With a will to match his size, Wilfork is everything Haynesworth wasn't

VinceWilfork
INDIANAPOLIS — Vince Wilfork was asked on Tuesday how, in his eight years with the New England Patriots, he has survived the changes in where he plays, in what his duties are, in who his linemates and defensive mates are, what philosophy and scheme they play … and how he's thrived all along the way.

"I don't know," he said after a pause. "I play my heart out. I play the hardest. I never give up. I approach each game the same way."

Calling Wilfork the anchor on the Patriots' defense is almost damning him with faint praise. Without him, they might not have a defense at all, and even with him, for much of this season, their defense wasn't much to talk about, unless it was given as a reason the Patriots wouldn't be at the Super Bowl right now.

Ahead of Sunday's Super Bowl XLVI against the New York Giants, Wilfork is 6-2 and listed at 325 pounds (to the ear-splitting laughter of everybody associated with the NFL), and he uses every inch and ounce to their fullest.

He has mix-and-match parts around him, at best, but with him there, they all work. It makes one wonder what this season would have been like for the Patriots, and for Wilfork, had there been another lineman of the same age, size, weight, speed, strength, athletic ability, pedigree and potential for wreaking havoc. Someone who would create a tandem that would be unstoppable.

Oh, wait … there was a lineman like that with the Patriots. Wasn't there?

It's hard to remember. Albert Haynesworth has been gone from there a long time now.

Arrived in August, to great fanfare, near-unanimous praise for what a coup Bill Belichick had pulled off, and wild speculation about how this branded the Patriots as favorites. (At least one dope, for a publication you might now, made them Super Bowl favorites that very day. You're welcome.)

And after all that, Haynesworth lasted eight games. The Patriots cut bait the week after the Giants came back to beat them 24-20. They haven't lost a game since, 10 wins in a row. Strange, at some point you'd think they would have missed his three tackles, total, for his entire tenure there.

It should come as no surprise that when Belichick explained why he not only chose not to keep him around, but to not even play him much in that last game against the Giants, Wilfork's name came up. Basically, he said, Belichick had a lot of linemen he had to get into the mix. Besides, the one who's already in it, that is.

"Vince is a guy that obviously we don't want off the field," he told reporters then, "but the rest of those guys, they can't always play."

These are things that have never been said about Wilfork, 30, in his NFL career. He broke in on the third Patriots championship team, and he said he absorbed the atmosphere instantly—and absorbed the lessons of those who had established it.

"My rookie year, you look back at that squad—Willie McGinest, (Mike) Vrabel, Richard Seymour, Tedy Bruschi, Rodney Harrison, guys who led by example," he recalled. "You saw how they worked."

Now, he is who they once were, for players with far less name value than he'd had. He sets the tone, they follow. "All of my life I've thought that I'm a leader," he said, "and I think leaders have to take control at some point and show the will to do whatever it takes to turn things around, whether it's bad or a positive.

"At a young age, I always had that fight, but it's a good fight."

Wilfork has it. Haynesworth used to have it, but he didn't bring it with him to New England. He's not at the Super Bowl with them.
It's not their loss, or Wilfork's, though. It's his.


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(sportingnews.com)
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