Patriots Should Dominate, Without Risking Injury

The New England Patriots led the Washington Redskins 38–0 at the start of the fourth quarter last Sunday — but Tom Brady wasn't done.

Brady, New England's star quarterback and most indispensable player, was in the process of marching the Patriots down the field on a 14-play, 88-yard drive that culminated with a touchdown pass to wide receiver Wes Welker to make the score 45–0. Three plays before that pass, the Patriots went for it on 4th-and-1, with Brady plowing into the line of scrimmage on a quarterback sneak for the first down.

Afterward, Redskins linebacker Randall Godfrey seethed at Patriots coach Bill Belichick for running up the score. Godfrey told reporters that he approached Belichick as he walked off the field and said, "You need to show some respect for the game," adding that Belichick lacked the sportsmanship typically displayed by great NFL coaches.

Godfrey is right that Belichick shouldn't have left Brady on the field in the fourth quarter of a blowout, but for the wrong reason. This is the NFL, not Pop Warner, and there's no requirement that coaches spare the feelings of the opposing team. Also, Redskins quarterback Jason Campbell stayed in the game, throwing a touchdown pass with three minutes left to bring the score to 52–7. If the Redskins didn't stop playing, there's no reason the Patriots had to stop playing. Redskins coach Joe Gibbs said afterward that he didn't object to anything the Patriots did. If Godfrey doesn't want the Patriots to keep scoring, he needs to stop them from scoring.

But issues of sportsmanship aside, Belichick was foolish to leave Brady on the field — especially as Brady was throwing passes and running quarterback sneaks — long after the game was no longer in doubt. The Patriots, who will play the Indianapolis Colts in a battle of unbeatens this Sunday, are playing so well that an injury to Brady may be the only thing that could derail them.

Belichick's hubris makes an injury to Brady more likely. Brady has stayed remarkably healthy through his NFL career. But every NFL player is just one play away from being lost for the season. Even if he's doing nothing but handing off, any time Brady is on the field, he's risking the possibility of a collision with a 300-pound defensive lineman. Some NFL linemen may be as angry at the Patriots as Godfrey was last Sunday, and in the mood to go out of their way to level the Patriots' superstar. The only truly safe place for Brady is the sideline — and that's where he should be when the game is out of reach.

Every Patriots game this year has been out of reach before the final seconds. The Patriots have dominated so much they've yet to play a game where they couldn't be accused of running up the score. The Patriots' closest game this year was a 34–17 win over the Cleveland Browns. They've scored 149 points in the last three weeks; more than half of the league's 32 teams haven't even scored 149 points all season. Their 331 points through eight weeks put them on pace to break the NFL's single-season scoring record by more than 100 points. They've outscored their opponents this year by 204 points; the Colts are the only other team that has even outscored its opponents by 100 points. The Patriots scored 43 touchdowns, putting them on pace to obliterate the NFL record of 70, set by the 1984 Miami Dolphins.

Belichick has defended himself against accusations that he runs up the score by saying that no lead is safe in the NFL. He has pointed to a 2003 "Monday Night Football" game in which the Tampa Bay Buccaneers led the Colts 35–14 with less than four minutes remaining, only to lose 38–35 in overtime.

But Belichick is a man of few words, and most of the time, he doesn't feel the need to explain himself at all. After the Patriots' 49–28 win over the Miami Dolphins, a reporter pointed out to Belichick that he left Brady in the game long enough for Brady to throw a touchdown pass with less than 10 minutes to play in the fourth quarter. Belichick sarcastically replied, "Yeah, I was at the game."

No team in NFL history has ever come back from a deficit such as the 38–0 score faced by the Redskins in the fourth quarter last Sunday — and yet Belichick still felt the need to keep Brady in the game. Why? Belichick seems driven by a desire to show that these Patriots are not just the best team in the league right now, but perhaps the greatest team in NFL history.

After one of his underlings was caught illegally taping the Jets' defensive signals in the season opener, Belichick was stung by accusations that cheating fueled his success as a coach. Belichick wants the lasting memory of the 2007 season to be the Patriots' dominance, not their rule-breaking.

If the Patriots play the second half of the season like they played the first half, that will be the story. But as long as the Patriots win games by absurd scores such as 52–7, they will be accused of poor sportsmanship. In the end, though, Belichick doesn't mind being called classless if he's also called a winner.

Mr. Smith is a writer for FootballOutsiders.com.