That was a bad game for the Patriots. We lost the MVP. But I think we will win the super bowl. From canadianpress.google.com In 1999, Trent Green went down with a knee injury and an unknown named Kurt Warner stepped in and led St. Louis to a Super Bowl victory. Two years later, little-known Tom Brady did the same for New England.
Now Brady is out for the season with a knee injury, leaving the Patriots to hope Matt Cassel can be the latest Supersub to step up.
Force-feeding an unknown at quarterback when a starter gets hurt is a coach’s nightmare. But as Warner and Brady show, history is full of obscure backups who stepped in and did better than the guy they replaced.
That’s why Bill Belichick’s favourite phrase – “it is what it is” – is the standard by which coaches live. All of them know that stars – quarterbacks and otherwise – are one hit away from being gone for the season. If it happens, they matter-of-factly throw in an often untested substitute and hope for the best, knowing that injuries go with the territory.
“We all have to do our jobs. That’s what every player has to do,” Belichick said Monday in his stoic fashion. “He played one position and played it well. There will be somebody else playing that position now and I have a lot of confidence in him. Everybody has to continue to do his job just as they always have. Just as they always need to.”
That’s what happened for Dick Vermeil when Green was knocked out for the ‘99 season in an exhibition game by San Diego’s Rodney Harrison, who is on the other side now as the leader of New England’s secondary. In stepped Warner, a former Arena League and NFL Europe player who not only became the league’s MVP but led the Rams to a Super Bowl victory and won that MVP trophy, too.
It’s what happened to Belichick two years later, when Drew Bledsoe was severely injured in the second game of the season. In came Brady, a second-year man who had thrown three passes as a rookie. He led them to the Super Bowl, where they beat Warner and the Rams in an upset on the same scale as the Giants’ win over the 18-0 Patriots in the title game last February.
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