Rose tore the ACL in his left knee in the first game of last year’s playoffs. He had surgery and began the recovery process, with optimistic hopes being that he could be back for some of this season, and at least the playoffs, which would be the one-year mark for an injury that generally takes a year to recover from.

But it’s more than a year later, and although Rose is cutting and jumping, he’s not playing. Fans that were once telling him to get well soon have instead started clamoring for him to play, with more and more people becoming irate that he would sit on the bench while his injured and ailing teammates fight through.

Rose has every right to preserve his health. An ACL injury is pretty serious, and coming back too fast and getting reinjured, or never regaining original speed and movement because the injury hasn’t completely healed, are good enough reasons to be slow in returning to play. Even a selfish reason, such as Rose not wanting to be on the court at less than his full potential, is understandable when it comes to a star who wants to build a long career and legacy.

Ultimately, Rose must do what is best for Rose, and so far, that has been to sit and wait until he’s completely comfortable with playing again.

But in keeping his body healthy, Rose may be damaging something much bigger. Rose may make it through this postseason with his ACL in fine shape, but the greater ideals that a star of his stature chases could be slipping away.

Let’s go back to Aladdin. In the movie, Jafar is obsessed with scheming to take over Agrabah (or the world), and he finally starts to see his plans fall in place when he procures the magic lamp. He takes over the palace and subdues his adversaries, and everything is just fine until Aladdin comes back and tricks Jafar using the most human motivation of all. Aladdin tells Jafar that, while he may have conquered much as a ruler and a sorcerer, he’s not the most powerful being in the world. That desire — to be the greatest — leads to Jafar’s ill-fated final wish: to be a genie.

As Jafar is transformed into one very ugly red and black genie, though, Aladdin’s smarts show through. Jafar gets the incredible power he was lusting after, but, as Aladdin tells him, he got his wish — “And everything that comes with it!”

In that moment, Jafar gets twisted down into the lamp like trash through a toilet, holding the most power in the world but forever confined. In gambling to be the greatest he could possibly be, he had to accept the other complications of the role — and ultimately do the bidding of others.

Now, Rose has not sold his soul to any devil, and he certainly isn’t making the kind of life-altering choices to which moral weight can be assigned, no matter what Chicago fans are saying. But in the larger game of being a legend, of making promises and fulfilling them, of overcoming challenges and becoming a once-in-a-generation player, Rose may be forgetting his part of the bargain.

This is the player who stars in a marketing campaign that pins the entire city’s hope on his rehabbing left leg. This is the player who promised to come back stronger. This is the player who is supposed to be transcendent enough to lift a really good team — a team that is already pushing the Heat pretty hard despite an injured Joakim Noah, an ailing Luol Deng and the hodge podge in the backcourt — to another level.

Where Rose has failed is not that he isn’t playing, but rather that he set the stage to be the one to lift his team and the city, and then he declined his opportunity. This isn’t the sixth week. It’s not ninth months later. Rose isn’t having any trouble running. He’s scrimmaging. He’s dunking. He can pass. Steve Nash has done more on less.

Rose may be a diminished Rose, but he’s still Rose, and even if he isn’t ready to jump in full-speed, or the team isn’t ready to play with him as the centerpiece, he’s an upgrade over what the Bulls have been putting on the court. This may not be “their year,” but given the effort Chicago has shown against Miami already, what more could Rose ask from his team? What more could they do on their own to make his arrival, even at a lesser level, not help? If the Bulls never had a chance without Rose, then he shouldn’t have tried to come back at all this year — especially now that, as he appears to be back, he is withholding even his limited abilities.

It’s a sad truth that fans expect their stars to play injured, but this isn’t a case of fans crying for a player to do something he shouldn’t. Rose is healthy enough to at least play a little. But that’s not even what fans are asking for. The bigger point here is something less tangible but ultimately more important as a player looks to “preserve his career.”

Rose promised to be a savior, and the way he’s played in his career so far suggests he wants to be a legend. That status, always available to him before, is now precarious in his moment of truth. Rose is quickly approaching a place with fans and critics where this decision not to play could undo everything else he’s been trying to do.

He can sit out. He can fail to finish that commercial that was playing while his knee was still on ice. He can do the normal person thing and not push himself, even when teammates choose to.

But he’ll never be a legend. He’ll never be the guy who put team above himself. He’ll never do the impossible, even if it’s crazy for fans to ask for that. He’ll never fulfill the obligations that came with him making that wish to be great.

If Rose doesn’t play now, he may be right, but he’s going to have to take everything that comes — or doesn’t come — with it.

Photo via YouTube/adidasbasketball

Such is the life that Bryce Harper appears to be relegated to. Harper was ejected from Sunday’s game after disagreeing with a strikeout call in the first inning, when his disagreeing escalated to the point that umpire John Hirschbeck thought the 20-year-old was showing him up. Harper raised his bat, Hirschbeck yelled, and Harper tossed his helmet. That was it for the young outfielder, who then had eight innings to cool off. His postgame comments did not further inflame the matter but rather opened the stage for everyone else to talk about how ludicrous Hirschbeck had been.

MLB is reviewing the ejection, as it does every time someone is tossed, but that doesn’t mean that the early reaction — that Hirschbeck was way out of line — is going to win the day. Hirschbeck, and other umpires who have recently found the need to express their authority, such as Tom Hallion in the infamous David Price “liar” incident, will be reviewed and punished or supported in the way that they will. The lingering lesson here is not as much about them as it is for the players who will be dealing with them for many seasons.

Harper may have been on the wrong end of a bad call, but that doesn’t mean that he can’t prevent something like this from happening again.

The biggest skill every athlete must learn is the ability to not let anything take him off his game. Whether it be a pitch he can’t handle, a crowd that gets under his skin or a weakness in his game he can’t overcome, learning to vanquish potential Achilles’ heels is what puts the great players beyond the good ones. Any time a player allows himself to have a wild card that can knock him off his game, he opens the door for the other team or circumstances to take advantage of him and diminish his potential.

Harper has such a wild card, but he’s loathe to deal with it, because it’s not a typical weakness. While others fix their swings or work on their fielding, Harper has been unmoved so far when it comes to tweaking his weakness — perhaps because it’s not an on-field issue.

Harper’s weakness is his unique personality and approach to the game. From his haircuts and eye black to the fearless way he takes at-bats and charges around the bases, Harper’s aggressive, in-your-face style is what sets him apart from fellow players and, in its brashness, gives him confidence in capitalizing on his talents.

But Harper’s unique approach, which is often coupled with outbursts, can be a weakness, too. It’s one thing to snap a bat in half after being upset about striking out, but it’s another when that anger leads to other complications. Last year, Harper went to the plate with blood trickling down his cheek after a bat shard from a post-strikeout wall-bludgeoning left him injured. This time, he missed most of a game after an umpire ejected him for menacing gestures, deserved or not.

While Hirschbeck may have been out of line for tossing Harper, it cannot be denied that the reputation Harper has built for himself in Major League Baseball contributed to Hirschbeck’s quick hook. Harper is known to toss his helmets and whack his bats, and even a merely passionate look from him has people feeling justifiably threatened if they perceive him to be a player who is angry and unhinged. Hirschbeck should have left Harper in the game, but it was Harper’s history more than his in-game histrionics that ultimately got him tossed Sunday. Hirschbeck commented later that he was reacting to Harper throwing his equipment, or the threat thereof, making his action just as much a preventative measure as it was a pugilistic one.

Harper may not like that he’s treated differently because he’s characterized as a wild brat, but it cuts two ways. Many days, a brash, passionate Harper gets a boost from his unique persona. Plenty of people support him for who he is. Other days, however, what others see as reckless anger does him harm. If Harper wants to be excused for being a one-of-a-kind player, he has to know that many people may not know how to react his one-of-a-kind ways.

Harper should never stop being who he is, especially because the way he acts fits so perfectly with his game and how great he can be. What he does need to do, however, is be aware that not everyone understands that passion is not anger, and that him getting fired up, wearing his hair funny or wearing red contacts to make him look like a devil doesn’t mean he’s unhinged.

Few understand that, though. When Harper flips his hat, umpires have reason to think that he’s going over the line. This isn’t the first time that behavior that would have been acceptable for one player instead got Harper in trouble.

It’s not Harper’s fault that he’s sometimes getting treated differently for no reason, but it is Harper’s responsibility to change something if he doesn’t want to occasionally get burnt by umps who find themselves endangered by his personality and actions. Even if it’s only a few times a year, the fact that Harper can either figuratively — or, in this case, literally — take himself out of games by appearing to be too aggressive is something that he should think about moving forward. Even if it means reeling in the way he comes across to people once in a while, even if the fault is not his, Harper has to know how to limit actions that can be used to take him out of games.

It may not be fair that Harper is always going to be that kid who gets blamed when the principal shows up in the classroom looking for the troublemaker, but he can do something about it. It starts with not playing into preconceptions.

Hirschbeck should have walked away and not tossed Harper. But Harper can always walk away, too.

For many stretches this year, the Celtics could not do that. Then, even after they discovered how to play in such a way after losing Rajon Rondo to a season-ending injury, they stumbled again late in the season. Facing the Knicks in the first round of the playoffs, it’s been even worse. Their first three games against New York were a template of exactly what they didn’t want to do.

But don’t fear, Celtics fans — the Knicks are here. And they’ve enabled Boston to do exactly what it wanted to do all year.

The Celtics have won two games in a row, including Wednesday night’s on the Knicks’ home court, and it hasn’t been a fluke. Boston has put a different kind of performance on the court both times. And, while the Celtics were not without rust in their two wins, they’ve at least shown that they can use their pieces in a way that will lead to victory.

The Celtics’ game planning has worked, for sure, but more of the credit may lie with the opponents. The Celtics knew what they had to do coming into the playoffs, and after Game 1, and after Game 2, but they haven’t been given the open door until now.

The Knicks have cleared the way both tactically and mentally for the Celtics to romp and possibly steal the most improbable of series wins. It started with New York’s inflated sense of confidence after taking down the Celtics twice at home and then once on the road. Up 3-0, the Knicks — who haven’t done anything in the first round in more than a decade — talked as if the series was won.

