No Mercy

[Adam G]

An interesting article about the Pat's outrageous victory margins and the basis for running up the score.

There's a code among football coaches that says you ease off the gas once the game has been secured, lest you get the same treatment some day from the other side. Maybe some day it's your job on the line, and the tipping point could come via an embarrassing loss at home at the hands of a team that is far more talented than your own. That's when you hope for a little mercy from the other side. A there-by-the-grace-of-God-go-I gesture of compassion.

But no opposing team should expect that this year from Belichick and the Patriots. Because it isn't coming. They have absolutely no interest in adhering to the what-goes-around-comes-around bromide. They're going for the throat, and daring anyone to stop them.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/don_banks/10/30/pats.running.up/1.html

Is it just me, or does Don Banks kinda look like Uncle Rico?

[sohotrightnow]

I can't believe that professional football players are complaining. How is this different than any other business? Oh boo hoo, Tom Brady is throwing the ball in the 4th quarter. You don't like it, then stop him from doing it. It's so funny hearing these antecdotes from players that say that "they are disrespecting the game and me." It's quite ironic that the players who are saying they are being disrespected by the Patriots were on teams in college and high school who did the very thing that the Patriots are doing to them now.

[Dan Wishengrad]

I have never read Don Banks before, but I wonder if HE reads former Boston Globe columnist (and my former Sacramento Lacrosse Club teammate) Ron Borges? Borges wrote essentially the same story before Banks did:

http://ronborges.com/

[More Cowbell]

Bill Simmons wrote a similar article a few weeks ago....but his is funnier.

I'm all for the Eff You TD.

Right after Junior Seau's interception clinched the Patriots' 48-27 victory in Dallas on Sunday, my BlackBerry vibrated with a six-word text from my friend Willy:
"Here comes the Eff You TD."

Three minutes later, it happened: Fourth-string running back Kyle Eckel rammed home a fourth-and-1 carry with 19 seconds remaining in a 14-point game. Normally, you take a knee there ... but not this year. Back in the mid-'80s, every time the Celtics walked off an opposing floor after a hard-fought road victory, a giddy Kevin McHale clenched his fists, raised his Frankenstein arms above his head and showed off his victorious armpits. This was the hairy victory cigar of the Bird era. Maybe the 2007 Patriots don't have anything as magical as McHale's pits, but they do have the "Eff You TD." It's their little way of telling the other 31 teams, "You took shots at us after the Jets game, you discredited our three Super Bowls, you pretended we were the only team stealing opposing signals when everyone does it, so you know what? Eff you."

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/bostonblog/071015

[Danny Hogan]

waiting for them to suffer a tyrone prothro situation. google "tyrone prothro running up the score" if you don't remember.

[Beta]

waiting for them to suffer a tyrone prothro situation. google "tyrone prothro running up the score" if you don't remember.

most gruesome injury i've seen in a football game. they replayed it 700 times from every possible angle. the dangling of the lower shin was horrendous.

[cjwilhelmi]

They would stop trying to score if the other teams stopped trying to play defense.