Patriots Derangement Syndrome is at an All-Time High

Now that Mel Brooks’ “The Producers” has gone from a movie about a Broadway show to a Broadway show based on the movie to a movie version of the Broadway show based on the original movie, I imagine everyone knows the premise by now. (Side note: I showed the original to a girl I was dating who was involved in theater without telling her it was a litmus test. And if she didn’t like it, I was going to have serious doubts we could ever have a serious relationship. She laughed her ass off. Our 26th anniversary was in September. As the late, great Roger Ebert said, be sure to only marry someone who loves the same movies as you.)

For those that don’t, it’s about a producer who’s broke and comes up with this plot to get as many people as he can to invest in a musical that he’ll make as intentionally bad he possibly can so that it closes in one night, then he can keep all the investors’ money. So the show is a loving musical tribute to Nazi Germany called “Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp With Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden.” Which is so utterly ridiculous it turns out to be a huge hit, by accident. And the punchline of the whole movie is, “How could this happen? I was so careful. I picked the wrong play, the wrong director, the wrong cast. Where did I go right?”

All of which is a long windup before I deliver this pitch: It’s not easy to be perfectly wrong. It actually takes a lot of work. Just about everything facet of human endeavor has some accidental correctness to it. No matter how hard to try to screw up, you’ll almost always do something right, even by mistake.

But there are exceptions. Welcome back to the blog, Nick Wright and Bart Scott. It’s been a couple of weeks:

That’s a long clip, so allow me to boil it down to its basic elements. Paraphrasing:

Wright: Sunday night, Tom Brady had all the weapons any quarterback could ask for. Brady is 42 and therefore incapable of playing well ever again. And he’s starting to fade down the stretch, just like he did last year.

Scott: The Patriots have to win at Baltimore in the playoffs. And they’ve never been to a Super Bowl when they had to win on the road.

Let’s take the last one first. The Patriots won the AFC championship game at Pittsburgh in the 2001 season. Then did it again after the 2004 season. And … it was a long time ago so if you can’t remember back that far, please bear with me … last January at Kansas City. So they’ve won six Super Bowls, and in [opening up the calculator app … divide by three …] 50% of them they won the conference champion in a hostile stadium. But far be it for anyone on the panel or on a microphone connected to Scott’s earpiece to correct him. Why let the truth get in the way of a good false narrative?

As for Nick Wwrong, I’m going to need a longer pair of rubber gloves to dig through this.

Technically speaking, yes, the Patriots have invested in their offensive skill positions. They used first round picks on Sony Michel and N’Keal Harry and traded a second rounder for Mohamed Sanu. For the brief time they went with two tights in the game, meaning that opening possession, Michel ran well. He’s clearly missed having a professional fullback in front of him and Elandon Roberts is not even a homeless man’s Jimmy Neckroll. But Isaiah Wynn has been a great addition, no question. But as I mentioned yesterday, this was Harry’s lone target Sunday:

Which gives him him a whopping nine for his career. Because he’s played, sparingly, in three games. So it’s a failure on Brady’s part that the kid hasn’t immediately come off IR and turned into 2012 Calvin Johnson.

As far as Sanu, he’s an asset. No one would deny that. Brady wanted him and Brady got him and it was obvious why as soon as he arrived and caught 10 balls against the Ravens. He also saw the field for a total of 22% of the Patriots offensive snaps because he was fighting through a high ankle sprain that was supposed to keep him out three weeks, but he came back after just one. So when a severely limited veteran is playing injured because his team is ravaged by illness and injury to only catch three passes, it can only mean his quarterback is fading. Just like he did last year. It’s what 41 and 42-year-olds do, right?

Wrong. Or “Wwrong.” About that “fade” last year. Here are Brady’s final nine games of 2018, including playoffs:

W-L: 7-2. TDs: 14, INTs: 7. Yards per Game: 284.4. Passer Ratings above 100.0+: 5

And those totals include the postseason where he averaged 317.7. Not the least of which was the win at Kansas City where he threw for 180 yards in the 4th quarter and overtime. Severely outgunning the apparently No Fade, Wrinkle Free, Permanent Press Patrick Mahomes.

Advertisement

I’m glad we got that straight.

So keep doing you, fellas. “First Things First” gotta “First Things First.” The Patriots are not capable of going on the road against a quality opponent and simply losing. It has to be the End of Days. Book of Revelations stuff. Patriotsmaggeddon. Their problems are not correctable. Brady is finished. Your puny god is dead. The FS1 guys can’t be wrong forever.

In a weird way, it’s kind of comforting. The Patriots are 10-2, like they usually are. They’re getting healthier, like you hoped they would. Everyone is counting them out, as always. Patriots Derangement Syndrome is at an all time high. And once again the haters have picked the wrong team, the wrong quarterback and the wrong coach. Where did they go Wright?