On Wednesday, the Knicks heeded the advice of Kenyon Martin and wore black to the game, calling it Boston’s “funeral.” That, coupled with sixth man J.R. Smith‘s boast that the Celtics couldn’t win if he was in the lineup (he was out in Game 4), had New York filling the clichéd storyline of what not to do when the series isn’t completely wrapped up, and when the other team is full of veteran All-Stars who are just as good at holding grudges as they once were at scoring points.

The Celtics won 92-86 on Wednesday night in a game they controlled a bit more than the score indicated, and even Smith was ready to swallow the bravado and put his workman’s cap back on. Smith played 36 minutes but shot just 3-for-14, scoring 14 points — most of them inconsequentially — and leaving a minus-8 mark for his team when he was on the floor.

“We were going to a funeral, but looks like we got buried,” the chagrined Smith said after the game. “I’m done with the black thing.”

Buried they were. While Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett have no trouble summoning passion and knowing their place in the history of the game, the extra pokes from a Knicks team that has been heavy on drama and light on gritty work was the perfect touch for a team looking to crawl out of a 0-3 series hole.

That’s not the only area where the Knicks have enabled the Celtics, though. On the court, New York is starting to open Boston up for the opportunities it needs to play its best ball.

While Doc Rivers should get most of the credit for the tweaks that have given the Celtics a reliable option in the backcourt (Terrence Williams handling the ball has been great for the team), some movement on offense and performances from the players who need to be involved (Garnett and Green, most notably), the Knicks have played into what the Celtics want to do. The Knicks know the key to themselves winning is moving the ball, making the most of their guard tandems and using Anthony in the most effective manner. But in this series, they’ve sometimes regressed into the fun-if-it-works, horrific-if-it-doesn’t option of having Anthony or Smith isolate, and whatever an offense does to have Anthony go 8-for-24 and 0-for-5 on 3-pointers (Wednesday night’s line). The Celtics have started playing as a team, while the Knicks appeared unconvinced of that necessity.

Defensively, the Knicks have backed off their traps and double teams at key points, letting the Celtics get some momentum. They’ve failed to be committed to stopping ball movement, and as the Celtics have learned that they can trust each other, get several players scoring in double figures and outpace the Knicks just on the strength of sharing the ball, they’ve seen their game climb to a level that once again makes this series look winnable.

“We’ve got to trust each other,” Garnett said. “At this point we’ve got no other options. For us to be successful, we have to lean on one another.”

It’s a lesson the Celtics have always known but have had trouble putting in play. Thanks to the Knicks, though, they’re getting some real-time opportunities.

While it’s always dangerous to predict that the Jets are taking a firm, permanent step toward stability and smart decision-making, they appear to be doing something like that under new general manager John Idzik. Despite taking the job with little room to maneuver, Idzik has done what no free-agent-spending binge or draft day bonanza could ever accomplish: He has at least introduced the idea that a calm and steady hand could be the next chapter for this team.

By all accounts, Idzik is a man who concentrates on doing his job, not winning friends or making the Jets the most popular team in New York. The importance of that if the Jets hope to return to relevance cannot be overstated. While the Jets retain the coach who is the perfect fit for the bombastic fan base in Rex Ryan, they need some brains in the front office to not only clean up the mess from the last few seasons but also chart a new path for a team that has never really had a stable plan. The Jets can’t have all fun and disorganization if they really want to win, and the losses appear to finally be bad enough that the pendulum — and owner Woody Johnson‘s pining for the love of the city — can swing in the other direction.

On Monday, Idzik capped off what has been a hectic stretch for the Jets, releasing Tim Tebow shortly after trading away star cornerback Darrelle Revis (with the NFL draft in between). Neither the Revis trade nor the Tebow release was unexpected, and both were in the best interest of the team.

That’s what made them so positively genius-like for the Jets’ GM.

No other team should be commended for trading away a player who is drawing too much attention and salary. No other team should be praised for ending a failed experiment and sending an attention magnet into the open without trying to milk the situation for more money or drama.

But the Jets have failed in this area many times before, and that is why Idzik should get a round of applause for both moves. Revis and Tebow were the two most obvious pieces that had to be moved for this Jets team to go forward, but neither move was easy for the people dealing with the pressure of building the team and keeping fans interested. Idzik, however, made the obvious call, making his first steps at the helm of the franchise markedly different than others who have come before. Continuing to make the no-brainers and other prudent decisions will be the determining factor in whether he has better success than his predecessors.

At some point in life, people must decide what they want — to indulge themselves, to hope to skate by and to try to stay young forever, or to bite the bullet and grow up, and make the right choices that will pay off in the long run. The Jets are the NFL’s permanent adolescent, the team that runs on teenage adrenaline and butt fumbles and excitement but has never proven itself to be a man. After one too many late-night parties gone wrong, though, the Jets appear to finally be learning that, to get where they want to go, the jokes have to stop, and they must mature.

Idzik doesn’t have much to work with in New York, and the problems only get harder after the gimmes. He has holes all over his roster, and little room to sign players or put up with the ones whose talent isn’t matching their paychecks. The biggest problem, of course, remains at quarterback — even with all that went into finally letting Tebow go, the Jets have an even bigger quagmire in underperforming Mark Sanchez and newly drafted Geno Smith, and that’s just the beginning of the discussion of one position. The only choices remaining are tough ones.

But with Tebow, Idzik made the right call, even if he made it months after everyone knew what had to be done. The Jets blew the Tebow situation from the start, failing to give Tebow an environment where he could succeed. In turn, they blew their entire season, not only failing to live up to their team’s talent level but also having the worst kind of distraction in Tebow — the kind that upset the many people who thought Tebow could start, and the kind that upset the players on the team who knew he could not.

Who Tebow is and whether he can ever be a starting quarterback is a question that has never really concerned the Jets, just as what kind of motor oil and premium gasoline to use in a souped-up sports car is never a question that concerns a teenager looking to peel out for quarter-mile stretches at a time.

But what has to be done to get from the haphazard youth stage to being an adult, where a team can stop running on hormones and actually put together solid, tangible results, is a question that the Jets are finally forced to face after frittering away too much talent.

Ryan can coach. Idzik can gather talent. It’s going to be a rough few years, but it looks like the Jets are ready to grow up. They’ll just have to do it without that Tebow poster on their wall.

Both were looking at the prospect of a bridge year. For the Red Sox, it was rebuilding after shipping away Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford and Josh Beckett, with few good choices on the free-agent market and the upcoming players not quite there. For the Yankees, it was finding a way to produce the same amount of wins with a smaller payroll, as the team tries to get itself under the luxury tax threshold.

Both were coming off down years. For the Red Sox, it was really down — 69 wins down. For the Yankees, it was wilting in the playoffs at historic levels. Both teams had marquee players and high expectations. Both teams failed to perform.

But a little over a week into the season, with just a few games separating them and so much still to be determined, the similar storylines are starting to take different trajectories. While a week can’t tell much more about how this baseball season will turn out than the heavy speculation throughout spring training could, a few trends have arisen. If they continue, they could mark some real separation between the Red Sox and the Yankees, with the Red Sox headed up and challenging in the American League East.

While the Yankees (4-4) are playing with a short deck due to injuries and the Red Sox (5-2) have seen many of their preseason hopes realized so far, the early success of Boston while New York middles isn’t luck. The Red Sox are using a strategy that has traditionally been hard to beat, while the Yankees are relying on — well, being the Yankees.

That’s why Boston has a good chance to skip its bridge year, while New York is facing one of those intermittently bad seasons that every team save the Yankees seems to get.

The separation starts with the two teams’ strategies, whether their areas of emphasis are intentional or not. The Red Sox are betting heavily on pitching this year. Former pitching coach John Farrell was brought in as the new manager, and he’s being counted on to help Jon Lester, Clay Buchholz and John Lackey rediscover their mojo and also get Felix Doubront‘s career off on the right foot.

The common refrain on the Sox’ rotation is that it can be the best in the bigs when it’s clicking. A cycle and a half through so far, Boston’s starters have shown just that. The team’s 2.95 ERA is fifth best in Major League Baseball and second in the American League, with the team seventh in strikeouts at 82 (third in the AL) and ninth in WHIP (1.21, fourth in the AL). That includes a shaky first start by Ryan Dempster and an injury-stalled beginning for Lackey.

By themselves, the Red Sox’ starters’ numbers are hard to argue with. Lester is 2-0 with a 1.50 ERA and 13 strikeouts, and Buchholz is 2-0 with a 0.64 ERA and 12 strikeouts. Even Dempster (0-1, 5.40 ERA, 8 Ks), Doubront (0-0, 5.40 ERA, 6 Ks) and Lackey (0-1, 4.15 ERA, 8 Ks) are nowhere near the messy lines that Sox pitchers put up for months last year. The 2012 Red Sox were second-worst in the American League in both runs allowed (4.98) and ERA (4.70), with just Cleveland and Minnesota more horrendous at shutting teams down.

The stat lines of Boston’s starting pitchers may flatten somewhat, but the Red Sox’ strategy of sticking with their talent and making it sing again is already showing that it can stake Boston to success. A rested, effective bullpen has only bolstered that effort, with the Sox having yet to give up a lead in the late innings, as they did in about a third of their losses last year.

Contrast the Red Sox’ pitching situation with that of the Yankees. New York’s problem is less that it doesn’t have the talent and more that it is hoping to stretch that talent past its expiration date. The Yankees have the big guns of pitching, but they differ from the Red Sox in this area in that their pitching slumps cannot be as easily dismissed. When the Boston rotation falters, it has been attributed to a fixable quality like mental focus or chemistry. When the New York rotation falters, the concerns are much deeper.

CC Sabathia (1-1, 3.00 ERA, 9 Ks) has been the definition of an ace, but injuries are starting to creep up with age. Andy Pettitte (2-0, 1.20 ERA, 7 Ks) is unreal in starting games after a Yankees loss, but at 40, he doesn’t provide much hope beyond this season, and flukes like last year’s broken ankle show how quickly the team can come apart without him in the rotation. Hiroki Kuroda (1-1, 6.75 ERA, 7 Ks) continues to be one of the best options for New York, but he’s also not a long-term solution (and, as another fluke injury showed, also a huge part of what’s holding the Yankees together). Phil Hughes (6.75 ERA, 0-1, 4 Ks) and Ivan Nova (0-1, 7.71 ERA, 5 Ks) have oscillated between brilliance, injury and ineffectiveness.

