Pats Moving Forward

The New England Patriots are ready to put last year behind them.  That’s understandable, given the way it ended.  The Patriots powered through a perfect regular season.  They made their way through the insanely difficult playoffs in the AFC.  And then, on the verge of history and greatness, they were unfortunately defeated by the New York Giants (sorry to bring that up again).  However, it would seem that the Patriots players and coaches are not ones to wallow in the mire of their misfortunes.  They are looking forward.

The next season should be an interesting one for the Patriots.  They have a very easy schedule, all things considered.  No one expects them to succumb to the dreaded Super Bowl curse that has afflicted many teams as of late.  No, the Patriots are not a flash in the pan team at all.  They are a dynasty, and it may actually be more likely that the Pats will have another perfect run than it is they miss the playoffs.  I don’t have the numbers here in front of me right this very instant, but I do believe that sounds correct.

You can get all your New England Patriots tickets at www.stubhub.com.

Patriots Training Camp Fantasy Preview

I have made quite the big deal out of this dead period between the last of the mini camps and training camp.  I have lamented the stillness of the news cycle (though that was broken yesterday, but more on that tomorrow), and I have complained greatly about the lack of news to report.  However, I must apologize for allowing myself to forget one of the most important parts of any true fan’s football season.  I totally and completely blanked on fantasy football.  And for that, I must sincerely offer an apology, along with this ESPN.com Patriots training camp fantasy preview.

As someone who owned both Randy Moss and Tom Brady in my league last year, i can tell you that the Patriots are a great team in fantasy football as well as in the real world.  However, this article places the majority of the focus on running backs.  And as someone who owned Laurence Maroney last year, I can tell you they’re exactly right.  No one is stealing Brady or Moss anymore.  That just isn’t going to happen this season.  But Laurence Maroney is a dark horse, and how he does in camp will go a long way toward determining his fantasy draft value.

You can get all your New England Patriots tickets at www.stubhub.com.

Willie Andrews in Hot Water

The time between the last mini-camp and training camp is supposed to be relaxing.  The players go home to be with their families.  Journalists take vacations.  Team trainers take a little time off.  Coaches sit in their offices pulling 20 hour days just because that’s what coaches in the NFL do, apparently.  But still, the time is meant to be that of reflection and stillness - a sort of calm before the storm.  However, things don’t always go according to plan in the real world, and with Willie Andrews allegedly pointing a gun at someone this week, there’s a slight bump in the road of the offseason for the Pats at the moment.

If this turns out to be true, it will most likely spell the end of the line for Willie Andrews in a Patriots jersey.  That’s a very serious offense, if it turns out to be true.  You can possibly brandish a gun in public and keep your job in the NFL, but probably not with a team as classy as the New England Patriots.  When you factor in that it was a domestic issue, and the fact that Andrews was pointing the gun at a woman - man, that’s just not a good situation.  I hope this isn’t true, because you hate to hear a story like this.

You can get all your New England Patriots tickets at www.stubhub.com.

Checking In with Tedy Bruschi

Generally, today is the day I start to really have to stretch myself out to find football news.  This period only lasts about two weeks before the serious training camp preview pieces begin in earnest, historically.  However, it is this dead period between mini-camps and training camps that comprises the last vacation time NFL players will get for months, and they tend to go completely underground during this time.  Luckily for me, Tedy Bruschi took the time to answer some questions the other day, and so we have that to report on today.

I assume the Patriots fantasy football training camp preview will be up sometime later this week, so we also have that to look forward to. However, until then, we have this article on Tedy Bruschi.  Bruschi has come to almost embody the Patriots spirit.  He is one of the highest-profile members of this incarnation of the Patriots.  The fans love him, the coaches love him and his teammates love him.  He plays the game the right way and only wants to help his team continue to win at the highest level.  It’s always great to see an article about a player worth looking up to.

You can get all your New England Patriots tickets at www.stubhub.com.

Patriots Getting Ready for Camp

It’s Friday, which means we’re very close to another weekend. This means another week has passed, which means we’re another week closer to training camp, which means we’re all that much closer to football season.  However, I still have to fill the next few weeks with news stories, even though the Patriots are on vacation and won’t be back until training camp starts.  So, with that in mind, allow me to personally thank ESPN.com for running this New England Patriots post-mini-camp breakdown, giving me plenty to write about to finish my week strong.

The article basically just tells us what we can glean from the Patriots mini-camps.  What we do know is that the Patriots find themselves now fighting against the Super Bowl curse, if you believe in such a thing.  It is true that six of the last seven Super Bowl losers failed to qualify for the playoffs in the next season, but I really don’t see anyone else in the Pats’ division challenging them for a Super Bowl spot.  Nor do I think the Patriots’ schedule lends itself to a disappointing year.  However, the playoffs are really the important thing to this team, and they lay the groundwork for future success right now, in the preseason.

You can get all your New England Patriots tickets at www.stubhub.com.

