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Every Wednesday during the NFL season, Kru’s Control will offer readers a pre-port. A pre-port is a first cousin to a pre-diction, but it’s not just a guess about the score of Sunday’s Patriots game, it is a full-length report about the game—before it ever happens—as if it had already happened. Think of having a time traveler come back each week to let you know the story of the game several days before the game is ever played.
Pre-ports are more fun to write than regular game stories. Regular stories limit the writer to the facts. The only limits of a pre-port are the writer’s imagination and wit. Right or wrong, near or far from the actual result, pre-ports allow us to imagine any outcome we prefer. So enjoy. This is what happened in next Sunday’s game…
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It was the Wild Wild West on Sunday at Foxborough as the Patriots outgunned the Cowboys to the tune of a 38-28 victory. Tom Brady, old, decrepit, and without any weapons, threw four touchdowns to four different receivers, including the usual suspects (Julian Edelman and James White) as well as a cast of newcomers (N’Keal Harry and Jakobi Meyers). The old man was 32 of 43 for 387 yards and no interceptions. And he did it all without the aid of his walker.
While Brady was certainly the headliner, this game posed a single essential question: Can one left tackle, 310 pound Isaiah Wynn, coming directly off Injured Reserve to play only the third NFL game of his career, turn a pig’s ear into a silk purse. While last week the Eagles defensive front harassed Brady all afternoon and had him ducking and dodging to avoid being sacked, this week TB12 had enough time to sip a latte as he surveyed the field. Oh, and Sony Michel, not coincidentally running left, carried for 84 yards and averaged 4.4 yards a carry, his best performance in the last five games.
Talking about newcomers to the lineup, Harry made a real difference in only his second game off IR. With the Cowboys determined to take away Julian Edelman—nobody seems to know how, he caught 7 passes for 95 yards despite double coverage—the rookie did his best Randy Moss imitation, alerting New England’s opponents that, yes, the Pats do have a deep threat. On the first play of the second quarter, he outran defensive back Chidobe Awuzie on a deep out, hauling in a beautifully lofted Brady pass for a 54 yard TD. And then, to put the icing on the cake with 3:42 left in the game, Harry made a slick double move, leaving the same helpless DB two steps behind as he sprinted down the sideline for a 47 yard gain to the Cowboy 12.
Of course, for those of us who always want to come away from a Patriots game, even a strong win, with something to worry about, we have the Pats leaky run defense. With Dak Prescott under constant pressure to the tune of four more New England sacks, Dallas unleashed the cavalry, with Ezekiel Elliott amassing 133 yards on a mere 14 carries and second stringer Tony Pollard carrying for another 62 yards on the ground. As they say, if it ain’t one thing, it’s another.
Not perfect. Never perfect. But still pretty good. Assuredly, Bill will be pleased that the offense found its rhythm, hoping that this turnaround will be a sign of things to come. On the other hand, he will be all over the D-line and backers to fill those gaps much better than they did. But this game will be remembered because Tom Brady came back from the dead, again. And, not surprisingly, wasn’t he quite a bit cheerier at his post-game news conference than he was a week ago.