The Yankees are 22nd in MLB in ERA (4.89) and dead last in WHIP (1.71), coming off a year when they were fourth-best in runs allowed per game (4.12) and second in the American League in strikeouts. When their bats croaked in their playoff series against the Orioles last fall, their pitching dug them out. This year, however, that same mix of pitching is one year older and several stray balls more injured.

It can be said that the Red Sox and Yankees are both relying heavily on their pitching to carry them this year, but the difference is that the Red Sox are leaning on an adjustable foundation, while the Yankees are going all or nothing, and merely hoping for the all.

What the Yankees are depending on — and what the Sox have somewhat eschewed this year — is power hitting. What’s strange about this is that the Yankees have lost most of their power hitters, with Nick Swisher (24 home runs), Russell Martin (21), Raul Ibanez (19) and Andruw Jones (13) all gone in the offseason. Furthermore, New York’s biggest current bats are on the disabled list: Curtis Granderson (43), Mark Teixeira (24), Alex Rodriguez (18) and Derek Jeter (15). As every New York beat writer with a calculator has noted, that’s 72 percent of last year’s total home runs.

But the Yankees still have Robinson Cano, and they’ve added curious pieces like Travis Hafner, Kevin Youkilis and Lyle Overbay — players who are supposed to be washed up but have donned the pinstripes and started driving in runs instead. The Yankees have 15 home runs in eight games — tops in MLB — as well as 49 runs scored and 46 runs batted in, both second only to the Reds.

Their home runs have bailed them out in all their wins this year, and the Yankees have eight home runs over their last two games (coincidentally or not, both against Terry Francona’s Indians).

This Yankees lineup brings memories of the famous line from Catch Me If You Can, where the question is why the Yankees always win. “It’s because they have Mickey Mantle.” “No, it’s because everyone’s looking at their pinstripes.” A new wardrobe has instantly produced power for the players filling the stray holes in this lineup.

But that’s exactly why the Red Sox, and their meager nine home runs so far (six of them on Sunday, and three of those thanks to Will Middlebrooks), should not be worried. The Red Sox scored tons of runs last season (4.53 a game, fifth in the American League), and it didn’t help much thanks to the poor pitching. Even if the Yankees somehow repeat their 245 home runs from last year — improbable with this lineup — what happened in the playoffs shows the source of true power.

Pitching. Pitching. Pitching.

If the Red Sox finally have the rotation figured out, this could be a fun year. Whether it’s enough to hold off other American League teams and go somewhere is still a question.

But at least this much is certain: As the two perennial American League East powers come into this season with similar struggles and needs to achieve, the way they’ve won so far has been very different. And the one-week-in statistics are favoring the team that’s not staring at the pinstripes.

Any fan of the Patriots knows this day must come. Adam Vinatieri wasn’t going to get paid for past success, or for the sentimentality that comes with being a great player for the franchise. He was a kicker. A kicker. The Patriots had to make a business move.

Richard Seymour had to go, too. He was going to ask for too much money, and the Patriots had a future to account for. BenJarvus Green-Ellis was a solid player, but the Patriots bet on the right side of that fluke as well. He left New England fumble-free and is now a vanilla back for someone else.

Asante Samuel was great, but replaceable (well, the jury is still out on the secondary situation — but Samuel hasn’t been lights-out since he left). Ty Law was old. Deion Branch was asking for too much for his position, no matter how good of buddies and he and Tom Brady were.

This day must come. But you know what, Patriots? It didn’t have to come like this.

Brady is probably never going to share his thoughts on what went down with the Welker situation, but the early report — that he’s “bummed out” — is a justification of what everyone knows and feels. Of course Brady is bummed out. He just lost a friend, a non-whining receiver who always bounces back up and a guy who has been there in the crazy mix that these last few years have been, of huge highs and messy lows.

Then there’s the whole thing where Brady restructured his deal just so Welker could stay, and where Brady appears doomed to retread the ground that left him so angered in 2006, when the team wouldn’t bend to re-sign Branch. Welker was screwed this time around, but Brady has legitimate gripes if he wants to raise them, too.

What stinks about Welker going to the Broncos, though, was not that he had to leave. At some point, they all do — except Brady (although even that was in question after the Welker freeze-out last fall — what a crotch-kicker that everyone saw this coming then). The Patriots will make the smart business decision every time, and they have sustained success to thank for it.

What stinks is how players get run over in the process of the team making those smart business moves. If the Patriots have to let the players go, fine — but why the dance? Why act like it could have been different? Why give Welker the illusion that he could stay, or — God forbid — that the Patriots really, really wanted him, and that they really, really wanted him to go out as he should have?

The Patriots don’t do that kind of thing. They don’t make sentimental deals, and they don’t bend over for players. So why did they pretend they were going to try with Welker?

What burns with a situation like Welker’s is that he saw what was coming, and he kept doing what was right. He played the games, even the ones where he didn’t get the reps he should have. He said the right words, even when he knew what was being communicated. He came back to the negotiating table, even when he knew it was all but done, if in fact these were the Patriots. (Isn’t it nice that they already had Danny Amendola stashed away?)

Someone out there let poor Wes think that maybe he would be different. Law, Seymour, Samuel, Green-Ellis, Vinatieri were all expendable, but Welker — no, Welker would be kept.

No, he wouldn’t. The Patriots knew it, and they strung him along. They gave him an offer to give him an offer, to make the appearance that they would like to keep him, but they knew he wasn’t in their long-term plans. They did the PR move, but they didn’t give him his due respect.

It’s a great business move, and a wise team decision. There’s no doubt the team will be stronger if the offense evolves beyond the point where Welker and the limited amount that can be done from the slot position are holding it together.

But the Patriots should have said that. They should have explained to Welker that, as good as he had been for the team for so long, and as much as they love him, it just wasn’t making sense going forward. They weren’t going to mortgage the team for a 31-year-old whose value was in helping the team cover a weakness, rather than restructure the team to avoid that weakness. Instead, they’re going to bet their money elsewhere, and bring in an injury-prone 27-year-old to fill the role but leave that position less vital.

It’s all eerily similar to the situation over at the Garden, where the Celtics picked a kid with bum shoulders and let Ray Allen go. The key is that it was never about the kid with the bum shoulders. It was more about the team being better without Allen — maybe not this year, but sometime soon. At some point, the beloved veteran has to go for the team to begin to imagine what it should look like, and then to go there. The Celtics will one day be better without Allen, as hard as it was at first to see him flourish with the Heat.

The Patriots will one day be better without Welker, although he will flourish with the Broncos.

But they didn’t have to be such jerks about it.

On and on the story goes about Michael Thompson and his golf adventures, until the quote pops up, opens the questions about Tiger Woods that have lingered for years, and then disappears into the winding up of the narrative.

The quote is from Susie Meyers, who has been helping Thompson’s swing for 14 years. She worked with Woods, too, and had this to say when talking about tweaking players’ games.

“Trying to get consistency is like going after a fool’s errand,” Meyers said. “It doesn’t happen in life. If you try to be consistent, you live in a frustrating world. Take everything for what it is and let it be, and at the end of the day, hopefully you can say you did the best you could. We don’t try to be consistent at all.

“Our goal is to have a new fresh beginning every shot, every tournament and see what we can do with it. We got sucked into that consistent thing when Tiger was having his long run of great golf and we thought that it was possible to do that. But what we found out was that Tiger lost his soul to do that, and it’s just not worth it.”

What’s refreshing about the pivotal phrase, “lost his soul,” is not just where it lands — as an afterthought to the greater head game of mastering golf — but also how free of dramatization it is. Words rarely have precise meanings in sports anymore, where “epic” and “greatest” get slung around while bloggers play with what they think are interchangeable synonyms as a sport of their own.

But words do have precise meanings, and while many could drag out the “lost his soul” card to add hyperbole to a situation, Meyers picked exactly the right phrase for the right moment. Tiger has lost his soul — that quality that made him greater and better and so Tiger for so long. For years now, golf fans have watched a shell of the greatest thing they had ever seen, wondering where — in the swing changes, the fire hydrant, the bad knee and the winds of life — Tiger went wrong.

What Meyers was tapping into is something that sports fans are slow to understand about their favorite athletes. As much as they want to believe that these players are like them, that they just have greater physical abilities and a different career path, the best ones are never normal. Deep down, the best ones are killers. Michael Jordan played for blood, and Kobe Bryant channels him still. Jerry West fought his demons, while Joe DiMaggio hid his. The greatest are never just good athletes — they’re freaks of both nature and mind, players who beat down balance early in their lives and instead approach the game with the singular focus of being great.

A consistent Tiger was only great because that Tiger was consistently being great. The greatness of Tiger was how he broke from the pack and played like no one else could — so far beyond everyone else, with such better shots and such bigger moments. Tiger was great because, rather than being a balanced human being, he channeled all he had into being great at his one thing. When the opportunity arose, he took it, rather than being chained to balance and consistency in life in his developing — and dominant — years.

In everyday life, qualities like consistency, character and doing a solid job over and over are lauded. But the people who master this are the most bitter of all, because they learn — as Meyers said — that this is no path to greatness.

The greats are the ones who don’t put in the same every day. Instead, they put in their best and drive their hardest some days, either failing horribly — or achieving incredibly. The greats are the ones who push aside other agendas and focus just on the one they want to advance. The greats are the ones who foster the demon of ambition, knowing that they may never be the consistent parent, friend, neighbor or co-worker — but they will be great.

When Tiger unraveled is when it was revealed that he was not consistently great at everything. Rather, he was great at just one thing, golf, and the revelation that everything else was a sham blew a huge hole in his superior mental toughness. Tiger also, mechanically speaking, lost his golf game when he abandoned his awesome, torque-powered swing for a watered-down version that was supposed to offer more consistency but sapped him of his monstrous drives. He also tried to settle into sustained dominance, an approach that may have kept him from reaching his true ceiling a few times at the expense of being merely solid all the time.