Patriots Q&A

There are slow news days and there are slow news days.  Today is one of the latter.  I could not find one single decent news story out there as it pertains to the New England Patriots.  The reason for this is quite simple.  The Patriots are all enjoying their vacation.  The New England Patriots do not employ a great many players who make noise during the offseason, and with the recent spat of bad press the Pats ran into with the whole Spygate issue, it stands to reason that everyone on the team is looking to keep a low profile these days.

However, we still have the New England Patriots home page to help us out through these quiet news times.  This Patriots Q&A session should keep fans tided over until at least tomorrow.  The session answers questions of the futures of certain players.  Junior Seau’s situation is addressed, though no one  yet knows exactly what is going to happen there.  Also of note, Sammy Morris is mentioned.  Morris was playing well last year before a clavicle injury ended his season.  However, it appears he is fully recovered and should make an impact this year on the field.

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Last Pats Mailbag Until Training Camp

In the NFL, the term “offseason” is something of a misnomer.  Sure, there are no games being played, but that doesn’t stop any of us from following every little thing our teams do between the Super Bowl and training camp.  However, if football does actually have a real offseason - and by that I mean a period of time during which it’s pointless to pay attention to the game because very little to absolutely nothing of note is happening - then these next few weeks are definitely it.  It is with that in mind that I give you the last Patriots mailbag for awhile.

While this stinks for me, because this is by far the hardest time of year to find legitimate news to report on each respective team, this is a well-deserved break for the journalists.  Luckily for all of us, we have some questions still to be answered today.  Among them are questions of whether or not Super Bowl XLII exposed a glaring weakness in the Pats offensive line, questions of loss of personnel by the team, and draft day inquiries as well.  The entire mailbag is six pages long, giving us all plenty to digest before the reporters take a much-deserved vacation.

You can get your New England Patriots tickets at www.stubhub.com.

Patriots Rookies Visit Hall of Fame

The New England Patriots rookies visited the Pro Football Hall of Fame recently.  This trip was a part of the NFL’s “send all the rookies to the Hall of Fame” program that they started this year - at the advice of Michael Irvin.  Irvin, a recent inductee to the Hall, himself, got the idea while walking the halls in Canton before his induction ceremony.  Irvin then got the epiphany that if the rookies toured the facility before entering their first season, perhaps it would give them more respect for the game.  In this way, Irvin thought it might keep these players out of trouble.

This is an amazing idea, and everyone involved knows it.  Word is Michael Irvin has the memo circulated throughout the league crediting him with this idea framed and hanging on one of the walls in his home.  There is talk of moving the entire NFL rookie symposium to Canton as early as next season.  ESPN did a Sportscenter feature on this story that ran on Sports Center for days.  I hope this has a lasting effect on the rookies who took part, because if visiting the Pro Football Hall of Fame doesn’t give you a good respect for the game, then absolutely nothing will.

You can get all your New England Patriots tickets at www.stubhub.com.

Specter Refuses to Go Away

Remember last week when I reported that Senator Arlen Specter had said that he would not be pursuing a Congressional investigation against into the New England Patriots Spygate scandal?  That was a lovely time, wasn’t it?  We could all focus on football and the important parts of the NFL offseason without having to be reminded over and over that Arlen Specter has completely lost his mind?  Well, that was a lovely time, but it has apparently ended.  It appears that Arlen Specter just cannot let Spygate go, no matter how completely over it the rest of the world already is.

Do you think Senator Specter just really likes having people on TV talk about him?  Do you think he likes it when people with cameras and microphones follow him around and actually care what he has to say?  Or could Arlen Specter have some kind of bone to pick with the Patriots.  Perhaps there is bad blood there that we just do not know about.  Beyond that, perhaps Arlen Specter truly believes that the Patriots cheated.  Whatever his problem is, the man needs to realize that every time he brings this up, he makes himself into even more of a laughing stock.

You can get all your New England Patriots tickets at www.stubhub.com.

Training Camp Schedules Released

It’s been a long, tough road the Patriots this offseason.  I won’t even talk about the way last season ended (forget I ever mentioned it), but I can say that this offseason has likely not gone exactly the way the Pats would have drawn it up had they the option of doing so.  The Patriots have endured some big name defections of players to other teams, not to mention a nearly unprecedented level of media scrutiny (at least for the Patriots) over the entire Spygate scandal.  However, with all of that behind them, the New England Patriots are ready to move into the preseason.

That preseason is just around the corner, and we have the preseason training camp schedules to prove it.  Nothing terribly interesting or exciting here.  It is, after all, just a schedule.  But it’s really more what the schedule represents.  These schedules mean that we are at this moment little more than a month away from actual NFL football practices beginning again in earnest.  There will be full-pad, full-contact drills.  There will be two-a-days.  There will be intrigue and player squabbles and contract disputes.  There will be football.  And it will be good.

You can get all your New England Patriots tickets at www.stubhub.com.

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