Cardinals at Patriots
There has to be a rule on how many times an announcer can repeat the exact same phrase. Tonight, it was "Tom Brady's favorite receiver is the open receiver." Great. Thanks, guys, for all that value you're adding. I could also predict Gregg Easterbrook cringing when they asserted that the Cardinals might have to blitz a lot this season.
Despite being a pre-season game, the Patriots were playing a very serious game, with starting players for the first half. It was good to watch them shaking out the bugs. Still missing Branch, but Caldwell, Childress, and Faulk were doing a good emulation for Brady. But come the season, he's going to need a lot more options to toss the ball to.
In the second half, Troy Brown came out, and played nicely. After his second reception, the commenter said, "You can't teach that, it's a learned behavior," and then later, about Cassel, "You can't tell me that doesn't look like Tom Brady in there. Not to take anything away from Matt Cassel, but...." I think someone needs to teach them a little bit about the English language.
Matt Cassel did look sweet. It must have been nice for him playing opposite Matt Leinart, and coming out looking much better. He played the second (and third, and fourth) string like Charlie Daniels playing a fiddle, and the players were giving the game their serious attention. Not that they didn't have problems - way too many fumbles and penalties - but Belichick has a nice set of playing pieces.
