Randy Moss Loving his First Super Bowl Experience

It’s hard not to get all warm and fuzzy about these Patriots at this point.  It’s difficult to remember at times that they have yet to actually win the Super Bowl.  It’s also easy, for those people outside of Boston especially, to hate on the Patriots.  After all, they’ve been here three times before, and won all three.  It seems to some that seeing Tom Brady and Bill Belichick win their fourth Lombardi Trophy would be a joyless thing.  To those people, I give you Randy Moss.  Randy Moss is enjoying his first Super Bowl.  And according to this write-up, Randy Moss couldn’t be happier.

Tomorrow, I’ll likely throw in a story about Junior Seau, just to give you yet another reason to cheer for the Patriots on Sunday (as if you need one).  But it’s these stories that should garner the most attention on Super Bowl Sunday for the Patriots.  Yes, the undefeated season is historic.  Yes the four Super Bowls are a very big deal.  But if you ask any of the Patriots players, they will tell you how much they want to win for these veterans who have come in and played their roles to perfection.  The Patriots don’t just want to win for history.  They want to win for their teammates.  And that is what makes this team so great.

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Patriots Can’t Yet Re-Sign Moss

According to this article from ESPN.com that actually isn’t about Tom Brady’s ankle, a contractual technicality will keep the New England Patriots from re-signing Randy Moss until he enters free agency.  The Patriots could put the Franchise Player tag on Moss, but after the issues they had last year with Asante Samuel, they may be remiss to actually go through the same thing again with such a high profile player.  Apparently, due to the reworking of Randy Moss’s contract when he came to New England, the Patriots cannot actually give him an extension on this current contract.  Full details are available in the article.

This could be an issue if it were happening to any organization that wasn’t the New England Patriots.  The phrase “the grass is always greener on the other side” applies to literally every single NFL team except the Patriots.  Moss is already on record as saying that he would love to finish his career as a New England Patriot.  He seems to have the support of all his teammates, and I can think of at least one future Hall of Fame quarterback who would absolutely love to see Randy Moss back in the line-up.  I don’t think Mr. Moss is going anywhere this offseason.

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

AnkleWatch 2008 Continues!

With the latest news from AnkleWatch, we turn to ESPN.com - whose round the clock information comes in the form not just of words telling us about Tom Brady’s ankle, but also in the form of people talking about the words telling us about Tom Brady’s ankle - to tell us that Tom Brady did practice yesterday.  Brady was apparently out and about during practice on Monday, but his ankle was heavily taped.  Brady apparently had a “slight limp” according to some, but I didn’t see it.  He fully participated in all drills and practice activities as he normally would have on any other day.  It would appear that Tom Brady is “fine.”
However, apparently this new development is insanely news-worthy.  I don’t get it, to be honest.  I think that the entire thing is kind of silly.  I mean, obviously Tom Brady is going to play.  Obviously he’s going to get two weeks to nurse a high ankle sprain and he’ll play to the best of his abilities.  I would even go so far as to say that Bill Belichick will have the Pats O-Line working extra hard to make sure Brady is protected in the pocket.  I’ll even go further out on a limb and say that Brady will perform extremely well in the Super Bowl.  Call me crazy.

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Brady Will Play on Sunday

In what I hope will be the end of the “Will he or won’t he” saga or Tom Brady’s ankle injury, Brady has confirmed that he will play on Sunday in the Super Bowl.  This should mark the final chapter in what has been an insane week of paparazzi and empty stories about walking boots and leather designer shoes and clubbing and supermodels and whatever else is going on in Tom Brady’s personal life.  Somehow, for an entire week, Tom Brady’s foot and ankle have dominated football headlines, because apparently there are no other good stories in this Super Bowl.
I don’t know if this speaks very highly of Brady’s celebrity status or if it just reflects that much more poorly on the quality of this year’s Super Bowl match-up.  The story of the Super Bowl, with a New York Giants team chock full of amazing story lines, is a guy’s injured foot?  And on top of that, the injury isn’t even severe enough to keep him out of the game, and likely won’t even be a hindrance to his performance.  If i were the Giants right now, I’d be feeling pretty slighted.  Here’s hoping the Patriots can take the best shot of a Giants team with a collective chip on its shoulder.

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Moss to Remain Focused

According to reports out of ESPN.com, Randy Moss will not be attending a hearing scheduled this week in Florida.  The hearing, scheduled to discuss the possibility of a permanent restraining order being instituted in place of the temporary restraining order taken out on Moss prior to the AFC Championship game, will be attended by Moss’s lawyer, but not Randy himself.  Randy Moss will stay with his team to prepare for the Super Bowl while his lawyer asks that the date for the hearing on the permanent restraining order be pushed back until after the Super Bowl itself is finished.

If you didn’t think that Randy Moss was a truly changed man, or that Bill Belichick was a miracle worker, then I would simply like to direct your attention to the way Moss has handled himself in the media since this story broke.  Moss has given one statement on the matter - a statement that appeared to be calculated and taciturn while at the same time being genuine and honest - and has disappeared from view ever since.  Now we have a statement from his lawyer while Randy Moss continues to play the role of perfect teammate, with the full support of his entire team.  This is a new Randy Moss - a Randy Moss the New England Patriots just might re-sign.

