HOW BOUT THEM PATRIOTS?

The Patriots hadn't played a team with a winning record until yesterday. It was only the 5th time in NFL history that undefeated teams played each other in week 5 or later.

The Patriots have now outscored their opponents by 138 points this season (23 points per game). To put that in perspective, in their 21 game win streak in '03 and '04, the Pats outscored opponents by 190 points (9 points per game). These are not your older brother's Patriots.

Yesterday's victory was much closer than the 48-27 score would suggest. The Pats scored a garbage time touchdown. This wasn't running up the score. This was a rushing TD by Kyle Eckel, and was essentially a reward for the Naval Academy graduate for busting his ass in practice week in and week out. See, Coach Belichick was indeed programmed with a heart.

The Cowboys were the only team to have a 2nd half lead over the Patriots so far this season. They're also the first team to put up more than 20 points. They're also one of the few teams to force a turnover from Tom Brady.

After the game, Terrell Owens said "The game could have gone either way." Tony Romo said "It wouldv'e been interesting had there not been a holding call on that 4th and 1 play" referring to an apparent 4th down conversion pulled back because of a penalty, which forced Dallas to punt.

The Cowboys were penalized 12 times for 98 yards. However, the refs did not seem to have it in for Dallas. Most of these calls were procedure penalties before the snap. Dallas was offsides three times, started falsely twice, and had an illegal shift penalty.

Neither team played their best possible game. Maybe it was all the mid-week hype. Maybe, for Dallas, it was their emotional trip to Buffalo and a short week. Maybe, for the Pats, it was playing a great team on the road for the first time this year.

Dallas was penalized incessantly, this coming after an offensively impotent 1st quarter. The Cowboys did not get a 1st down until 14:39 had elapsed in the game.

The Patriots tackled sloppily. There was no better example of that than Marion Barber's safari through the end zone, being wrapped up by four different Patriots, none of whom could complete their tackles and bring Barber down for a safety.

The Pats also hurt themselves with penalties. On defense they seemed slow at times. On TO's TD in the 2nd quarter, Samuel and Wilson ran into each other. On special teams, they allowed a big return. Then there was that sack and fumble which kept Dallas in the game early on. Had Brady held onto the ball and the Pats score on that drive, the game would have been close to over.

Tom Brady was the star of the game with 388 yards, and a career high 5 TDs. It would have been 6 touchdowns (a new franchise record) had the officials not called a bogus pushing off penalty on Moss. Brady also ran for two 1st downs.

An unsung hero of this game was Kevin Faulk, who replaced the injured Sammy Morris, who replaced the injured Laurence Maroney. Faulk had 13 carries for 50 yards (3.8 YPC) and also caught 3 passes for 24 yards.

The Patriots won in Dallas for the first time ever. Dallas is not an easy place to play for any visiting team, especially with the Cowboys playing so well this year. This is the most impressive win of the young season for the Patriots.

The Pats stay on the road next week, going down to Miami to face the 0-6 Dolphins. This game has "TRAP" written all over it, and Miami has always been a tough place for us to play in.

BOSTON VS. NEW YORK

The title isn't a mistake, I'm well aware of the fact that we're playing Cleveland in the ALCS. This article, however, is a comparison of the sports in Boston and the sports in New York.

Ladies and gentlemen, Boston is on top of New York across the board. New York sports suck compared to us.

Let's start with baseball. The Yankees may have won the season series against us 10-8, and they may have come from 14 games behind to make the divisional race exciting, and they came back from a crappy start to win the Wild Card. But they lost to the Indians in the LDS. Despite spending over $1 billion since 2000, the Yankees haven't won the World Series in this century.

We all know by now that the Yankees were eliminated last night by Cleveland. We also know that the NY Mets suffered one of the most embarrassing collapses in regular season history. With the Red Sox winning the AL East, and advancing to the ALCS, Boston baseball is doing much better than New York baseball.

Let's move on to football. The NY Giants are actually doing pretty well, with a 3-2 record. It's still very early in the season to be making any judgments, except for maybe one: the Jets suck. Mangini's squad is 1-4, and it isn't because people are videotaping their signals. The Jets are so pathetic that their fans cheered Chad Pennington getting injured.

