Sports Then and Now

Tom Brady threw for 326 yards and four touchdowns in his last game against the Jets.

The New York Jets did some soul searching at halftime of their game against the Colts, and found the answer they’d been looking for. It had eluded them for the first half, but they finally recalled their identity and started running the ball.

In other words, they got back to what has worked for them in the past and has rarely let them down.

It isn’t likely that the Jets will come out slinging the ball on Sunday.

Why? Because quite frankly, Sanchez has let them down before. In just two contests at Gillette Stadium, he has one touchdown, seven interceptions, and two fumbles.

He won’t thrown three or four picks if he doesn’t even throw the ball more than 15 times.

Quite simply, the Patriots will have to shut down the run. That’s not the question. The question marks pop up around the defensive line, where both Mike Wright and Ron Brace have been placed on season-ending injured reserve since the end of the regular season. The Patriots now boast a defensive line featuring Vince Wilfork, Gerard Warren, Kyle Love, Myron Pryor, Brandon Deaderick, Eric Moore and Landon Cohen.

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Matt Hasselbeck tossed four touchdown passes to lead the Seahawks past New Orleans.

Some, including an article on this site, suggested that the Seattle Seahawks should be embarrassed to be playing in the NFL Playoffs with a losing regular season record. Well, instead of tucking their tails between their legs and sleeking off quietly into the night, the Seahawks pulled off one of the more surprising playoffs upsets in recent memory with a 41-36 victory over the defending Super Bowl Champions.

Because they have endured three straight losing seasons with three different coaches, it is easy to forget that for much of the 2000s, the Seahawks were a regular playoff visitor and their roster still includes a number of players with playoff experience and significance pride.

Perhaps the best personification of that past and that pride is quarterback Matt Hasselbeck.

A three-time Pro Bowler and key reason the Seahawks went 13-3 and reached the Super Bowl in 2005, Hasselbeck has endured injuries and uncertainty over the last three years.

Despite being healthy enough to have probably played, Hasselbeck was held out of the do-or-die final game of the regular season against the St. Louis Rams. Many wondered if Hasselbeck had taken his final snap for the Seahawks.

But with his 7-9 squad heading into the playoffs to face the defending champions, head coach Pete Carroll called on the experienced Hasselbeck, rather than Charlie Whitehurst (who made only his second career start in the win over the Rams) to lead his team into what most expected to be a slaughter.

From the very beginning, there was something unfamiliar and uncomfortable about the game between the Saints and Seahawks. Seemingly everyone in America already knew how it would end, but after a predictable start the game seemed to be working against those certainties. Read the rest of this entry →