THERE must be no sympathy for the devil when he returns to the scene of the crime Sunday at Giants Stadium. They say what goes around comes around and now, finally, Bill Belichick comes around without Tom Brady.
He comes around with Matt Cassel as his quarterback because Brady is gone for the season, and this time he doesn’t just find Eric Mangini and NFL security waiting for him, he finds Brett Favre, too.
Under the guise of playing the full 60 minutes, of it ain’t over ’til it’s over, Belichick ran up the score last year on Joe Gibbs and anyone else in his way. Because there is no crying in football, Gibbs took the high road, and old-school traditionalists and/or Belichick sycophants saw nothing wrong with it. Champions of good sportsmanship and common decency suspected precisely what it was: a coach whipping his players into a frenzy for anyone daring to suggest that their three Super Bowl championships had been tainted or tarnished by Spygate.
Looks like the days of Bully Ball are over for a while.
They also say this: What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
And this: Payback is a bitch.
It doesn’t mean Belichick will show up in that ghastly hoodie and wait to be unceremoniously tarred and feathered in the public square; he is too good of a coach and has built too good of a team to worry about that, Brady or no Brady. If there is anyone who can pull a Houdini act and keep his team in the hunt, it is Belichick.
It doesn’t mean the Jets shouldn’t summon every ounce of killer instinct in their bones and greet the inexperienced Cassel as soon as he steps off the bus, then rattle him and make him their personal Door Matt and let Favre do his thing and see where that goes. Retribution, however, doesn’t have to be the 38-14 pasting the Pats put on the Jets in last September’s Giants Stadium home opener. For an enemy that has raised the bar of excellence to the Perfect Season, a one-point defeat would be just as cruel.
Of course, Jets fans smell blood and want blood. And this is the Jets’ chance to give it to them. They have been waiting for this moment ever since Mo Lewis knocked Drew Bledsoe out and Brady in at the beginning of the 2001 season. Herm Edwards wasn’t enough coach to overcome Belichick and Chad Pennington wasn’t enough quarterback to overcome Brady. Since taking over from Bledsoe, Brady is 11-2 against the Jets, 1-0 in the playoffs. They have been waiting for this moment ever since Belichick was supposed to replace Bill Parcells and instead quit as HC of the NYJ in 2000, knowing Bob Kraft was waiting with a pot of gold up I-95.
The same people who point out Parcells has not won a Super Bowl without Belichick as his vice president will now remind you that Belichick has not won a Super Bowl without Brady. And Chuck Noll never won a Super Bowl without Terry Bradshaw. And Bill Walsh never won a Super Bowl without Joe Montana. And Jimmy Johnson never won a Super Bowl without Troy Aikman.
And now the great coach of the Patriots has lost his great quarterback. The Patriots have lost their leader and a large part of their aura. Replacing Brady with Cassell significantly devalues Randy Moss and Wes Welker, and puts more stress on the defense, special teams and kicking game.
On the other hand, Favre’s presence helps turn Thomas Jones into a 100-yard rusher and makes Jerricho Cotchery more dangerous down the field.
This is no time for Mangini to be as timid as he was late in the fourth quarter in Miami when he ran Jones on third-and-7 when he should have let Favre try to be Mariano Rivera. Mangini, Favre, every last Jet, must recognize that this, more than ever, is the time to go 4 the jugular.