His game witnessed what others see every day. Just like in the frustrating game of golf, the frustrating game of life does not reward consistency just for the sake of consistency. Consistency is admirable if achieved, especially if it’s consistency of greatness, but it’s not worth chasing. Chasing consistency carries with it the possibility of destroying moments of greatness.

Different opportunities arise. Some days some things work, and others they don’t. Being able to take advantage of an opportunity is most valuable of all. The greatest moments often come when people get a perfect opportunity and make the most of it, leaving all else aside. The greatest achievements come when someone chases the chance to do something exceptional once rather than something normal all the time.

Tiger may have lost his soul in the hum-drum of sketching a perfect, consistent golf game, just as plenty of others lose it in the daily toil of balance and taking care of many agendas. It’s a strange lesson to learn, and one that can’t really be planned or understood, except for brief glimpses at what has happened to others. Knowing that consistency is overrated does nothing for the person trying to figure out how to move on from that mindset.

Still, we’d all love to see Tiger uncoil just one more of those epic, bad-for-his-back swings.

Because, maybe then, we wouldn’t be so afraid to clear our plates and shoot for the green in one, too.

Danny Amendola

The Patriots should have learned this with Deion Branch, with Ty Law, with all the veteran, Patriot Way talent that has left for more money and been replaced by shadows of players. But it is 2013, and rent-a-Welker’s time in New England appears to be ending quickly because — well, because Amendola is younger, and cheaper, and doesn’t have a history with the team that would lead to him asking for a fair share of pay.

If it wasn’t Amendola, it would be somebody else. Perhaps Julian Edelman from within, or a wide receiver from a scrap heap elsewhere. The main point is that the Patriots don’t reward veteran players with long-term contracts if those players aren’t going to produce their money’s worth in the coming years. So Welker, who was a salary cap miracle man for the Patriots for so many seasons, will not be getting a good faith contract that could possibly pay him above what he’s worth in return for his years of service.

The Patriots have toyed with Welker before, dangling a deal and then using the franchise tag. This year was supposed to be the year that it finally happened, with Tom Brady making the way for the Patriots to splurge a little on a veteran. But Welker will be 32 going into next season. Amendola will be 27. Welker has played six years with the Patriots, but they were all years with blind smashes over the middle, endless hits and a few dropped passes. Amendola, after four years in the league, is ready to start racking up the same track record — at about the same age Welker was when he first came to New England.

It’s business, regular old business, for the Patriots, the kind of business that makes people wonder whether anyone can be spared when the all-seeing eye of New England’s salary cap preservation starts moving. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Welker can still be a good option for the Patriots, even with his salary demands and age, and the Patriots can still be a good home for Welker, even with all the hard feelings. It starts, though, with both sides taking a step back.

Objectively, it makes sense that the Patriots would be wary to spend a lot on Welker, and it makes sense that they’d want to wait to give him a contract until they figure out what else they can do in free agency. Also objectively, for Welker, it makes sense that being strung along — and getting what could be seen as little respect from offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels — would take this from being just another contract negotiation to feeling like the 600th replay of the same fight in a dissolving marriage.

But the key factors here are not feelings, money or timing. The bottom line here is whether the Patriots want Welker, and whether Welker wants them back. Settle that, and the rest of the murmurings really shouldn’t have trouble falling into place.

This has all gone awry because the Patriots don’t seem to have their minds made up. If they’re going to be cold-hearted and let Welker go, they should have let him go. Instead, they’ve pulled him along for a couple of years, hoping that a veteran player who knows his value to the team would stop asking to be paid well — or would just go away.

If the Patriots want to keep Welker, money needs to stop being such an issue. Just as they decided with Brady, a once-in-a-generation player, sometimes a little extra money goes a long way in cutting out other concerns (like what happens when a couple of tight ends get injured). Welker is not of Brady’s importance to the team, but New England is not ready to go with the mess that happened when veterans like Branch and Law left, leaving holes that remained unfilled — and detracted from the rest of the team — for several years. In that regard, giving Welker a little extra money and not trying to reinvent the offense with a new receiver doesn’t seem like too much to ask. If Welker is vital to the team, as most people think, the Patriots need to keep him. Otherwise, they need to stop playing around.

Sure, the Patriots would like to see what they can get in free agency — and maybe they’d even like to see if another team will make their Welker decision for them. But New England didn’t get to its championship levels before with halfhearted personnel decisions. The Patriots are known to move with conviction and keep players who have value, and what’s happened with Welker is precisely the kind of distraction and precedent the team needs to avoid.

When it comes to Welker, though, there’s room to give, too. The Patriots may have been less than exemplary, but Welker isn’t going to get the same support and opportunities anywhere else that he’s had in New England. Furthermore, pushing the Patriots — testing free agency, giving it some time, needling for more money — is not the brightest idea when it comes to a team that takes pride in squashing sentimentality and pushing the bottom line. Calling the Patriots cheap is not going to get a better contract.

It could all be smoke and mirrors now, this hedging and Amendola-luring and such. But it could also escalate, as these contract situations tend to do when feelings get involved. (Ray Allen, anyone?) The posturing and waiting is supposed to get both sides closer together, and to get the results that neither the Patriots nor Welker have been able to get in their many attempts at a new deal. Instead, what once seemed to be a small matter — a wedge driving the two sides apart — has become a real storyline.

At this point, though, it’s not about Amendola or anybody else. If the Patriots want to get a deal with Welker done, they need to just get it done. Letting this go to free agency is not going to help anything.

This is not about money, and it’s not about pride. It’s about the Patriots building on what they have, and staying at a level that can take them back the Super Bowl. If that involves Welker, there’s no reason to involve anything else.

But that doesn’t mean that Brady restructuring his contract — the second time in a calendar year — wasn’t done with Welker in mind. Yes, it’s a “team-friendly” deal (but hold your horses, because it could be a lot friendlier) — but, more than that, it’s a Welker-friendly deal. While the Patriots may not have had much wiggle room before to give Welker the multiyear contract he wanted, the timing of Brady’s extension and the space it provides means the Patriots have no excuse now. They are ready if they choose to make a move.

After many proclamations that the Pats would like to make Welker a Patriot for life, now is the time. The idea of an extension before free agency begins in March is not far-fetched, with New England wise to lock up Welker quickly rather than letting other teams drive up the price — or steal him away.

The Patriots also need to move quickly on Welker for other reasons. Welker has always been the first domino in New England’s 2013 offseason. While help is needed on the offensive line, with Sebastian Vollmer a free agent, and in the secondary, where Aqib Talib and Alfonzo Dennard are gambles on which the Pats need to decide, the championship road in New England will always go through Brady and whoever is on the other end of his throws.

The Patriots have had several eras since Belichick became coach in 2000, and it’s clear which blend New England prefers. Defense and Brady won three titles, a lack of offense led to short-circuited playoff hopes for several years, and then a horrible secondary hamstrung the Patriots’ offense-powered teams in recent years. The Patriots prefer the final rendition — and the hope that they can plug defensive holes — over going back to the offensively weak teams that negated Brady’s ability for many seasons.

The reason Welker is such an important signing is because having him on the team gives the Patriots another area they can cross off their development to-do list. While New England has had skill developing young players or plugging in veterans here and there, such as on defense, some positions are vital and can’t involve guesswork. Wide receiver — at least one wide receiver spot — has become one of those. The Patriots have had serious hiccups incorporating new wide receivers in recent years, from Chad Ochocinco to Brandon Lloyd. Spending extra for a proven player who has been a bargain for the team is plenty reasonable if the payoff is avoiding the headaches that have happened before (Chad Finn‘s take, and his comparison to the Deion Branch situation, is especially helpful on this one).

Once Welker is taken care of, the team can get to its other pressing needs, deciding whether to bring back Talib and doling out money on other positions. The draft, free agency and the trade market all have plenty of possibilities for the Patriots to comb through, and the team could go in many directions as it evaluates personnel and cap space.

But one spot where the Patriots have likely long had their minds made up is at wide receiver, where Welker has been among the best. The powers that be know whether Welker will be back — it just took time to answer the final questions (like if someone like Julian Edelman could take his place) and to free up the money that could make investing in one offensive tool worthwhile when trying to build a team that is losing about two dozen free agents.

The Patriots know whether they consider Welker essential, or whether they’ll be happy with what he’s done for several seasons and let him go. But in terms of when that decision will be made public in the form of a contract? That time is now. The big domino has fallen in freeing up money to sign Welker, and now the Patriots must pull the trigger before free agency so the rest of the team can be put in order. The Pats have enough to spend on Welker and then pick freely among other the pieces, with no excuses. Waiting gains them nothing.

Who knows whether Brady had a hand in getting Welker on the team for another season. This much is clear, though: Brady isn’t interested in returning to the years when he didn’t have a receiver as reliable as Welker to make his offense go, and he’s shown that in a big way by reworking his deal. The Patriots now must show whether they agree.

The Heat were in the building, Ray Allen was looking good in Miami red, and Boston was coming off a six-game losing streak where the C’s looked like they had clearly lost interest in learning how to play together or caring about winning. Before game time, Rajon Rondo was scratched from the lineup, and the situation got much, much worse when it was reported that he could have a tear in his anterior cruciate ligament — a wild speculation that was proved true within an hour or so.

Boston went from a contender to a shell of a team, and trade rumors began immediately, as the question was not if the Celtics would fold without Rondo, but when.

But a funny thing has happened since Rondo’s right ACL got that tear. The Celtics have taken off, beating not only the Heat but also winning six in a row. Boston made the Lakers look silly on Thursday night. Better yet, the team is playing together perhaps the best it has all season, with Doc Rivers seeming to have finally broken through in getting his team to move the ball, play to each other’s strengths and succeed no matter who is on the court.

Now, news comes that Rondo’s ACL tear may not be as bad as feared. A. Sherrod Blakely of Comcast Sports Net reports that the tear is partial, meaning recovery could be faster, and Rondo could be back to playing sooner than anyone thought. Rondo’s agent is quoted as saying “we are very optimistic,” and that Rondo is continuing to get opinions before surgery to make sure he treats the injury correctly.

