Mike Greenberg has seen this story unfold too many times before.
The Patriots, as often is the case in the early and middle stages of seasons, are fielding quite a bit of criticism as the home stretch nears. New England arguably is the team to beat in the AFC, but thanks to a shaky stretch from the team’s offense, the Patriots’ Super Bowl hopes are beginning to be clouded with doubt.
Greenberg, however, isn’t falling into the trap. As ESPN’s “Get Up!” crew piled on New England’s “woes” Tuesday, Greenberg, a longtime New York Jets fan, stepped in to defend the reigning Super Bowl champs.
“I can’t help but laugh. I’m a fan of a team in the AFC East, so I find this so funny. We’re sitting here bemoaning the fate of the New England Patriots. They’re 9-1 for crying out loud,” Greenberg said. “They’ve lost one game to a team we all acknowledge right now is playing better than any team in the National Football League. They just went into Philly and beat a pretty good team.”
Greenberg continued: “I understand there are problems. I’m just saying you can start picking apart the problems of a lot of teams in the NFL. They’ve won nine of the 10 games they’ve played. …I feel like we’ve had this conversation before. Like, last year. There was a period of time last year Brady was really struggling. Look, football is a game where they chase around a ball for 60 minutes and in the end, New England wins. That’s what the sport is. That’s the definition of the game. So I guarantee you, by the time we get to the playoffs, we will all be laughing mutually at the fact that we were having this conversation.”
Time obviously will tell if Greenberg’s prediction comes to fruition. But judging off of history over the past two decades, there’s no real reason to believe it won’t.
