New England Favored in Sunday’s Game

Let it never be said that I don’t go out of my way to find your Patriots news, people.  Today I’m going all the way to an upstate New York publication, the Albany Times-Union, to hit you with this fun story about the fact that the Indianapolis Colts are actually underdogs at home this week in their much-anticipated match-up with the New England Patriots.  I just figure that kind of news will really tickle Patriots fans.  Is there any more ultimate “bad guy” move than to come to the defending Super Bowl Champion’s back yard and be favored by more than a field goal?  Has that ever happened before?  I wish there were a place I could look something like that up, and I may well do so later in the day, because that’s just seriously mind-boggling.

I expect another Patriots blow out.  I think the fact that the Pats have been beating up on light competition doesn’t matter.  I don’t believe the fact that the Indy is the best team they’ve played so far matters either.  Everyone keeps talking about how the Patriots have yet to take their foot off the pedal, but I don’t believe that for a second.  I think on Sunday people are going to get a taste of “Playoff Patriots.”  By that, I mean that I believe the Patriots still have another gear they’ve yet to hit, where they really focus, totally bear down, and drive the other team completely off the field in shame.  I think we may well see that team this Sunday.  And I think after this game, other teams are going to be very very afraid.

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

Patriots Prep for Power Rankings Showdown

ESPN.com has released their weekly Power Rankings, and the New England Patriots are once again the first team on the list.  The Patriots, in case you’ve been living under a rock for the entire football season, have been absolutely obliterating whole teams en route to what could turn out to be the most historic single season in NFL history.  Bill Belichick is a football historian, and he has his eye on every record these Pats can possibly attain.  You can see it in his eyes.  The man understands, just as Tom Brady and all the rest of the Patriots understand, that this team has the opportunity to do something truly special.

Of course, they’re going to need to defeat the number two team in the Power Rankings in week 9 to keep alive their hopes of becoming the best team in the history of the NFL.  The Patriots will do battle with the Indianapolis Colts in a game that has become the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry of the NFL in the early 21st century.  The Patriots have spent their season beating the living crap out of mostly weak competition (though they did hammer a very good Cowboys team into the ground), while the Colts have been busy defeating much better competition.  Or at least that’s the going narrative early in the week about the game.  Will the Pats be able to continue their dominance of the Power Rankings through week 9?  You’ll have to watch the game to find out.

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

Pats Win Again

Just in case you missed the game, here’s the ESPN.com breakdown of that Pats/Redskins blowout.  To give you an even more brief recap right here, the Patriots took control early and never took their foot off the gas pedal, finally rolling all the way to a 52-7 victory.  The Patriots defense showed up large, trying to steal at least a little of the spotlight from their high-octane offense.  However, it was once again Tom Brady’s day as he threw for three touchdowns.  Brady didn’t stop there, calling his own number twice on short runs into the end zone.  Matt Cassel, the Patriots’ backup QB, even had a rushing touchdown this week.

Much will be made of the way the Patriots ran up the score this week, especially because writers will be looking for every single angle they can find as they beat the Colts vs. Patriots story into the ground this week.  At this point, you can’t make the argument that the Patriots aren’t running up scores on people, as they went for it on a fourth down on Sunday when they were up by nearly 50 points.  While not everyone supports this tactic, it is obvious the Patriots are making a run at becoming the most dominant team in NFL history, and if that’s what they want, then who’s to stop them?  No.  Seriously, who is going to stop them?

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

Patriots First Yet Again with Clayton

John Clayton has picked the Patriots match-up with the Redskins this Sunday as the featured game in Clayton’s First and Ten this week.  This is not the first time the Patriots have been the featured game in this weekly column, and it will not be the last.  This Sunday’s game is interesting to Clayton because it represents the ultimate trap game for the Pats.  New England has a big game next week against the Indianapolis Colts, with the possibility that both teams will be undefeated headed into that week 9 showdown.  However, with the talented and physical secondary the Redskins field, the Pats cannot afford to look past Washington.

I don’t believe this will be a huge problem for the Patriots.  First of all, I think the Patriots will eat the Redskins for lunch on defense.  The Pats D will give the Redskins trouble.  On top of that, the Patriots are not just a passing team.  If they need to run the ball to open up some big plays, that’s not a problem.  The last reason I don’t think the Pats will have any problems with the Skins is Randy Moss.  While the Skins may be able to shut down Stallworth or Welker, they can’t control Moss.  If they drop two guys onto Moss, Brady will find the open man.  While the Redskins are a great team with a Hall-of-Fame head coach, I just think the talent disparity will be too much to overcome on Sunday.
You can get all your New England Patriots tickets at www.stubhub.com.

Junior Seau Loses Home in San Diego Fires

According to this report out of ESPN.com, former San Diego Charger and current New England Patriot Junior Seau has lost his home in San Diego County in the raging wildfires that have plagued the region since Sunday.  Seau is practicing with his team in preparation for Sunday’s game, but obviously the loss of a man’s home would be a very large distraction.  Seau played the bulk of his career as a San Diego Charger and was beloved in this town back when there wasn’t much to love about the team.  Though he is no longer a Charger, obviously both Charger Nation and the entire New England Patriots fan base grieves with him.

