Vacchiano: Brady's injury leaves door open

The hit heard ‘round the league was one of the most shocking and devastating blows any team has suffered in many, many years. Within minutes, news of the injury was being discussed everywhere, including in more than a few interested locker rooms around the league.

When Tom Brady went down with a season-ending knee injury on Sunday, everything we thought we knew about the NFL had changed.

Just like that, the prohibitive and obvious favorites to win Super Bowl XLIII were relegated to also-ran status, and all of a sudden the path to the next championship seemed wide open and attainable for everyone else. With Brady, the Patriots were returning all the significant pieces from a team that was less than a minute away from a 19-0 season in 2007.

Now they’re missing the biggest piece of all.

“If you feel like we’re going to tank it in, that’s not going to happen,” said Patriots defensive end Richard Seymour. “We won’t accept any excuse. We’ll always feel like there’s a way to win and we’ll just have to find a way.”

That’s a nice sentiment and some tough talk, but the reality is much more grim. Brady was the NFL’s MVP last season and, since he got his big break thanks to a Drew Bledsoe injury back in 2001, has emerged as one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. How do you replace a guy who threw an NFL record 50 touchdown passes last season? How do you replace a guy that has won three Super Bowls, including two with a dramatic, late-fourth-quarter, game-winning field goal drive?

The answer is: You don’t. Especially not with Matt Cassel.

Yes, the Patriots are still talented, but a quarterback is everything in the NFL and it’s nearly impossible to win a championship without one. Unless your defense is the 1985 Bears or 2000 Ravens, or a reasonable facsimile, a struggling quarterback simply cannot be carried all the way to the championship.

And yes, nobody knew Brady was going to be the next Joe Montana when he was just an unheralded sixth-round pick stepping in for Bledsoe seven years ago. Sure, maybe Cassel — a former USC quarterback who will be making the first NFL start of his career against the Jets on Sunday — could be the second coming of Brady (which I guess would make him the third coming of Montana).

But is anyone really expecting that sort of lightning to strike twice?

It is much more likely that the AFC has now opened up for someone to take it. Perhaps the Indianapolis Colts, with Peyton Manning at the helm. Or the San Diego Chargers, with promising quarterback Philip Rivers. Or the Pittsburgh Steelers, with Super Bowl-winning quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. Or maybe even the New York Jets, with future Hall of Famer Brett Favre. Surely the Buffalo Bills, Jacksonville Jaguars, Cleveland Browns, Denver Broncos and a few others would like to be part of the conversation, too.

And now they all can be because they are no longer blocked by the ultimate road block. For most of this decade, the Patriots were the ones who either won or lost the AFC East, the AFC and even the Super Bowl. They were, more often than not, the best team with the most explosive offense. When they lost, it was because they lost it by making uncharacteristic mistakes. Everyone else was forced to simply wait for them to slip and hope they were poised to take advantage of a rare opportunity.

Now, the entire 2008 season is an opportunity. Teams and players often remind us that things can change in a heartbeat in this league, that one bad break can ruin a season before it starts. But it’s been a long time since that reality smacked into the latest NFL dynasty.

On Sunday, it finally happened to the New England Patriots. And for one year at least, the NFL season is going to belong to somebody else.

Ralph Vacchiano is the author of Eli Manning: The Making of a Quarterback, which is available for purchase here.

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