news.google.com

A Simple Case Of Cause and Effect
Mainly Because of the Patriots, the NFL Tightened Rules On Pass
Defense. Now, New England Is Reaping the Rewards.

By Mark Maske
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 17, 2008; E01

When the NFL rule-makers cracked down four years ago on clutching-and-
grabbing tactics by defensive players to try to open up the passing
game, the move widely was viewed as a response to the rugged way in
which the New England Patriots had played defense on their way to
their first two Super Bowl titles.

That 2004 directive by the league's competition committee changed the
way the game is played, perhaps forever. It has led to a rewriting of
the record book. And, oddly enough, it set the stage for the Patriots
to become arguably the most dominant team in league history this
season as they chase an unbeaten season and their fourth Super Bowl
championship with an offense orchestrated by Coach Bill Belichick and
quarterback Tom Brady.

The very rule once thought to be more detrimental to the Patriots than
to any other NFL club has become a crucial asset, yet another example
of how the franchise has become a dynasty because Belichick and his
front office are more adaptable than anyone else in the league.

"I don't think there's any doubt it's changed the game," former
Tennessee Titans general manager Floyd Reese said this week. "I don't
know how much it's changed it for everyone, but it has certainly
changed it for the better for those teams that have the quarterback."

The Patriots clearly fall into that category. Brady set a single-
season NFL record with 50 touchdown passes during the regular season
and was named the league's most valuable player. He completed 26 of 28
passes, establishing a single-game postseason record for completion
percentage, in Saturday's 31-20 triumph over the Jacksonville Jaguars
in an AFC semifinal. The Patriots will take a 17-0 record into
Sunday's AFC title game against the San Diego Chargers in Foxborough,
Mass. They're two victories from securing a fourth Super Bowl crown in
seven seasons and joining the 1972 Miami Dolphins as the only
undefeated teams in league history.

It was soon after the Patriots' second Super Bowl win on Feb. 1, 2004,
that the competition committee, the NFL's rule-making body, acted to
try to help quarterbacks and receivers. Passing yards per game had
dipped to an 11-year low in the 2003 season, and the members of the
competition committee determined that game officials were not
enforcing a longstanding rule prohibiting a defensive player from
making contact with a receiver more than five yards downfield. The
committee made properly enforcing the "illegal contact" rule a point
of officiating emphasis for the 2004 season. The hands of NFL
defensive backs were, in effect, tied.

Many observers attributed the competition committee's action to the
Patriots' defensive play in their 24-14 triumph over the Indianapolis
Colts in the AFC championship game on Jan. 18, 2004. The Patriots
intercepted Colts quarterback Peyton Manning four times that day and
Indianapolis's receivers were upset because they felt that several
holding infractions had gone uncalled by officials at key moments.
Bill Polian, the Colts' influential team president, was particularly
angry. The Colts' complaints were aired to the competition committee,
which also studied the Patriots' defensive play against the "Greatest
Show on Turf" when they beat the St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI on
Feb. 3, 2002.

"Nothing is about one game," said Charley Casserly, the former general
manager of the Washington Redskins and Houston Texans who was on the
competition committee at the time. "We went back to the Super Bowl
with St. Louis and New England. We looked at a lot of things, a lot of
games. Clearly, the rule was not being enforced as it was written.
That's why we made the change. You would never base a rule on one
game. You just wouldn't do that."

Even so, the perception around the league was that the Patriots-Colts
game had led to the change, putting an anti-Patriots slant on it. The
officials did as instructed in the 2004 season, and the number of
illegal-contact penalties called on defensive players skyrocketed.
Passing yards and scoring increased. Manning threw 49 touchdown passes
for the Colts, breaking the league record of 48 set by Miami's Dan
Marino in 1984.

But if Manning and the Colts were the early beneficiaries of the new
rule, Brady and the Patriots have shoved them aside. The Patriots beat
the Colts in the playoffs again and won the Super Bowl again in the
2004 season. They've had what is, by their recent standards, a drought
since then, going without a Super Bowl appearance the previous two
seasons. They got close last season but lost a thrilling AFC
championship game in Indianapolis in part because a modestly talented
receiving corps made glaring mistakes at bad times.

So the Patriots' brain trust of owner Robert Kraft, front-office chief
Scott Pioli and Belichick went out and got Brady some wide receivers
in the offseason. The team traded for Randy Moss and Wes Welker and
signed Donte' Stallworth as a free agent. Those maneuvers, along with
the signing of free agent linebacker Adalius Thomas, were unusually
expensive and high-profile moves for the Patriots, who had made a
habit of dealing with the salary cap and free agency better than other
teams by being effective bargain shoppers over the years.

"For a number of years, the Patriots took care of just about every
part of their team except the receiving corps," Reese said. "They
hadn't done a whole lot in that area until last year. I think they
adapted a little bit to the Indy philosophy. They already had the
quarterback and they knew the rules helped those two groups -- the
quarterback and receivers. If you don't have the quarterback, the
rules don't help you that much."

The results were staggering this season. The Patriots set a single-
season NFL scoring record. Moss broke Jerry Rice's single-season
record for touchdown catches. Brady broke Manning's record for
touchdown passes, meaning that Marino's mark that had stood for 20
years has been broken twice in four seasons since the crackdown on
defensive illegal contact.

"Randy Moss changed their whole offense," Casserly said this week.
"It's Moss and Welker, but mostly Moss. They're a pass-first offense
and they've opened it up even more this season. If you take those two
guys away, I don't know what you'd have. The only thing that can get
you with an offense like that is the weather. The wind could really
hurt you. They do have the ability to run the ball. It's not like
they're totally one-dimensional. But they've been a wide-open team for
a while and they've evolved to be even more of that because of the
personnel they have."

The Patriots have become so efficient in the passing game that those
in their locker room were completely unfazed by Brady's 93 percent
accuracy against the Jaguars, who limited Moss to one catch but let
Brady pick them apart with passes to Welker, tight end Benjamin Watson
and running back Kevin Faulk. One of Brady's incompletions Saturday
came on a pass that bounced off Watson's hands. The other came on a
drop by Welker.

"When you have a group of receivers and a quarterback that work as
well as these guys do, that's not unexpected," Patriots left tackle
Matt Light said after the Jaguars game. "That's kind of the way that
it is around here."

It was suggested to Reese that perhaps the balance of power between
passer and pass defender has been thrown out of whack by the current
rules and the NFL should consider going back to the pre-2004
arrangement. Reese chuckled and said it's too late for that.

"I don't think that will ever happen," Reese said. "Being a former
defensive coach, it probably should. But it's too good for TV. It's
too good for the fans. Look at this weekend with Brady and [Packers
quarterback Brett] Favre, and how excited people are about these games
and the possibility that it will be Brady against Favre in the Super
Bowl. It's not because of the running game. It's not because of the
blocking. It's because of Brady and Favre. This put the teams that
have the quarterback truly in the elite, even more so than before, and
there's no going back now."

Archived from group: alt>sports>football>pro>indy-colts