On its face, that seems like great news. Rondo is not hurt as bad, and the Celtics can expect him back sooner. Everything will really be clicking.

But it actually doesn’t mean much for Celtics fans. Rondo wasn’t going to be available until the beginning of next season anyway, so him being prepared a few weeks or months earlier isn’t going to make a huge difference, considering he fits comfortably within the ACL recovery window even if it is a big tear.

Others have pointed to the recovery times of Ricky Rubio and Derrick Rose, who are still fighting their way back from ACL injuries. In this case, Rubio and Rose have had a harder slog, as their tears came in the left leg (which they push off from to jump), and their games are styled more on sharp cuts than Rondo’s, as Kelly Dwyer of Yahoo! Sports notes. With more recovery time, the thinking goes, Rondo could escape their fate and be even stronger at the beginning of next season.

But the bottom line is that Rondo is gone for this season, and he will be back for next season, ready to play, as long as he gets his surgery, works hard on recovery and does his due diligence. There’s optimism that the injury isn’t as bad as it was thought, but that optimism doesn’t do much to adjust the big-picture timetable. At this point, it seems more like mental cheerleading than good news (although Kendrick Perkins says Rondo could use that mental cheerleading).

The Celtics knew all along that Rondo’s injury wasn’t as devastating as some ACL injuries, with Rondo playing through the initial tear and then walking around easily on it for a couple of days before the diagnosis. It’s an injury that has to be fixed, but it was never the devastating kind where people wondered whether he could ever come back.

So, Celtics fans, be encouraged: Rondo will return. But rather than leaping at every shred of good news, bury your head on Rondo front until October. That’s the only time when it will matter how bad the tear was, and how well he has come back.

The landscape has changed over recent days, though. While the Celtics at first seemed to be banding together and making a run in the Eastern Conference with six straight wins, a six-game losing streak brought them back to where they started. On Sunday, they rebounded with a win over the Heat, but they also lost point guard Rajon Rondo for the rest of the season to a knee injury.

The Lakers, meanwhile, may finally be poking their heads out of the dysfunction that comes with having too many star players. While Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash, Dwight Howard and Pau Gasol spent much of the early season finding every way not to play together and win, three victories in a row have brought new hope.

After bad beginnings, the Lakers (20-25) and Celtics (21-23) could do some damage in their respective conferences, although it’s a long climb back for both. It’s especially difficult for Boston, which is moving on without Rondo, the key playmaker. But in this way, the possible success of both the Lakers and the Celtics may be more closely related than most people think.

While the loss of Rondo makes it look like the Celtics are done for the season, coach Doc Rivers and others disagree. Losing Rondo is a big deal, especially considering how the team functioned before he was hurt, but the Celtics still have many talented players. A new system, and a new focus of attack, could make them just as much a contender as any other team in the Eastern Conference that has built an offense with quality players but no elite point guard. (That’s why trading away their veteran talent now could be such a bad idea.)

This is where comparisons to the Lakers come in. Los Angeles still has an elite point guard in Nash, but the All-Star’s time with his new team hasn’t gone as expected. While bringing him in to work with Howard, Gasol, Bryant and the Lakers’ supporting cast, as well as new coach Mike D’Antoni, was billed as an instant return to the Showtime Lakers — a team of great passing, running and movement — not many considered how that would jive with Howard, Gasol and Bryant being the key players on the team. Bryant is known to need the ball in his hands, and he has thrived for many years without a point guard getting in the way of his shot creation. Howard and Gasol can both work in isolation sets, and merely a passer is needed for that. Even the vaunted pick and roll doesn’t do as much if Nash isn’t working it with the ease he had with the Phoenix Suns.

After discovering the hard way, over and over, that the team would not win with all these disparate approaches, the Lakers have finally started to try something new. With three wins in a row (no small feat with this team), including one against the Thunder, the Lakers were soon praising the new approach’s success. Implementing a system like this before the season started may have drawn howls, but the Lakers have lost enough games this time around to embrace new ways.

What Los Angeles has done is this: Instead of using Nash as he has typically played throughout his career, the Lakers are moving toward everyone being involved in distributing and moving the ball, especially possession black hole Bryant.

D’Antoni’s offense relies on ball movement and player movement, which leads to the better shots that produce more scoring. When everything is clicking, the offense can feed the defense, and the team can score enough to win. But when the team plays just a portion of this type of offense, with the ball stalling when it arrives at certain players (such as Bryant), much is lost.

But, if instead Bryant can turn into a facilitator, as he has for the past few games, the scenario changes. When Bryant can keep the ball moving and find open men, players gets involved, and the team gets much closer to fulfilling the offense it was designed to run.

Bryant has 35 assists and 26 rebounds over the last three games (compared to averaging five a game in both categories this season), meaning he’s touching and moving the ball more. Nash, meanwhile, has had just 12 assists over the last three games, compared to his 8.1 assists per game for this season. While that’s a small sample size, the eye test also shows that, rather than trying to run the offense through Nash sometimes and then let Bryant do his thing other times, the Lakers are now running the offense completely much more of the time, although that now includes running it through Bryant quite a bit.

Bryant has to have the ball in his hands, whether it be hubris or a genuine part of his game. By finding a way to make him a facilitator, and having all those touches turn into the movement that this offense needs to succeed, the Lakers have found a way to take care of two battles at once.

That’s where the Celtics come in. While the Celtics have a much different team makeup, lacking a Bryant and the Lakers’ bigs, they are now confronted with having to play without a great facilitating point guard. If the recent success of Los Angeles has shown anything, though, it’s that maybe the C’s can easily find a way around that. By pressing the entire team to step into distribution roles and depending more on player movement, the Celtics can create just as many opportunities as Rondo once created by himself.

Furthermore, Paul Pierce could take notes from Bryant’s changes. While Pierce has forged his career on isolation dominance, Rivers said coming into this year that he would like to see Pierce work out of team sets more often. Pierce’s up-and-down play throughout the season only supports that idea, as Pierce just isn’t as deadly working one-on-one anymore. On Sunday, much of the Celtics’ victory was because Pierce stepped up as a distributor (10 assists), and there’s no reason why he can’t continue to work in that direction and pick up much of Rondo’s responsibilities. Pierce has done it before and should be able to adjust far more quickly than Bryant.

The Celtics have the talent to get scoring from many spots and play a balanced game, although they’ve struggled to do that this season. But with Rondo out, and the team needing the ball to go through many other players’ hands, Boston can have hope.

More players being involved may be just what the C’s need to get all those players going.

Nash will likely see his role in Los Angeles diminish if the Lakers can get the team success they need, and the Celtics can make Rondo look unessential if they can accomplish the same thing without their point guard. It’s not a knock against those two All-Stars. But it is a sign that, if the times call for it, a great point guard always finds a way to make his teammates succeed, even if he isn’t the one handing out the ball.

The deer antler velvet spray does it. You’ve officially lost us.

It’s not that we don’t like the way you play linebacker. It’s not that we don’t admire the way you inspire a team, or how you’ve kept at it through challenges. It’s not that we don’t think there’s some innocence in that heart, and some sheer passion that is still laudable no matter what dirty rumors follow your name.

But, enough.

What the heck is deer antler velvet spray? Why would you use it? Why are you denying that you are using it?

It’s not just strange, Ray Lewis. It’s not just another one of those weird things that you do. This is too close to the other parts of you that we’ve chosen to look past. This could mean something more.

Without your troubles from 2000, or your repeated references to God lifting you up, maybe this wouldn’t strike us as so odd. But it is odd, and now we have to ask the questions, just as we’ve listened to what you’ve had to say.

Why is it, so soon after Lance Armstrong and Manti Te’o reinforced pretty well that repeated lying and deception do not pay off in the end, that you appear ready to also traverse this road?

You want to do Bible verses, Ray Lewis? Let’s do Bible verses.

These are the easy ones: Your sin will find you out. Let no unwholesome talk come out of your mouth. Abstain from all appearance of evil. In quietness and confidence is your strength. (Numbers 32:23; Ephesians 4:29; 1 Thessalonians 5:22; Isaiah 30:15.)

We want to believe you, Ray Lewis. We want to ride that passion and find a way to have the same gusto for life. We want to stomp into our workplaces and relationships with the same dances and bravado you provide each week.

But this is enough. We’re over the top. It’s too big. It’s not about you anymore — and it doesn’t seem real. Whatever you’re building here has started to feel dangerously wrong.

What happens if this deer antler velvet spray thing is true? What happens if even one more trusting fan finds out that the allegations from those connected to the 2000 murder case are still readily disputed? What happens when a world built on hyperbole and pomp fails to provide the true inspiration that people really need?

Here’s the problem, Ray Lewis. Every time you use a Bible verse to support your life path and your success, you associate everything in the Bible, and those who truly follow the Bible, with your troubled testimony. Every time you tell people that they, too, can reach such heights, you step over those who have worked just as hard through just as rough of circumstances but have never seen it work out. Every time you insist you are the perfect hero, all the reasons you are not the perfect hero become hard to swallow.

If you are following a path of redemption from a troubled past to a glorious future, why do the accusations keep coming? Redemption involves repentance, which is a turning from a former life to a new one. New wrongs cannot be explained away by saying everyone messed up, not when you’re on your second chance. The point of the second chance is that you won’t make those mistakes again. Go and sin no more, or humbly admit that work still needs to be done.

So maybe you didn’t use deer antler velvet spray. But what if you did? Why would you? Aren’t the repercussions of doing something like that to rush back to the field and play your way to the Super Bowl much worse than if you had done the right thing and had to sit out? What are you teaching people — that the ends justify the means? That doing wrong is OK if the Lombardi Trophy waits at the end?

The story doesn’t add up, Ray Lewis, and the amount of fervor you’ve put behind being the most passionate, the most inspirational, the most reputable, the most redeemed, the most revered and the most watchable is tiring. We want authentic people who can show us how good can be done in an imperfect world, not people who blow past barriers in such ridiculous ways that we wonder whether the smoke machine is there more to hide things than to just add to the hype.

We want to root for you, Ray Lewis. We want to support you. We want to believe.

