Welcome to first and 10, a roundup of all the (mostly) Patriots-related news you need to start your Thursday. Grab your coffee and let’s get to it.
It's Throwback Thursday! This week, we're going to back to one of the all-time craziest offensive seasons in franchise history.
This popped up on Vimeo the other day, and it's a fun watch -- all 50 of Tom Brady's touchdown passes from the 2007 regular season. The connections with Randy Moss -- especially the final one, as well as his TD catches in the Oct. 21 game against the Dolphins -- serves as a fun reminder as to just how dominant they were as a duo that year. (Greg Gumbel after one of the touchdown passes to Moss vs. Miami: "This is unbelievable.")
A few thoughts:
--Benjamin Watson was a pretty good red-zone target. At least better than I remember. He wasn't Rob Gronkowski, but he did finish third on the team with six touchdown catches. Nice year for him.
--Check out who else was on the field with the offense for No. 23, a 2-yard pass play to Kyle Brady. A surprise guy coming out of the backfield who might have been open for what would have been his first career touchdown catch in the NFL.
--The Nov. 4 game against the Colts is criminally underrated. And if we're putting together great all-time catches from that season, Moss had a one-handed grab over the middle in that game that still makes me shake my head.
--Jabar Gaffney had back-to-back weeks with big TD catches, with one in the back of the end zone late in the first half against the Eagles on Nov. 25 and the second on what turned out to be the game-winner in the thriller on Dec. 3 against the Ravens in Baltimore. (The following week, he was also the guy who scored on the pass back to Brady over Anthony Smith in the thunderous win over the Steelers.)
Two more pieces of news for this Thursday morning: No updates on Julian Edelman's appeal case yet. And Happy Birthday to our buddy Matt Chatham.
Now, on with the links...
1. Greg crushes it here again with another look inside the Patriots' passing game. Drawing on his past interviews with subjects like Charlie Weis, you're able to get an inside look at how Brady and the New England offense operates. Do yourself a favor and get educated -- read this story.
2. Via Instagram, Brady has been keeping an eye on the DB workouts that have been organized by Richard Sherman. As the story suggests, there's some "extremely on-brand dad levels of trash-talk" from the quarterback here.
3. According to this study from Dr. Michael Lewis of Emory University, the Patriots have the second-best fan-base in the NFL. Lewis uses a variety of metrics, including "social equity," "fan equity" and "road equity." Overall, New England finished second to the Cowboys. “Patriot fans may be bandwagon fans,” Lewis writes. “But they have been on the bandwagon a long time. A couple decades of success likely means that the Patriots will remain NFL royalty even after Tom Brady leaves the game.”
4. Eliot Harrison of NFL.com ranks the NFL head coaches, and Bill Belichick checks in at No. 1. "It is not an exaggeration to claim that Belichick is possibly the greatest head coach in NFL history, much less in the league today," writes Harrison.
5. Speaking of Belichick, Jeff Hostetler once beaned him with a football in practice. Funny story here from the former Giants' quarterback. "His papers fly everywhere," recalled Hostetler of Belichick's reaction. "The ball flies everywhere. Everybody stops and it’s like, everything just went quiet. It’s like, ‘Uh-oh.’ And then he starts ripping into me and yelling at me and grabbing his papers. After that was over with, I had almost every defensive player come up to me and say, ‘Hey, great job, Hoss. Great job.’ And it was like, I was accepted. ... Belichick hated me after that, but my only response to him was, ‘Well, don’t stand there.’”
Extra Point: Anyone out there looking for a job?
Join the squad:
@Patriots Social Media Producer (full-time): https://t.co/kOzxtRzgS0
@Patriots Social Media Intern (seasonal): https://t.co/pd7y5JY8FZ#smsports #sportsbiz #sportssummit18 pic.twitter.com/CznOl61cF0
— Cecily Faenza (@CecilyFaenza) June 27, 2018
