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Belichick already knows who's starting at QB
By Ray Ratto
Special to ESPN.com

NEW ORLEANS -- Bill Belichick isn't saying, careful fellow that he is, but we know the score. Tom Brady will start at quarterback for the Patriots Sunday because, well, because he has to.

Brady, as you know, took a healthy drilling from Pittsburgh's Lee Flowers, and was replaced for the duration of New England's 24-17 win over the Steelers by the noted underdog, Drew Bledsoe.

Thus, a quarterback controversy has reared its ugly head, and just in time for a game that looks almost hype-proof. Right?

Wrong. It's Brady, period.

One, we don't live that well. Quarterback controversies aren't a Super Bowl thing, not since SB III when Earl Morrall played Johnny Unitas instead of, well, Johnny Unitas.

Two, Belichick is no boob. He knows what's what, and where's why. He knows that any distraction this week is a bad one, unless you're the prohibitive favorite, which the Patriots prohibitively aren't.

And three, it just makes no sense, much to our chagrin.

No offense to Bledsoe, mind you. Frankly, we have no rooting interest for either him or Brady. They both seem like perfectly reasonable fellows to us. We're speaking here only of the agony of choice, at the most important position of all.

Thus, Belichick is playing coy with the question only so he has the time to make sure that Brady's leg has not fallen through the hole in his pants. He says he'll tell us on Wednesday, and we have no reason to think otherwise.

But we know the answer, because there is only one. If Brady can, he will, and never mind your romantic notions about the feel-good comeback story of the year.

Belichick knows, as most talk-show habitues do not, that he cannot start with his second quarterback if his first can go at all. The wrench to his offense to do it that way is plainly too great, plainly too dangerous.

If Bledsoe starts and stutters, what does Belichick do? Go to a quarterback he clearly considers damaged? Go against the judgment that brought him to the pinnacle of his career? Defy the gravity that says, "You can't lose your job to injury?"

Oops. He did that already. That's how Brady got the job to start.

But that's beside the point. His judgment on Brady was validated well before this. For whatever reason or reasons, the Patriots move with Brady, and weren't moving with Bledsoe. Belichick, who learned patience under fire from Bill Parcells, pulled the trigger with a clear conscience, and despite the screams of the Patriots' accounting department.

He is not, trust us, not going to un-pull it now.

Then again, this is how most Super Bowl stories end up -- much ado about never mind. Oh, there are the odd changeups, like Eugene Robinson on hooker patrol two years ago, or Kerry Collins tearful unburdening about his alcohol problem last season.

Mostly, though, those are off-field tales, and subject to rules outside the football journalism box. The football angles have already played themselves out by now. The Patriots and Rams have both had 18 games to show the contents of their bureau drawers, and the extent of their surprises are maybe a page in the back of the playbook.

Put another way, Aeneas Williams isn't suddenly going to become the starting right tackle, and Antowain Smith won't become the New England punter.

And finally, Tom Brady isn't going to play Drew Bledsoe in the made-for-cable movie, "The Tom Brady Story."

No, the Patriots will win, lose or skate to a 2-2 tie Sunday on Brady, because the notion of Bledsoe as starter is strictly DiCaprio-Winslet-on-the-bow-of-the-doomed-boat stuff.

Or more accurately, the Patriots will win, lose, or skate to a 2-2 tie on what really got them here -- a superb defense, constructed by Belichick the technician and wonk, rather than Belichick the hell-bent gambler who likes the adrenalized rush of doing something weird and making it work despite everyone telling it won't.

Belichick is a conservative coach by nature, despite the bold decision to keep Brady behind center, and conservative coaches do not go this much against the grain. He can't. He shouldn't.

That is, unless Brady hops onto the field for the pregame introductions Sunday. We don't think he will. We don't think this is a story, except by the bereft standards of Super Bowl Week.

Oh, well. Maybe one of the players will buy drinks for the Old Absinthe House while wearing a pinwheel hat where his boxers should be. This is, after all, New Orleans, and hope springs eternal.

Ray Ratto of the San Francisco Chronicle is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.

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