We cry passionately sometimes, like you, and we credit God for His blessing in life. But some of us know we dare not create a magical story and put God’s name on it, when the unraveling of that magical story would do far more harm than good. God exalts the humble, and He raises the faithful. We don’t need to help Him in any way.

You may be right, Ray Lewis. Your story may be one of the best ever. But remember that Armstrong’s was incredible, and Te’o's, too. And remember that we never asked you to be so far beyond what was believable, and so good at rising above and playing on that none of us could touch you.

We love to watch you play, Ray Lewis. We love your passion, and what you mean to sports and life. But be careful, Ray Lewis. The truth is always enough.

Jason Terry will not get out of his slump. Courtney Lee will not suddenly find his groove and see his game jump to the next level. Jeff Green will not find his role, and Avery Bradley‘s defense will not suddenly make all the difference.

Rajon Rondo is out for the rest of the season with a torn ACL, and with him goes everything Boston had tried to build this season. The halfway point of the season is now the death knell, the slow start the final blow.

In a season when Rondo was supposed to be the new leader, the MVP and the glue for Danny Ainge‘s magical mix of specialty parts, the key piece of the plan has been yanked out. Rondo’s creative passes and ability to run the offense were what could pull the Celtics’ many different pieces together. But without him at the helm, the Celtics face being a team made up of various players, not a team whose talented individuals are pulled together to lift the group to the next level.

While the news of Rondo’s injury came at the worst possible time, as the Celtics were trying to get off a six-game losing streak, the Celtics at first appeared to be just fine without him. A team that hasn’t been able to play consistently all season banded together against one of the Eastern Conference’s best, playing the Heat evenly the whole way Sunday afternoon. Each player rose in his role, with balanced scoring and lockdown defense showing what this Boston team could be.

The team found what it had been missing all season, rising together after it was told that Rondo would not be coming back.

But that’s exactly what’s wrong with the Celtics this season. Yes, they will come out and beat the Heat at home, holding off Ray Allen‘s (21 points) resurgent return. Sure, they can shut down LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh for a night. Of course Green, Bradley, Terry and Lee will suddenly pop out the production required for a balanced attack and defense.

This Celtics team, however, has also lost to the Pistons — twice. They gave up 40 to Kyrie Irving last week. They capped their season-high six-game winning streak by croaking to the Hornets.

This is a team that has found ways to get very high on its highs, and horribly low on its lows. The C’s come out for the good teams and can play them close, but they’ve lost twice as many games on the road as they’ve won, and they can’t knock off .500 teams with ease.

Eliminating Rondo creates obvious problems for the Celtics. They can’t replace an All-Star point guard, a playmaker who is unrivaled in the NBA in many ways, and a player who supplies 13.7 points, 11.1 assists and 5.6 rebounds a game. Losing the player who was anointed as the team’s new leader this year (by veterans Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce, no less) and who will be the centerpiece of this squad for years to come has repercussions galore.

But the bigger problem for the Celtics is that they will be required to dig deeper to get their highs higher, and to dig even deeper than that to keep their lows from getting too low. The Celtics were almost facing all must-wins coming into Sunday’s game after starting the season a wretched 20-23. Now, every gimme really must be won from here on out, and some of the tough ones will have to be put away with ease, too.

The Celtics set themselves up to have no room for error by spending the first half of their season fiddling around with a team that took too long to gel. Now they’ve lost their key piece, and they have no time to try to figure out what works — they need to make it happen within 48 minutes every game.

Sunday was a good sign, as the Celtics know how to compete with different combinations of players and certainly have the talent to beat quality teams without Rondo. But emotion only runs so far, and the loss of Rondo — who has regularly been required to play a bulk of the minutes just to keep the team in the game — is as bad as it sounds.

Green may take off, and Terry may hit his 3-pointers. Bradley and Lee can shut down opponents, and Garnett and Pierce will be asked to do more.

But Rondo is lost, and with him goes the grand vision of what this season could be. The only question that remains is whether the Celtics can invent another plan — and actually fulfill this one — in a half a season where they’ll have to do all but win out.

The boss is patient, and kind, and tells them that one day, when they’ve gone and grown up a little bit, they’ll realize why it can’t all be that way.

Sometimes the kids mellow out. Sometimes they figure out on their own when to push, and when to let something broken stay less than perfect.

Other times, they’re traded to the Minnesota Vikings.

We are talking, of course, about Randy Moss, and what came of the pinnacle of his career in New England. Washed up after misbehaving across the NFL, he was welcomed to the Patriots by a coach who could make the most of him. At first, the most was made. Moss paired with Tom Brady for a record 23 touchdowns as the team broke many offensive records and reached the Super Bowl.

But then the chirping started, and the discontent seeped in. Moss was no longer happy to just have the job but instead wanted to know why things couldn’t always be a certain way, or his way. He talked and grinded and pushed.

Soon Moss was a liability, not an asset. At that point, all the talent in the world couldn’t keep his trusting boss from deciding that the situation couldn’t remain, and that Moss had to go.

Moss has spoken many times of how he regrets how his time in New England ended, and how he didn’t realize the good thing he had until he left. There’s no question that he would want to come back. Instead, he has bounced around several NFL teams, going stretches without even being given a chance to suit up. Older now, his age has become as much of a liability as his tendency to be a distraction.

But finally, in San Francisco, he has been given one last second chance — and one that could be even better than what happened in New England. Rather than being a centerpiece in an offense that could showcase his incredible ability once and for all, he’s become a cog in a true team that wants him to take his talent and multiply it into much more than he could be on his own.

In this way, Moss has a chance to this year be the most valuable he has ever been.

Moss has quietly been a key piece in San Francisco’s offense this year. He was on the field quite a bit in last week’s playoff win, but that’s a change from his role for most of the season, where he was a low-ranking option and gathered just 28 catches for 434 yards.

Where Moss has been contributing the most is as a quasi-coach — the player who knows how to play so well that he can go and make disciples, making younger legs do with his experience what was once like breathing to him.

Moss’s 49ers teammates have been talking all year about the calm, disciplined approach the wide receiver brings. He was making tough blocks and showing great effort earlier in the season. Now he’s being given credit for Michael Crabtree exploding as a playmaker for San Francisco, with 85 catches for 1,105 yards this season.

Where Moss’s legs have slowed down, his brain has picked up. The 49ers have a strong attack with several receivers who can carry the weight thanks to Moss, plus Moss himself as a bonus option. Even having lost a step, Moss can still outsmart defenders, and he’ll be getting reps Sunday as San Francisco plays for a Super Bowl berth.

It was a role Moss could have never really had in New England. Sure, he appreciated playing for a good team, and he loved being able to work with Brady. But, because of his talent, and because he thought he could still play with the fire of bad behavior as long as he performed, he never forced himself to be more than a good player. He was praised for his smarts and being a good teammate, but he never took it to the next, deeper level, where that was his focus, beyond his personal aims.

Now, with the 49ers, he is again on a talented team, and he has learned from that first job where he pushed his trusting boss too far. He knows why chirping doesn’t help, and why supporting his teammates rather than calling them out helps. He sees how a team can become so much more if, instead of one great receiver, he makes a handful of receivers great by learning to teach his talent.

Moss fell short in his one try at the Super Bowl, with the Patriots just a few years ago. If he and the 49ers can beat the Falcons, he will have another chance.

He didn’t need to score 23 breathtaking touchdowns this year to be the best he’s ever been, and he doesn’t have to have anyone know what good he has done.

If the 49ers can win the big one now that he’s found that elusive final tool that so many kids fail to grasp — well, that will be Moss’s most valuable moment, and the most astonishing sight of all.

Photo via Facebook/Randy Moss

But I do believe in Ray Lewis and bitter Ravens and the power of payback.

That’s why I’m a little nervous that the Patriots’ opponent in Sunday’s AFC Championship Game is Baltimore and not Denver, the home of caution and old Patriots’ punching bag Peyton Manning.

When I look back through the last few games the Patriots “shouldn’t have” won, they’re all against the Ravens. Last year’s AFC championship. That regular-season flagfest that Baltimore used as motivation to blow the Patriots away in the playoffs in 2009. I’m well aware that Baltimore thinks that many of its games against the Patriots have been stolen.

There’s also the Patriots’ losses, too — the Wes Welker-less first-round playoff exit in 2009. The one-point defeat earlier this season (which I was actually hoping the Patriots would lose at the end, because I knew a fluke penalty or something else like that would only enrage the Ravens further if the Pats were to meet them again in the playoffs).

The Ravens have every reason to carry a chip on their shoulder against the Patriots, the darling of the AFC. Brendon Ayanbadejo provided several of those reasons just this Sunday, and the usual columns lauding Tom Brady or saying Joe Flacco is not elite should push it further.

The hard-nosed, never-quite-lucky Ravens are everything the Patriots are not, and they have good reason to think that they should earn this win next week, especially if they have had so many taken away from them against the Patriots before.

But a little bitterness from Baltimore may also mean well for the Patriots. If the permeating images left from previous Ravens-Patriots tilts are of yellow flags fluttering and Baltimore coach John Harbaugh screaming his head off, perhaps New England already has an advantage. Karma may dictate that the calls will go Baltimore’s way this time, if so many of them have gone for the Pats before. But, perchance New England gets one bad call in its favor early in the game? That may do it. Angry Ravens are often not good Ravens. Passionate Ravens will overcome, but angry ones — well, angry ones are usually still complaining when Brady gets that sleepy-eyed Joe Montana look and starts ripping apart the other team’s defense.

The Ravens have plenty to fight for in this game. Lewis is retiring. The old guard on defense has clearly lost a step, and even if Ed Reed and friends are back next year, it won’t be the same.

This is also the third time in the past five years Baltimore has made it to the AFC Championship Game, with the Super Bowl out of reach each time. They’re due to break through this year, and they would love to do it against the pretty-boy Patriots.

New England has had trouble with karma before (what else do you call what’s happened to them since Spygate, or how Eli Manning could otherwise have two Super Bowl wins?). But New England also hasn’t gotten this far this year on the back of luck and fortune. The Patriots have earned their steps to this round of the playoffs, building on that same methodical, incremental progress that turned them from a collection of players into a fine team last season.

