Pats Pulpit
Given that Spooky Season is in full swing, we decided to add some Halloween flavor to this week’s New England Patriots fan debate. Because just like everybody has a favorite horror movie, there are probably dozens of different answers to our question about…
First a look at our staff debate, and then it’s on to your answers.
Pat Lane: Besides Aaron Hernandez?
Bernd Buchmasser: Should have added “(who did not murder people)” to the question.
Matthew Rewinski: It’s Rodney Harrison for me. One of his Chargers teammates said it best in Rodney’s A Football Life biopic: “You don’t go over the middle thinking, ‘I’m going to catch this ball first.’ You go over the middle thinking, ‘Where the hell is Rodney Harrison?’”
Brutally violent and equally dangerous with his mind, Rodney’s true potential really shined once he got to New England and Bill Belichick unleashed him as a free safety, strong safety, tight end eraser, dime linebacker, and even occasionally at outside corner, sometimes all in the same game. Rodney was just as likely to pick you off as he was to come screaming off the line on a blitz or punish you for daring to run into his general vicinity. The 30/30 Club stat that only he and Ray Lewis share perfectly sums up his outrageous versatility and yet still doesn’t do justice to what a menace he really was.
Honorable mentions to Randy, Logan Mankins, and Gronk.
Matt St. Jean: Is it too cliche to say Tom Brady? He isn’t scary in the traditional football sense, but he made fans and players of 31 different teams not feel safe with any lead for two decades. In Super Bowl XXXVIII, there’s a clip of Steve Smith and Muhsin Muhammad on the sideline scared of what Brady is going to do when he gets the ball back. Thirteen years later in the same building, you’ve got Mohamed Sanu telling teammates that no lead is safe when Brady is on the other side. In both cases, they were correct to be scared. Brady led his second game-winning Super Bowl drive moments after the first instance. He led a comeback from down 28-3 after the second. I’m not sure it gets more psychologically terrifying than a player who can do that to you.
Matthew Rewinski: That’s probably the correct answer.
Matt St. Jean: Brady is silence of the lambs scary. Willie McGinest is slasher scary.
Pat Lane: Tom Brady is the correct answer. Matt Ryan is pacing the sideline up 28-3 with the Patriots facing fourth down near midfield because he knew that Tom was on the other side. He had the ability to kill any lead, no matter how big, and he did, more often than not. I love Rodney Harrison, Willie McGinest, and Vince Wilfork, but when Brady had the ball in his hands and that look in his eye, competition should abandon all hope.
Bernd Buchmasser: I’m going to...
