Socci's Notebook: Patriots Grateful To Be Watching, But Only For A Weekend
BOSTON (CBS) – Jackie Slater reached the Super Bowl in 1979, in only the fourth of his 20 seasons as an offensive lineman for the Rams. A decade later, Los Angeles went as far as the NFC Championship game. It marked the seventh time in Slater's Hall-of-Fame career that he appeared in the NFL postseason.
His son, Matthew, was then a 4-year old who would watch his father continue playing for six more seasons, including the Rams' last in L.A. -- as a last-place team -- and their first in St. Louis, only to never return to the playoffs.
"I remember watching my dad's career towards the end of it there, I don't think he went to the playoffs for, like, the last 10 years," Matthew said Thursday afternoon, his slight (and inadvertent) exaggeration still a perfect representation for what futility must have felt like. "I know that was frustrating for him."
The younger Slater, who's since grown into a four-time Pro Bowler as a special teams ace of the Patriots, related that childhood memory to his own good fortune in the NFL. This postseason marks his sixth in seven years in New England.
"One thing that we can't do here is take for granted the opportunities that we've had here, year in and year out," Slater said, shortly before he and his teammates adjourned for their bye weekend as the top seed in the AFC. "Every year that you're able to be in postseason play is something you should be really thankful for."
Earlier in the week, cornerback Darrelle Revis, who helped lift the New York Jets to the conference championship game in 2009 and 2010, sounded a similar note of appreciation.
"You talk to guys who have playoff experience and guys who played 12-13 years and never even touched the playoffs," Revis told reporters, recognizing the reality for a large number of pros who only experience the postseason through others.
Thankfully, the Patriots are playoff spectators for only this weekend, before getting to participate in the so-called tournament next Saturday. Yet, so long as on their on the sidelines this weekend, they'll be watching others at play.
"We'll certainly have our eye on the games," Slater said. "There's some good teams that will be playing this weekend, some we've seen, some we haven't seen."
Who Will Patriots Face?
Two AFC teams the Patriots have seen will meet Sunday, when Indianapolis entertains Cincinnati. New England routed each in the regular season. A rematch with either depends on the outcome of tonight's showdown of Baltimore and Pittsburgh, neither of whom the Pats have faced since 2013.
"You watch as a fan and as a player," said cornerback Brandon Browner. "You want to see which team you're going to play against and me, personally, what group of receivers do I match-up best against.
"You want to key these guys' releases. You've got some guys who are quick at the line. You've got some guys who are big and strong and use their strength as their abilities to win."
But while Browner looks on through a narrower lens than most -- though you too may want to see if there's any way to slow down Steeler Antonio Brown and pipe down Raven Steve Smith -- the rest of us will likely be watching with a wider-screen view. With broader questions in mind.
Does Baltimore, with its dangerous bookend pass rushers Elvis Dumervil and Terrell Suggs and far-reaching, deep-throwing quarterback Joe Flacco, resemble past Raven teams that swaggered into Foxborough and proved so problematic? Or, in this post-Ray Lewis, after-Ed Reed era, does Baltimore truly have a home-road split personality, as a loser of 10 of its last 16 games outside Charm City?
Facing one of the league's stouter run defenses without injured Le'Veon Bell and his 2,215 yards from scrimmage, can a potentially one-dimensional Pittsburgh offense -- albeit with multi-talented Ben Roethlisberger and Antonio Brown -- approximate its regular-season proliferation? Or will a cobbled-together secondary that allowed opponents to complete 54 percent of throws at least 20 yards downfield (per ESPN Stats & Information) render its defense more satin than Steel Curtain?
Now that it's reinvented its offense by forcing unsteady quarterback Andy Dalton to cede the driver's wheel to rookie Jeremy Hill, a 100-yard rusher in five of the last nine games, can Cincinnati reverse a 27-0 loss at Indianapolis in October? In that blowout, the Bengals ran just eight plays in Colts' territory and totaled 135 yards, eight first downs and 11 punts.
Clearer Picture By Sunday Night
Meanwhile, Indy amassed 506 total yards in that Week 7 runaway, including 344 yards passing by Andrew Luck. Despite the same foe in the same setting, Lucas Oil Stadium, a new season of sorts raises a question about Luck: will he avoid the same type of mistakes -- eight interceptions in three career playoff games -- that helped lead to two-score deficits in each of his postseason appearances to date? Only two defenses had more interceptions than Cincinnati's 20 picks this season.
Perhaps as early as late tonight, should sixth-seed Baltimore prevail over No. 3 Pittsburgh, the Patriots' upcoming opponent will be determined. If the Steelers win, as they've done in all three prior playoff meetings with the Ravens, we'll wait a day to learn whether Cincinnati (No. 5) or Indianapolis (No. 4) is bound for Gillette Stadium next weekend.
Whatever the outcomes, new questions far more specific to the pending encounter with the Patriots will be posed and pondered.
Fortunately for us in New England, those will get answered soon enough. Unlike so many other NFL locales, where the wait is 'til next year, here our wait is only 'til next week.
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