Should the Patriots have won last season’s AFC championship? Probably not. But this year’s? This year, the Patriots are the better team, playing with better consistency and preparation than the up-and-down, emotion-fueled Ravens.

The Patriots shouldn’t need karma — or Billy Cundiff — to take the next step.

And that’s exactly why I’m nervous.

He had six catches for 120 yards at the half, and he finished the game with eight catches for 131 yards. It wasn’t like many people noticed, though, with everything else that was happening. On a day that saw key injuries, the further emergence of the Patriots’ running game and a New England defense continue to ascend, Welker’s numbers appeared to be just filler.

But Welker is still a huge part of the Patriots’ attack, and what he did Sunday showed why he — not Gronkowski, not Woodhead, not Shane Vereen or Stevan Ridley or Brandon Lloyd or Aaron Hernandez – could be the most important factor heading into what New England hopes will be its final two wins of the season.

Consider when Welker racked up his yardage. New England got to its 24-13 lead on the back of a strong first half, when Tom Brady continued to find Welker to extend drives. Whether it was in his usual position, catching passes underneath, or in what may have been the play of the game, a ridiculous over-the-shoulder bomb from Brady along the left sideline, Welker could once again be relied on to make plays and keep drives alive when it counted most.

That’s not to say that Hernandez, Lloyd, Vereen, Ridley and Woodhead do not do the same. If anything, this Patriots’ attack is quite balanced, with catches and yards spread evenly among the receivers, and anyone capable of making a play if his route comes open.

But the comfort that Brady has had with Welker this year and in past seasons is what makes New England so reliable. Plenty of guys will be targeted for plays, but when Brady really needs a connection, he needs Welker.

That’s why Welker is the key cog heading into the AFC Championship Game, and hopefully the Super Bowl, for New England. It’s also why Welker needs to bring his best game — because, for as good as he has been, he may also be the reason the Patriots could come up short again.

The Patriots’ margin of error has shrunk considerably with Gronkowski out. Whereas the team is stacked when it has all its weapons, it must instead beat matchups without the likes of Gronkowski, Welker, Hernandez or Lloyd being that extra, elite receiver.

Third downs are harder to complete. Big plays are more difficult to come upon. Must-make catches really must be made.

That’s where Welker’s job becomes vital. While he won’t carry the burden of the entire offense, he will be looked to when the Patriots really need a completion, and he will be asked to make the toughest catches in the smallest spaces.

Welker never seemed to have a problem filling this role in the past, but a cloud hangs over him heading into these playoffs. Last year, on the biggest stage, when the Patriots needed him more than ever, Welker dropped a key second-down pass in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl. It was a mistake anyone could make, and the disconsolate Welker has far outweighed that one moment with his reams of other big plays.

But that catch has hung like an albatross since. It was there when Welker was working on getting a new contract, and into this season, when Welker didn’t have as much playing time in the first few games. It’s been there with every drop he’s had since — and this season, whether it’s true or not, he has seemed to have a lot more drops.

While the story of the Patriots returning to the Super Bowl is often written as the team getting its fourth title in six tries, of Brady and Bill Belichick capping off what they started together a dozen years ago, and of the franchise returning to glory, almost all of the current Patriots never tasted that initial success — including Welker. Welker arrived when the Patriots needed some offense after Brady and his spare parts couldn’t get the team back to the big game. Welker has done his job and gone to the Super Bowl twice, but he’s never won one.

The loss of Gronkowski will be another major storyline going into Sunday’s game, and whether Vereen and Ridley can continue their magic on the ground is important. But whether Brady and Welker rediscover that formerly flawless connection in the slot could be the biggest factor against the Ravens.

The Patriots have plenty of good players, and they can allow mistakes among most of the ranks, as long as everyone mostly does his job. But with Welker, they’ve always had one better than that — someone who always makes it happen.

Welker wants that first title, and he wants to avenge what has been a year of doubt. He can do both starting this Sunday.

But, while the play that finally knocked Griffin out of the Redskins-Seahawks wild card game was a fluke, that Griffin had to leave the game was not an accident — it was a matter of time.

Griffin came into the game banged up, and he aggravated his already-touchy knee in the first half while scrambling. With the Seattle defense bearing down constantly and Griffin trying to make plays with his legs, an injury was going to happen. It just ended up happening on a botched play.

Critics have been calling out Redskins coach Mike Shanahan for keeping Griffin in the game, although Griffin was emphatic afterward that he was not going to be taken out, even if he was hurt. The coach certainly has a responsibility in this situation, and he’s correct to be criticized. But the main point here should not be what Shanahan did.

The real issue is what kind of career Griffin wants to have.

Ultimately, Griffin is the one who will decide whether he will become a truly great running quarterback, or whether his determination to take hits and play through injuries will limit him as a player and hurt his team. Whatever his coaches decide, he is the one taking the shots with his injuries and his career, and those decisions are what people should be focusing on now.

Griffin has plenty of examples to look at as he decides how to chart his path. In Pittsburgh, Ben Roethlisberger was unavailable this year when his team needed him most after missing several games due to hard hits. In Philadelphia, Michael Vick is no longer a freewheeling playmaker, but rather a battered soul. Conversely, in Green Bay, Aaron Rodgers is as tough as ever but not missing pivotal plays and games. In New England, while not fleet-footed, Tom Brady is going to wisely slide every time so he doesn’t miss a snap.

The problem here is that the question of helping the team, which Griffin cited in his decision to keep playing, has been incorrectly framed. When Griffin and others talk of staying on the field with injuries, they present it as a question of whether to play, and help the team, or not play, and be selfish. But really, as the best quarterbacks in the league have shown, the best way a player can help his team is by being available to play every game.

Griffin should think long and hard about insisting on going back into games when injured — or circumventing his coaches or medical staff — but where he really needs to do the work is on the field. The play on which Griffin was injured in the first half was not one where he needed to be taking a hit, and it was preceded by several other scrambles where Griffin put his shoulder down and dove for a yard inbounds rather than scampering out of bounds a hash mark earlier.

Fighting for an extra yard as a running quarterback is not heroic. It’s stupid. It’s betting the house to win the lottery when you could just as easily hold some money and turn it into a smaller jackpot.

Griffin needs to do some thinking in the offseason about what he wants to accomplish in his career, and what odds he needs to play to get there. If he wants to get every yard every time, he can keep playing the way he has. But if he wants to remain in games, play a full season or even have a long career, he needs to start studying ways that he can produce while protecting his body. He should spend just as much time figuring out how he can run for eight yards without getting hurt (rather than 10 yards with a knee twist that could linger for six games) as he does scouting opposing teams’ defenses.

Griffin doesn’t have to give up his game, and everything that makes him a unique and great player, to be safer — and available for his team. The Eagles again pose a fine example. While Vick has been a test case for how an immensely talented quarterback gets slammed into oblivion and loses the ability to make good use of his legs, Donovan McNabb was also once known for being able to run around defenses, yet he didn’t lose the same amount of significant time to injuries. If what is most important for the team is having its quarterback available, the game must be adjusted, no matter how many running yards are enticingly available.

A new approach to how he attacks the game, and when he chooses to stay in games once he gets hurt, is what will determine if Griffin is going to be the Redskins’ leader for some time.

Griffin is a great player and a great leader, and he shouldn’t be faulted for wanting to do the right thing and play hard. But the bravado this Sunday that accompanied what could be a more harmful injury should be a rookie mistake.

In the future, Griffin needs to remember that, just as rushing yards are only good if they help his team win, running with abandon is only good if he’s healthy enough to take the field for his team for many years to come.

Eric Dickerson

Peterson is about to change the way the NFL plays offense.

It sounds funny to anoint Peterson as the next great one, even with his 1,898 yards and 6.0 yards per carry this season. Running backs, after all, are the greatest of the shining stars in the NFL — so, so bright when they first light up, then so quickly flaming out when their bodies break after a few brief seasons of magical play.

A great season by an NFL running back has usually been just that — one great season for one great player, and not much more.

But what Peterson is doing is not just piling up numbers. This is not Chris Johnson in 2009, notching 2,006 yards then getting shut down when he had lesser teammates and tougher opponents in following years. Many a running back has posted a season to remember, but what Peterson has done so far this year has implications for the future.

First, let’s consider what Peterson has done to injury prognostications. ACL tears are no longer the kiss of death, but now, after what Peterson and others have done, there are questions of whether they’re even a debilitating injury at all. Not only has Peterson bounced back, but he’s done it in a much shorter time than the usual one-year recovery window. If Peterson fails to hit another high mark for the rest of his career, he will always have this — a monstrous season built on an epic recovery that redefined how athletes handle injuries.

But Peterson is also in position to reshape the game as a whole. Thanks to his production, the Vikings are 9-6 and spoiling for a playoff spot, and they’re doing it despite having a young quarterback who regularly contends for the worst performance in the league. Peterson has carried this team, and he’s done it by playing better and better against tougher opposition. Teams have known Minnesota’s game plan, and they’ve tried to stop Peterson at all costs. Peterson has just kept attacking, putting up huge numbers even when everyone knows he’s taking the ball.

Peterson isn’t just blowing through defenses on semi-strengthened legs. He is tearing past players whose only goal is to stop him, ripping off runs that take advantage of speed, power and precise cuts when defenses are sending most of their players into the box to stop him. Peterson isn’t gaining 200 yards a game (which he’s done twice this season, boosting his 126.5-yard-a-game average) in garbage time. He’s doing it when the defense is planning for him and must stop him to win the game.

In that way, Peterson is changing the idea of what an NFL offense can be. It’s one thing to have a great running back who can reel off incredible plays, but it’s another to be able to consistently rely on a rusher to log more than 150 yards of offense and supply 20-plus (or 50-plus) yard runs throughout a game. Peterson is a running back who is a deep threat with just his legs.

Now, a pre-eminent running back is not news. Plenty of teams have relied on great backs to carry their offenses. But where Peterson is different, and where he can singularly change the game in a way no other running back has, is the era in which he’s doing it.

