As a coach, you want to try to put your team in the best position you can so they can be competitive. As players, it?s the same thing. It?s like when you talk to the Navy SEALs and those guys talk about when they go on a mission, how they talk about, ?Alright, so we get there and we practiced going over a six-foot wall and the wall is 30-feet high.? Well, that?s the way it is in the NFL. You practice for whatever ? you think you?re going to swim across a 200-yard lake and the lake is 800 yards across. You have to get across it. You get in an NFL game and think you?re going to get this and then you get that.
? Bill Belichick, on Friday before the AFC Divisional Playoff game against Houston
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Before Sunday?s game was 12 seconds old, the Patriots had allowed a 94-yard kickoff return. Before it was 90 seconds old, they had lost their most experienced running back, Danny Woodhead. Before it was seven minutes old, they had lost their Pro Bowl tight end Rob Gronkowski.?
The wall got higher. The lake got wider. The Patriots still advanced to their seventh AFC Championship game in 12 seasons with a 41-28 win over the Houston Texans.
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All season long, Tom Brady has gone to the figurative whip. Every chance he?s gotten to speak of a need for mental toughness, he?s taken it. Brady wouldn?t mention mental toughness if it wasn?t a concern. If he didn?t want the message he?s delivered in private to be amplified, he?d never put it in the public domain. But he has.
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And Sunday was a study in mental toughness.
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?I think that?s been the mark of our team,? Brady said, though he was despondent just before Christmas after a lackluster win in Jacksonville. ?We?ve won 11 of 12. We were down 31-3 at home (to San Francisco on December 17) and battled back. I think we?re going to be in it. We have a lot of tough guys, mentally tough guys. Whatever happens, like what happened on the first play of the game, you?ve got to overcome it. We made some key plays when we needed to. Shane [Vereen] made them, Wes [Welker] made them, Brandon [Lloyd] made them, so it was a great effort. Offensive line was awesome, as usual.?
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Vereen is an extremely talented player who -- in his second season in the league -- wasn?t where he needed to be a month ago. A fumble against the 49ers that led to points. A missed blocking assignment against Jacksonville that got Brady blown up. Sunday, Vereen wasn?t just making simple plays he ought to make, he was making outstanding plays including a momentum-building touchdown early in the fourth on an over-the-shoulder catch most wideouts would bungle.
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Hoomanawanui?s performance wasn?t as gaudy as Vereen?s but it was every bit as necessary once Gronkowski went to the sidelines.
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"Hooman [Michael Hoomanawanui] and Shane [Vereen] stepped in there and both did a good job for us,? said Belichick. "Shane obviously made a lot of big plays but Hooman did a great job too, as he?s been doing for the last month. These kinds of games, you never really know when the dial spins, where it?s going to wind up, who it?s going to end up on. Those guys were prepared."
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And it?s not as if the Patriots were going to veer from their plans because they lost some players.
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"We had a whole plan built for [Gronkowski] and [Woodhead]," Brady said. "We run the first series of the game and all those plans change. I think a little of it was ?What are we going to do now? How are we going to adjust?? But we seemed to settle in there midway through the first quarter and put together a pretty good game. Obviously it?s a bummer to lose anybody, but someone of Rob?s importance or Danny?s importance, we need guys to step in and fill the void, whether it?s this game or any game after.?
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The finality of playoff football was stressed this week. But so was the need to play freely enough and not allow the moment to be too big.
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?You don?t win a war by digging a foxhole and sitting in it,? said Belichick. ?You need to attack.?
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Sunday night, Logan Mankins smiled when asked if he wanted to play the Texans. ?We wanted to play them because they wanted to play us,? said the veteran guard.
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Now come the Ravens who have already begun flapping their gums at New England, led by special teamer Brendon Ayanbedejo. Via Twitter, the 36-year-old -- who should know better by now -- said the following.
There are myriad ways to interpret the ?why? of what
Ayanbadejo tweeted. One of them is to chalk it up to fear. Ayanbadejo knows
which team is better right now and it ain?t his. Hence, tugging on Superman?s
cape.
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?When you?re playing at this time of year, each game gets tougher, each game gets bigger,? said Belichick. ?I think the Ravens certainly showed how physically and mentally tough they were to go out there and come from behind and beat Denver in a tough environment. That showed a lot of character, resiliency and toughness. Our game with them this year, our game with them last year, went down to the last possession, the last play, however you want to look at it.?
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There?s no doubt the Ravens have some mental toughness. But they are playing next Sunday against a team that?s been to seven AFC Championships in 12 seasons. A team that?s 5-1 in those games. The Patriots showed Sunday -- again -- which way they?ll go when it comes time to put up or shut up.
Tags: New England Patriots, Baltimore Ravens, Houston Texans, Tom E. Curran, patriots011313JJ Watt jerry sandusky johnny depp hayden panettiere raul ibanez completely wrong mila kunis
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