From time to time over the years, NFL teams have illustrated the blueprint for beating the Patriots. Most recently, the Titans have done it.
So will other teams try to do what the Patriots have done?
It’s a topic that was discussed on Sunday by Rodney Harrison, Tony Dungy, Mike Tirico, and yours truly from the set of Football Night in America, along a couple of other subjects. (The segment wraps with an extended presentation of the efforts, or lack thereof, of the four of us to master the NASCAR simulator at NBC.)
For me, the biggest question is this: Do other teams not borrow the concepts others have used to beat the Patriots because they can’t, or because they don’t want to? Coaches have fairly sizable egos, and they like to do things their own way. And even if their way is objectively inferior to what, for example, Titans coach Mike Vrabel did to the Patriots, those other coaches will be the last ones to admit it.
Even after they lose. Which won’t matter anyway because by then it will be too late.