Just months ago, any NFL expert would have said that the age of great running backs in the NFL was over. For several years, the league has been adding more and more offense, and that has come via great quarterbacks and versatile receivers. Running backs were still a part of the game, but they were increasingly becoming a throwaway piece — a token to balance the offense, an option to catch passes, an easy way to plunge into the end zone in short-yardage situations. The running back as NFL history knew it — a player relied upon for a huge workload, who could swing the fate of the game — was long gone, as were the paychecks and cache that went with the once-great backs.

But in a league that is addicted to offense and passing yards, Peterson has dominated. He has produced offense better than many teams can via the pass. He has piled up yardage where a good receiving corps couldn’t. He has shown that the running back is not only not dead, but in fact could be a superior form of offense for teams that don’t have the other tools needed to gain yards.

Peterson is playing in the perfect situation in Minnesota, where Christian Ponder will never be Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady — or even a serviceable, yard-producing quarterback. But that’s the case around much of the NFL, too. For every Rodgers and Brady, there’s a Ponder or a Mark Sanchez. There just aren’t enough good quarterbacks to go around.

In a league that lives on offense, that’s a death’s blow — unless, somehow, those yards can come from some other player who can pick apart defenses, find holes and crank up yardage in a way that’s hard to defend. That conversation now includes running backs.

It’s been just one magical season, and Peterson has a long way to go to continue to recover from injury and place his name among the greats. But playing as well as he has in an era that is set up in every way to discourage elite running backs, Peterson has already made his mark on the game.

Teams will not be shy about the rushing attack, and not just to balance their passing. If a player who’s even a shade of Peterson can be found, those teams can be contenders.

Peterson has swung the balance back when it comes to offense in the NFL. That’s something that could be legendary on a whole new level, well above the record books.

Tom Brady

While recent studies have shown that an angry Brady is a terrific Brady for the Patriots, this kind of angry Brady is not. Brady should be praised for getting at his teammates when needed, but the fact that he had to start shouting again — after plenty of much-deserved criticism during the loss to the 49ers — is a bad sign. These last few weeks have mirrored the end of the Patriots’ recent seasons in the worst of ways, and the results are foreboding. The Patriots cannot afford to be sleepwalking this time of year, and that was exactly what they were doing against the Jaguars.

Now, things weren’t quite as bad as they appeared last Sunday. Jacksonville had nothing to lose and played like it, and the Patriots were resting key players, especially on defense.

But what is concerning about the Jaguars game is what else was missing — things like motivation, pride and focus. It doesn’t matter if the season is over or if the Triple-A Miami Marlins were the ones who suited up across from New England. The Patriots need to play like the Patriots every week.

For the past few years, the Patriots have been playing like a double-digit win team, the kind that is excellent all year, makes the playoffs and can saunter into late-season matchups with the likes of the Jaguars and win on basic talent. But the Patriots’ goals are said to be much loftier — Super Bowl, let’s say, or at least not finking out against the Jets in an early round of the playoffs. To do that, the Patriots need to play their best football at the end of the regular season, with the year-long development of players starting to bear fruit and a superior mental toughness carrying the Patriots past playoff opponents who have just as much talent and skill.

The Patriots have just one game left to remedy this problem, this Sunday against the Dolphins. While it seems like one game against a non-playoff team may not be enough to cause such weighty effects, Miami could actually be the perfect team to play at this time.

First of all, please rest all the chatter about playoff seeding. The Patriots have historically failed to do great in the playoffs when they haven’t had the first-round bye, but this is a side point to the larger discussion. The main focus here is winning the Super Bowl, and while that would be helped by a first-round bye, it would be helped much more by this team playing well. So, the Patriots could help their seeding chances by beating the Dolphins this week and the commensurate teams croaking (Houston and Denver), but that should be a byproduct of the larger things the Patriots must accomplish. If the Patriots do what they need to do, they’ll win it all with or without a first-round bye. If they get the bye but fail to improve where they need to, they will lose.

New England’s focus against the Dolphins should be in two main areas: momentum and mental toughness. The Patriots have to get the entire team to execute at a consistent level, making basic plays at an even pace throughout the game. The team doesn’t need to be torrid heading into the playoffs, but the Pats must be at least consistent and able to do the basics effectively. Building this momentum will also help New England regain its mental edge, where renewing their focus, taking care of each part of the game and seeing the effects of solid execution will prepare the players for the bigger, coming challenges.

The Dolphins, as a pesky divisional foe, will provide a good test. They have plenty of pride to play for, and a history of knocking off the Patriots when all signs point to New England winning. They are one of the better non-playoff teams, and they know what to expect from the Patriots. If New England wants a testing ground to get the team revved up heading into the playoffs, this should be it.

If the Patriots can put together a decent game where the players execute well, even without a full, healthy roster, that will set the tone for the team heading into the playoffs. The Patriots showed they have the ability to play with — and beat — the best teams out there against Houston and San Francisco. But they’re awfully close to losing the edge that they’ll need in the tough moments of the playoffs after playing at half-strength against the Jaguars — and appearing to be completely lost mentally. If they can summon their best against a Miami team they don’t have to beat, chances are they’ll be able to bring it back on cue again when the next, better opponent comes along.

The question this year, really, has been whether this Patriots team is like the 2011 version or the 2009 group. Last year, the Patriots built slowly throughout the season, developing the horrible secondary, getting the receiving corps into a groove and gradually bringing the team to a place where enough pieces could fire at the right moment to secure victories. Aided by a helpful schedule and excellent execution when it matter, last year’s Patriots played beyond their skill. They won one more, then one more, then one more all the way to the Super Bowl.

The 2009 Patriots, meanwhile, were stacked. They still had Randy Moss and Wes Welker at their best, and Brady coming off his lost season. The defense had big-play capability. But the team spent most of the season winning one and losing one, winning one and losing one. In NFL Films’ A Football Life, coach Bill Belichick can be heard bemoaning his team’s lack of mental focus. They played well sometimes, but they couldn’t be counted on to really bring it together consistently and against good teams. In the regular-season finale, the 2009 Patriots lost horribly, and they lost Welker to a freak injury. They were then dismantled in the first round of the playoffs.

This year’s team has the most talent since the record-breaking 2007 New England group. Rob Gronkowski should be back soon, and Brandon Lloyd is a huge producer as of late. The defense has been much improved down the stretch, with not only the ability to make big plays but also to turn in stops.

But this is also the team that started the season winning one and losing one, and has had its trouble closing out games and keeping up the intensity. Whether this team has the mental focus to hold on against better teams and win out is very much in question, but one solid outing to end the season could go a long way. The team would at least know that, if needed, it could make it happen.

Brady knows what Belichick knew and Patriots fans are finding out — this team is good, but it has to be better than good to reach its goals. The players must be yelled at, pushed and prodded until they start playing together, at their best, all the time. Early playoff exits and nasty Super Bowl losses are all too easy this time of year.

The final path to winning it all starts now.

Tim Tebow

He’s taken criticism whether it was due or not. He’s followed along with short-sighted plans that were about other people cashing in his popularity rather than him personally succeeding. He’s lived in storylines and speculation without a real chance to go out and disprove his detractors all year long.

But even Tebow had enough this week, when Jets coach Rex Ryan decided to finally bench Mark Sanchez — in favor of third-stringer Greg McElroy. Now Tebow, who was brought in to New York on what most people thought was one big, misguided publicity stunt, is finally pushing back against the company line. He is reportedly ready to ask to be traded or released if the Jets continue to show that they are not serious about using him as a quarterback.

At this point, asking to go is what Tebow should do, and it shouldn’t be perceived as any kind of insubordination. The great debate surrounding Tebow when he came into the NFL was whether he could succeed as a quarterback, and that was his role when he started building his passer resume in Denver. What the Jets have done, however, is turn Tebow into a mix of a running back, blocker and all-around headline-grabber. All of those roles may fit Tebow, but that’s not what he signed up to do, and that’s not what he — or his fans — are going to be content with him doing.

So, after one poorly managed season, the Jets need to make a decision. They can’t have another year of the Tebow circus, no matter how much owner Woody Johnson likes the attention. They’ve wrung all they can out of that scenario. It’s time to either use Tebow as the quarterback that so many people think he can be, or to pass him off to another team that can do the same.

It’s not a bad scenario for the Jets. The team can certainly get value — and much-needed cap space — back for Tebow at this point. And with Tebow pushing the team to do the right thing, pulling the plug on the current situation should be an easy pivot at this point.

But there’s good reason to think that the Jets are going to drag their feet and try to make this work one more time. They could even try Tebow as a conventional quarterback for a bit.

That would be a big mistake. And if the Jets can’t be stopped from making more big mistakes, then Tebow has to press. He can’t be content to get a mea culpa from the Jets and more promises for next season. He must push to be traded or released.

The Jets lost all chances of Tebow being more than a one-year figure in New York this season as they played the different scenarios down to their last breaths. Tebow flopped in the little wildcat plan that the team had promised was the focus all along. He went out and blocked and ran his option plays, but it was obvious that those setups weren’t best for the team. Worst yet, as the season went on and Tebow couldn’t step up as the trick pony that the Jets were trying to make him to be (when they were committed to that plan, that is), he lost the trust of his teammates. The Jets needed Tebow to lead with his personality and winning spirit, but instead he spent the season looking inept and losing any confidence his teammates had in him.

To regain the qualities that made him a decent NFL player at one point, Tebow needs a new organization. The key word there is organization — he needs to play for a team that is somewhat organized and tries to at least think things through. Tebow needs to play for a coach who knows how to direct him and use his skills, and he needs to do it in a place that is comfortable with the attention he brings and can use it in a way that is best for a team.

The Jets were never equipped to develop Tebow. They were set up to exploit him, and they have sucked everything out of the situation that could be expected considering their haphazard planning. Now that Tebow knows the game is up and is signaling that he won’t just take it on the chin anymore, the Jets need to give Tebow a chance somewhere else. Whether he succeeds or not continues to be anyone’s guess, but he has to be given another chance to run a team from the quarterback spot, and it’s better for both him and the Jets if that’s not in New York.

Tebow will take his lumps and be “excited” about every new opportunity he gets. But sometimes, even the good soldier has to tell psychotic sergeant that the game is up.