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

Belichick Refuses to Comment on Brady’s Ankle

Yet again, from the “Obviously” department, we have this story about the fact that New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick has no comment on Tom Brady’s ankle injury.  Why would he?  He’s not required by the league to say anything about it.   He’s not exactly forthcoming with this type of information during the regular season, or forthcoming with any type of volunteered information ever during any season whether it be football or summer.  So why anyone would expect Belichick to start turning over information about Brady’s injury to his ankle is just beyond me.  And yet, here the story is.

Here’s how I see this playing out, just for anyone’s edification. Tom Brady is going to continue with this on again, off again ankle injury nonsense.  Then in a about a week’s time, the Patriots’ injury report will come out and list Tom Brady as questionable, probably with the same shoulder injury they always list with his name.  Then Tom Brady is going to continue to practice.  Then Tom Brady is going to play in the Super Bowl, and the Patriots will most likely win.  All of this will deflect the attention from Randy Moss’s issues at the moment, which will keep him ready to have a huge game next Sunday.

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

Cast Watch 2008 Continues!

According to reports on the front page of the NFL section of ESPN.com, Tom Brady has now been photographed not wearing a walking cast.  Pictures were taken of Mr. Brady (who is now apparently a bona fied celebrity with paparazzi following him everywhere) walking around in leather boots, not a walking boot.  This is big news for every sucker in America who actually ever thought that Brady’s injury was anything serious.  True to form in the Patriots organization, no one who might remotely know anything about the extent of this injury will actually talk about it.

This only happens to a guy like Tom Brady.  Is there anyone else in the NFL who could handle this kind of ridiculous media scrutiny with the aplomb that Tom Brady has shown?  Can you imagine if this was T.O.?  Brady is always the consumate professional, going about his business and never complaining when people follow him to his girlfriend’s house and ask him stupid questions about his injuries.  My favorite question he’s had to field so far was “Are you going to be able to play in the Super Bowl?”  He’s Tom freaking Brady, people.  He’s playing in the Super Bowl whether he has a bum foot or a lacerated liver.  The man lives for this.

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

Brady Spotted in Walking Cast

In case you live under a rock and haven’t be bombarded with this story for the past 24 hours, I’ll give you the link one more time.  Tom Brady was spotted in a walking cast yesterday, walking to his girlfriend Giselle’s house or apartment or wherever she lives in New York.  Hilariously, he wasn’t photographed by the sports media, but rather by the paparazzi, and the story broke not on ESPN, but on TMZ.  Way to go, Tom Brady.  You’re an officially celebrity, up there with the likes of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, and the entire cast of The Hills.

As for the ramifications of said walking cast, I see very few.  First of all, Brady finished last Sunday’s game.  Since he didn’t leave the field of play early, I can only assume he was in good enough shape to play the game of football.  He has two weeks to recover from this, and I don’t really think it’s that severe.  To be honest, I think this is just another genius ploy by Bill Belichick and the Pats to deflect some of the media scrutiny from Randy Moss this week.  Moss’s problems threatened to overshadow the Pats last week and could have become a bigger issue this week.  But now this story basically quashes that story, because Tom Brady is a big celebrity.  The Patriots are geniuses, really.

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Patriots Grind Out Another Win

The New England Patriots are AFC Champions, and Len Pasquarelli says they had to fight extremely hard for this AFC Championship victory.  The Pats didn’t really ever get their air attack up to par against the San Diego Chargers, but their run game and defense picked up the slack.  Laurence Maroney finally showed everyone why Bill Belichick stuck with him as their #1 running back all year.  His stellar second half really catapulted the Patriots over the Chargers, and his ability to keep moving the chains kept the Bolts off the field late in the game.  Of course, the defense chipped in too, keeping the Chargers out of the end zone all day.

The Patriots are one game away from making history.  The amazing Randy Moss sideshow didn’t derail them.  A younger, hungrier team couldn’t knock them off.  And now, the Patriots will face a team they battled very recently: The New York Giants.  The G-Men gave the Pats a run for their money in the last game of the regular season, and with two weeks until the Super Bowl, this match-up will be picked apart over and over again until game day.  So I’ll spare you the analysis for now.  At the moment, it’s better to just bask in the glow of the AFC Championship… and start looking for Super Bowl tickets as well.

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

Clayton Shows Pats/Chargers Some Love

John Clayton’s First and Ten is up and running for the week, and the Pats/Chargers game is the biggest and best game being played this week, as far as Mr. Clayton is concerned. Clayton spends quite a bit of detailing the brief but bitter history between the two teams - something I’ve had quite a blast doing this week as well - before going on to talk about the upcoming game and what it means to the NFL.  I believe that his best piece of analysis is his statement that the Chargers are going to be a postseason staple for quite some time.  Teams like the Pats, as well as the Colts, Jaguars, and anyone else who thinks they’ve got a Super Bowl shot, should definitely pay attention.

The Patriots will get their chance to further dominate this new rivalry as they attempt to go 18-0 on the season on their way to the Super Bowl.  The Patriots have played amazing football all year long, and many of their fans are upset that they won’t be getting to play the Indianapolis Colts this week, but don’t discount this Chargers team.  The Bolts are young, talented, athletic, and extremely hungry to win a title.  They could conceivably beat any of the three teams left in the playoffs on any given Sunday, and  the battle this Sunday between San Diego and New England could be the best game of the playoffs.  Don’t miss it.

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