Eight years have now passed since the Patriots last raised the Lombardi Trophy. They’ve been in the close-but-no-cigar mode of late, bowing out this year in the conference championship, while losing in the Super Bowl last year.
While we’ve already reviewed the myriad problems exposed by the Ravens in last Sunday’s loss, there are reasons for optimism. This view has the glass half full. The Pats aren’t far off. They still have plenty of pieces in place that will keep them contending next season. The window hasn’t closed.
The defensive front seven has been rebuilt and reshaped from the Pats championship seasons. It’s still not perfect, but it’s once again one of the strengths of this team, and figures to only get better with both Chandler Jones and Dont’a Hightower having a year under their belts . Jones was hampered by ankle injuries down the stretch. Get him healthy for 2013 with another year in the system, and he should be even more of a force coming off the edge. The Pats could use more pass-rush help, given the inconsistency displayed through the year, but we’ll get to that later.
Jerod Mayo, Brandon Spikes and Hightower, the “Big Three” of the linebacking corps, were terrific against the run in tandem with Vince Wilfork up front. Spikes really emerged as a physical force and should be the same next year. Rob Ninkovich had his best year and continues to deliver in the clutch. The issue here, particularly with the linebackers, is having more speed to cover tight ends and running backs. Re-signing Dane Fletcher, who missed the year with a torn ACL should help in that area, as could adding through the draft or free agency.
The Pats just aren’t the same without Rob Gronkowski. That’s no secret. They were without the big lug in each of their last two postseason losses — the Super Bowl to the Giants, where he may have been present, but was a shell of himself with a sprained ankle, and last Sunday, when he wasn’t able to play at all after re-fracturing his left forearm the previous week.
Assessing how much of a difference a healthy Gronk would have made in each game is certainly debatable. But it’s not outlandish to think the Pats may have won the Super Bowl with him at full strength, and also stood up better physically against the Ravens defense. He’s their most physical receiver. He’s their red-zone weapon. He also changes the dynamics of how defenses cover the other receivers.
While Stevan Ridley emerged as one of the better backs in the league with 1,263 yards and 12 touchdowns in the regular season, the Pats merely scratched the surface with a few other runners who make up this talented committee.
Shane Vereen, who was used sparingly, had a breakout game against the Texans while filling in for the injured Danny Woodhead. Vereen has abilities both running and catching the football. Prior to his PED suspension, Brandon Bolden also showed promise. He’s more of the bruising back, as he ran roughshod on the Bills to the tune of 137 yards. Then there’s the aforementioned Demps. How will his track speed and ability translate after a year learning the system? So with more experience, this group figures to be even better next season.
They’ve taken their share of hits over the loss to the Ravens. Belichick for being uncharacteristically conservative in the game. Brady for not rising to the occasion, and picking the worse time to throw up a stinker. The criticisms are warranted.
But as long as this duo is in Foxboro together, the Pats always will have a chance. There was some speculation about Belichick possibly retiring. Not sure where that came from, perhaps from Josh McDaniels sticking around and not entertaining head coaching offers, but Belichick put that notion to bed immediately in his press briefing Monday.
As long as the guy calling the shots and the guy throwing the football are among the best in the game — which inarguably they are — the Pats will contend and have a legitimate shot at the big prize.
They’ve taken their share of hits over the loss to the Ravens. Belichick for being uncharacteristically conservative in the game. Brady for not rising to the occasion, and picking the worse time to throw up a stinker. The criticisms are warranted.
But as long as this duo is in Foxboro together, the Pats always will have a chance. There was some speculation about Belichick possibly retiring. Not sure where that came from, perhaps from Josh McDaniels sticking around and not entertaining head coaching offers, but Belichick put that notion to bed immediately in his press briefing Monday.
As long as the guy calling the shots and the guy throwing the football are among the best in the game — which inarguably they are — the Pats will contend and have a legitimate shot at the big prize.
Early work selected as part of the large exhibit shows Uelsmann photographing underprivileged children, as well as first-graders of 1957 in better circumstances, judging from their careful dress and nice classroom.
In pre-multiple-exposure experimentation with images, Uelsmann made flip books with pages that divide into segments, allowing the reader to combine eyes from one portrait, nose from another, and so on, creating a puzzle that literally adds extra layers of meaning to his composition.
A collage shows a sketched line of ink twirling out of a photograph of an ink bottle, then connecting to a separate image of kids seen against what seems to be the same line, but probably isn’t, except in the artist’s eye.
Around the time the first-graders of 1957 were hitting adolescence, Uelsmann was waiting for them with a painterly, almost psychedelic composition entitled “In Search of a Cause” from 1966.
The artist’s touch is light, incorporating a clock, disintegrating silhouettes and what appears to be a graph or map superimposed on the outline of a human form.
As time went on, judging from the works on view, Uelsmann perfected the use of whole forms combined in humorous, sardonic or thought-provoking ways through the soft, insinuating medium of gelatin silver print.
The same group of clouds appears in two very different works, once relatively straightforwardly, then flipped and reversed to a negative register. What appears to be the same barred window in a thick stone wall re-emerges in at least two compositions, one of which places the window, perfectly organically, in the trunk of a tree.
Uelsmann takes a conjuror’s approach to the broader landscape, levitating a cube of sky above a beach, planting boulders in the foliage of tree canopies and putting a real rug where many writers have placed “a carpet of fallen leaves.”
An entire subset of works, not necessarily related in the curatorial process, shows a fondness for food as metaphor, social comment and conveyor of instant emotion. Besides the hamburgers, Uelsmann employs at least one beefsteak and a stuffed chicken (that is, a pillow printed with the picture of a raw bird). A sardine tin serves as a substrate for a printed image, proof of the artist’s tendency to use common objects in his work.
“Most of these pictures could be made within five miles of his house,” says Prodger. “All of us, we’re all surrounded with so much potential to do creative things. And Jerry has found a way to bring those things to life.”
Most entertainingly, the youthful artist filmed himself eating several plates of spaghetti, which is a sight to see when run backward and spliced together into a short video.
Prodger says the minute he saw that, he knew it belonged in the retrospective. “He was amazed that I had any interest at all,” the curator recalls.
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