the lead and into the explosive. Linebacker dies messily; Steiner signs peace accords with England and France.

My life for Foxboro!Gestalt: Brady runs down the play clock until Logan Mankins and Billy Yates can merge into an Archon, a barely corporeal psychic entity. The Archon paralyzes the Giants’ backfield with a Psionic Storm, allowing Brady to throw leisurely routes for 40 yards a pass. N.B.: Hold off on this play if the Giants have EMP capabilities, as the Archon’s power rests entirely in its immense energy shield.

Wes Welker has the smooth complexion needed to play a 16-year-old at age 25.Flux: Shotgun snap, Brady to Welker on the outside route. Welker accelerates to a ground speed of eighty-eight miles per hour, traveling back in time to the Waterloo High School Senior Prom in 1964. He shows up Tom Coughlin in front of his date, winning her heart and depressing the impressionable young man. Coughlin enlists in the army instead of going to Syracuse and is killed in Vietnam. Jim Fassel stays on as head coach long into his senile years, keeping Kurt Warner as the starter and never acquiring Eli Manning. The Giants end the 2007 season 4-12 and never make it to the postseason; Patriots win by default through temporal anomaly.

In 4th edition, wizards get no spellcasting penalty for wearing sweatshirts provided the sleeves have been cut off.Sphere: Belichick designates all tackles, guards and the center as eligible receivers and casts a prismatic sphere on Brady. Analysis of game film suggests that defensive rookies Aaron Ross and Michael Johnson will be blinded for 2d4 plays even looking at the sphere’s arcane colors, and that while Michael Strahan may be able to pass through the first three levels of the sphere (suffering 20 points of fire damage, 40 points of acid damage and 80 points of electricity damage respectively), the poison in the fourth layer will either kill him or put him out for the rest of the game. Brady can now take upwards of ten minutes to complete each pass.

[Business Day One] Resolutions

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Happy 2008, team.  We here at Nerds On Sports hope your New Year’s Eve parties were exciting, your college football bowl season was fruitful and your hangover has finally crept out from behind your eyes.

I was at my gym this morning and, as expected, saw a couple of new faces (and the attached bodies) on the treadmills.  “Oh New Years,” I thought to myself as I hopped up on my usual elliptical machine, “you make fitness fun again.”  I stole a couple of glances at a pair of the Resolution Runners (feel free to use the term) and did some quick figuring in my head.  The folks that were slogging along at the gym at 7:45 a.m. on this cool Boston morning likely already had memberships and were simply renewing their vows to their cardio routines.  The real My Plan Is To Join A Gym And Lose Thirty Pounds crowd shows up in the first full week of the year. ???? ?????   Generally, that crowd spends a couple of days gorging and then takes a weekend tour of the facility, picks up some new running shorts and gets gung ho on that following Monday.

This bout of early morning thinking made me realize that I don’t really have any New Year’s Resolutions to make.  I go to my gym as much as I need to, eat three square a day and write for a sports blog.  That’s about as perfect as my life is going to get.  So since I have some time on my hands that would’ve been otherwise earmarked for my own resolutions, I’m going to do the Sports World a solid and contract myself out to make some 2008 Resolutions for others. ??????? ??????   You all can thank me later:

Bill Belichick – Continue to find ways to feed Humble Pie to an undefeated team.

Rich Rodriguez – Bring West Virginia’s style of furniture burning football enthusiasm to Michigan’s Big House. Read More

Two Up, Two Down

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It’s a quiet evening around the Nerds on Sports offices. Most of us have gone home for the holiday season. The Dolphins’ climb out of the winless basement goes unheralded. SportsCenter plays to an empty break room. Even Tom Gorzelanny can pass through the halls unmocked.

In lieu of original content, I link you to two interesting sports-related posts I read from sources I don’t expect sports from.

First, re: the Patriots’ streak, here’s Jim Henley of Unqualified Offerings:

Idiot sports radio personalities – and I apologize for the redundancy – constantly ring variations on The Patriots realize that the real prize isn’t going undefeated, it’s winning the Super Bowl. Nonsense. Somebody wins the Super Bowl every year. The NFL has had 41 of the things and they don’t look like they’re going to stop staging them any time soon. There are plenty of Super Bowl champions. There’s only one post-merger, undefeated champion. Why pass up a chance to make history?

What I suspect and hope is that the Patriot organization thinks the same way. The core members – Kraft; Belichick; Brady; Vrabel et al – have already won a bunch of Super Bowls. They haven’t matched the most annoying achievement in modern NFL history. (In fact, by going 19-0 they’d exceed it.) Don Shula ran his mouth worse than Steeler safety Anthony Smith – you have to figure a vindictive bastard like Belichick will want to rub his nose in it.

An interesting thought. Which would you like more – a fourth Super Bowl ring or to have your name mentioned every time someone brings up the word “undefeated season”?

I think winning the Super Bowl says more about a team’s ability to perform – as it’s the best of the AFC against the best of the NFC – but going 16-0 says more about your endurance. Sure, you can’t win the Super Bowl by beating the Jets twice, Buffalo twice and (going out on a limb here) Miami twice, but sixteen games should be a sufficient sample size for any statistician.
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The New Oakland Raiders – At Best

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I’m going to ask you all to close your eyes right now.  Go ahead, close them.

Well, OK, you can’t do that and read my post, but imagine an NFL team with the following characteristics:

– A Coach with a losing record every where he has been in the NFL takes over a team and suddenly he is a genius.

– A reputation for taking average to sub-par players and making them superstars.

– A reputation for taking “bad apples” on other teams and suddenly getting them to “toe the company line” but does so in a secret fashion.

– Revels in deception and trickery.

At this point, the team sounds like one that would strike fear in the hearts of its opponents and ultimately have success on the field. ??????? ?????????   The team would carry with it an aura of intimidation based on fear and on-the-fields results.  Now for the moment where Matthew McConaughey tells you to imagine that the girl is white. 

We invite you to play mega reel and have the chance to win incredible money prizes, it does not matter if you are a professional player or not everybody has the chance.

Here are two more aspects of the team:

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