The Harder They Fall, or Not

It can go wrong sometimes. The big bully on the block picks on the wrong guy, on the wrong day. And gets his head handed to him. The bully gets surprised and then disheartened. The underdog feeds on success. One thing works, then another. Everybody plays harder. The vision of success is realized.

So it was for the Patriots yesterday as they were pounded to the tune of 38-13 by the Miami Dolphins at their home in Foxboro. It was their first regular season loss at home since December 10, 2006. After 21 straight regular season wins at home, the mighty Patriots were beaten by a team that had gone 1-15 last year and had lost its first two games this season.

As is often the case in humongous upsets, the upstarts used a trick to get on top. In David vs. Goliath, it was a sling and a rock. In the Giants upset of the Pats in the Super Bowl, it was some new blitzes. The Dolphins used something called the "direct snap" .

It would hardly qualify as magic, one would think. The center snaps the ball directly to the running back instead of the quarterback. But in six direct snaps yesterday, the Fish scored four huge touchdowns, all of them featuring Ronnie Brown.

My personal favorite was the fake reverse to Ricky Williams off the direct snap, the one that had all 11 Pats defenders follow Ricky one way while Brown jogged the other way for the score. Believe me, nothing is quite the same for a defense after looking ridiculous on a play like that. The Pats became the patsies.

That the touchdown drives were led by Chad Pennington made the victory that much sweeter. That Chad had been the last quarterback to beat the Pats in Foxboro was perhaps forgotten at the outset. After all, the Pats were coming off two easy wins while the Dolphins were coming off two straight losses, to teams not nearly as exalted as the Patriots.

Chad had been unceremoniously released by the Jets just a few weeks earlier as the Jets had just acquired the great Bret Favre, the same great one who lost to this same Patriots team just last week. But the Jets were as mundane and unimaginative in their offense last week as the Dolphins were resourceful in yesterday’s game. And they weren’t smart enough to use the golden arm of Favre.

But the Patriots weren’t the only heavy favorites to lose yesterday. There were a few others. The U.S Ryder Cup team beat those Europeans, my Mets lost another tough one to the Braves and my Giants almost lost one to the lowly Bengals.

What’s the common denominator when a huge underdog topples a favorite? It’s not just a bunch of people that are tired of losing. It’s what happens when that bunch gets inspired, when they have enough confidence not only in themselves but in their plan to get it done.

It’s total buy-in, to themselves and to a plan, and maybe helped along by some inspiration.

In the Dolphins case, was it Jerry Porter’s seemingly brash pronunciations that fired them up? Or was it the time their coaching staff spent on devising and perfecting the “direct snap”? I think it was a little bit of both, but the main ingredient was the plan and the practice. And it didn’t hurt to have a quarterback who had beaten the Pats before.

In the case of the Braves beating the Mets, it was just the Braves fully realizing the frustration of having a horrible relief corps and waiting patiently to capitalize on that Mets weakness. Hadn’t the Braves lost seemingly countless games this season in the late innings? And hadn’t they found an answer while the Mets had not?

They just had to hang tough, to stay close, to do the best they could against Pelfrey and play strong defensively. Eventually, they knew Pelfrey would tire. Eventually, they’d get to Heilman and Schoeneweis and that tired bunch of weak arms with the uninspiring stuff.

They had a plan and it worked to perfection. They knew they could wait for strikes and work the count against Pelfrey, thus virtually assuring themselves of seeing those hapless Mets relievers for at least three innings. It worked of course and they won by one run.

The Bengals were another bunch of guys who had under-performed for two weeks but who believed in themselves and their talent, even when matched against the reigning Super Bowl Champions.

Didn’t they have Carson Palmer, the number one pick in the entire draft back in 2003, the QB who threw for 86 touchdowns in the last three years? Didn’t Number 85 even shut up for a few days? Didn’t they have T.J. Houshmanzadeh? Couldn’t they score against anyone ? And weren’t the G-Men missing their two finest defensive linemen?

They only had to run the ball enough to keep that defense honest and play some spirited defense themselves. Which is what they did. They played the Giants even through four quarters, only to lose in overtime to a team that refused to quit, a team that wasn’t yet ready to lose this season. And, who knows what may have happened if the Bengals had pulled a couple of trick plays out of their hats?

But the Giants hadn’t forgotten what had made them champs. They matched those tough Bengals score for score. They even pulled Kevin Boss off the shelf to score late in the game. And when Amani streaked down the left sideline, Eli hadn’t forgotten how to lay that ball right on his fingertips. And Amani hadn’t forgotten how to drag those feet on his way out of bounds.

So the G-Men hung on. It didn’t matter how much talent and determination those Bengals showed up with. The Giants had some surprising stuff of their own. They had a plan of their own.

Better late than never, they executed it to perfection.