This story just goes to show that this fire has affected us all, and that it will continue to bring all of us closer together.  While Seau no longer plays for the San Diego Chargers, his family still lives there, including his three daughters.  One of his homes has been destroyed in the fire, and his restaurant is now being used as a shelter.  Seau may now play for the New England Patriots, but today, he couldn’t be more a San Diegan, experiencing the same things all San Diegans are experiencing, and offering what he can to  help, even from so far away.  Makes it tough to think about football, with everything else that is happening right now.

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

Richard Seymour Returns to Practice

In what might be the most dramatic case of the rich getting richer in recent sports memory, Richard Seymour has returned to practice with the New England Patriots.  The Patriots have managed to win their first seven games of the season without the five-time Pro-Bowl defensive lineman, and now it appears he will be back in action sometime in November.  Seymour played on all three previous Super Bowl winners for the Patriots.  He was the Pats first round draft pick in 2001.  His return will signal yet another improvement on defense for a team that already seems head and shoulders ahead of their competition.

Though it isn’t particularly likely, Seymour could play in what promises to be another epic AFC match-up between the Colts and Patriots in week 9.  Seymour is an amazing athlete and one of the premier defensive players in the league.  He can play both the run and the pass extremely well, and has done so for his entire career.  Getting Seymour back into the fold will only make the Patriots more dangerous to their opponents, and you have to believe that he is doing everything in his power to get ready for that huge rivalry game coming up before the Pats’ bye week.

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

New England’s #1 Takes First Knock

It’s Wednesday, and I’m still catching news about these raging wildfires, so we’re going to go straight to the ESPN.com NFL Power Rankings for our daily dose of Pats news.  The Patriots are still occupying the #1 slot quite comfortably, but they now have one dissenting vote among the experts.  Jeffri Chadiha - citing the fact that the Colts are the reigning Super Bowl Champions as well as the fact that they have beaten better teams than the Patriots - gave the Colts his vote for top team in the NFL.

With the Colts and Patriots slated for what many are hoping will be a battle of unbeatens in week 9, the sports media will now begin the onslaught of Colts vs. Pats stories, at least a week early, and most likely jinxing one or both of these teams to lose this week, thus making next week’s match-up much less sexy.  This slant, however, has some merit.  Yes, the Pats have cleaned up on lots of bad teams.  However, I don’t think that will matter in two weeks.  I predict New England mops the floor wind Indy.

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

Mosley’s Take on Patriot Games

First of all, allow me to offer my apologies for now having a blog up and running yesterday for you. The San Diego County fires were a bit of a set-back, and I found myself glued to the television set awaiting word as to whether I should evacuate or not. However, right now it appears that I am safe, so I wanted to get this blog to you while I had a window. I will try to continue to supply daily blogs for the rest of the week, but I am certainly at the whim of the Santa Anna winds right now.

Having gotten that unpleasantness out of the way, here is Matt Mosley’s blog about the re-insertion of Tom Brady into Sunday’s game versus the Dolphins. Bill Belichick took some flack for putting Brady back in the game to throw a sixth touchdown pass, but I don’t see what the big deal is. These Patriots are making their run at history. They want the Super Bowl, the records, and all the accolades. And they don’t care who they upset by running up the score along the way.

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

Maroney not sure if he will play

ESPN.com is reporting that New England Patriots running back Laurence Maroney is still not sure if he will play against the Dolphins this Sunday.  Maroney was running well for the Patriots early in the season before being sidelined with a groin injury nearly a month ago.  He was averaging nearly five yards per rush attempt and getting the bulk of the carries in the Patriots’ running attack before being replaced by Sammy Morris, who went down with a chest injury last week vs. the Cowboys.  Kevin Faulk came in to replace Morris and performed admirably in the second half, rushing for 50 yards.  If Maroney isn’t ready this week, Faulk will likely get the bulk of the carries.

To the Patriots, this doesn’t mean very much, honestly.  The Pats have the most potent passing attack in all of football at the moment, so they could probably just line up with no one in the back field against the Dolphins, and it wouldn’t matter.  But the Dolphins are ranked near the bottom of the league in rush defense, so look for even third-string and primarily third down back Kevin Faulk to put up big numbers if the Patriots do decide to run the ball.  Basically, all this means is that I’m about to have a huge fantasy football day, as I own Brady, Moss, Morris, and Faulk in my fantasy league (GO PATS!).

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

Surprise Surprise, Pats #1

ESPN.com has released their weekly Power Rankings, and guess who’s still sitting pretty at #1?  That’s right, it’s  your undefeated monsters, the New England Patriots.  I would have posted this yesterday, but there were injury reports to throw at you, and the Patriots being first on the ESPN.com Power Rankings is barely news at this point.  The Patriots outlasted the Dallas Cowboys, dismantling them in the fourth quarter, and showing the NFC just how far it has to go to come up with a team that could compete with the Patriots right now.  The next big game for the Pats will be the Colts in a few weeks.

I’ve been saying it over and over, but we’re watching history being made.   You can tell your grandkids about this team.  Take it to the bank.  Now I’m not going to make bold predictions about the entire season, for fear of jinxing it, but this team is a big deal.  And they’re quickly putting CameraGate behind them and earning the respect of the sports media with their dominance.  These guys are running up the score oldschool college football style, and nobody cares.  People are too caught up in the magic of watching what may be the most perfect football team ever assembled.  I, for one, am loving it.

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

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