Meanwhile, the Patriots are one of three 5-0 teams in the NFL. They've scored 182 points (most in the NFL) which is 36.4 points per game. They've also allowed the 6th fewest points (4 of the 5 teams ahead of them have only played 4 games). So far, the Pats have outscored their opponents by 117 points, or 23.4 per game. Again, it's still early, and the schedule gets much tougher from here on out, but as of right now the Pats are viewed as the #1 team in the NFL. But even though it's early, New England already has at least a 4 game lead on every team in the AFC East.

The Jets and Giants have a combined record of 4-6. Even together, they don't match the Patriots' win total. Boston is definitely ahead of New York in football.

The basketball season hasn't started yet, but let's just look at what the Knicks and Celtics did in the off-season. The Celtics acquired two studs in KG and Ray Allen. The Knicks were busy dealing with sexual harassment suits. Advantage: Boston.

In hockey, the Bruins suck. The Rangers are good, and if you want to throw in the Devils and Islanders, they're good too. Advantage: New York. But it's hockey, c'mon.

How about college football? Neither Boston or New York are hotbeds of college sports. But Boston has a D-IA team within its city limits. New York doesn't, but there is a team that became so popular last year that the Empire State Building was lit up in its school colors. Rutgers became New York's team last season. Probably not all New Yorkers, but what else do they have? Army? Syracuse? Maybe UConn?

Anyway, Rutgers sucked. After rising to #10 in the country due to crushing Buffalo, Navy, and mighty Norfolk State, Rutgers has lost 2 in a row and dropped from the rankings. Boston College, on the other hand, is 6-0 for the first time since 1942. BC has had some cupcakes on their schedule, but they did go down to Atlanta and beat Georgia Tech. The Eagles are ranked 4th in the nation and have the inside track to winning the ACC Atlantic Division. Advantage: Boston.

Oh yeah, the Revolution are also ahead of NY/NJ in Major League Soccer standings.

So the only sport in which the New York metro area has a clear advantage over Boston is hockey. In baseball, NFL football, basketball, college football, and even soccer, it is all Boston.

New York sucks.

PATS ACCUSED OF CHEATING, JETS ACCUSED OF WHINING

In 2001, it was the Raiders who bitched about the tuck rule. Then their fans, and overnight radio loser JT the Brick concocted a conspiracy theory involving the NFL, Homeland Security, and the Kennedy assassins. They ignored the fact that their team still allowed two field goal scoring drives after the tuck rule play, and since that year, their team has been a joke that gets funnier and funnier.

Also in 2001, the Steelers complained that the "best team" didn't win the game between them and the Patriots. Because Bill Cowher was focused too much on his hard pounding run game, and impenetrable defense to give any attention to his special teams play, he proceeded to whine like a baby.

Then there the Colts in 2003 and 2004. This bunch of sissies whined that Patriots players hit them during plays. Eventually, the Colts whined so much that an entirely new set of rules for pass coverage were written by the NFL. Now the Colts could get 5 yard penalties and automatic first downs if anyone even looked at Marvin Harrison in a mean way.

Then last year the Chargers joined the whining. Tomlinson threw a tantrum when the Patriots mimicked Merrimen's Lights Out dance on the Chargers logo. Ladanian even went so far as to accuse Coach Belichick of being classless. Meanwhile, LT ignored the steroid use of his teammate who was mocked, as well as the DUI his other teammate picked up in the off-season.

And now it's time for the Jets to join the circus of bad losers.

Eric Mangini, who has connived, plotted, and schemed in a vein effort to surpass the Patriots in the AFC East, now has a new ploy. He has accused the Patriots of stealing signs. He's borrowed a page from baseball and applied it to football.

Before every defensive play, the defense on the field receives the play call from the sideline. But they get their play in the form of hand signals from the sidelines. In an effort to prevent these signals from being decoded, teams often employ three or more signalers, with only one man giving the true signs.

In this weekend's 38-14 demolition of the Jets, a Patriot employee was noticed on the sidelines with a video camera. The Jets have alleged that this man was taping the Jets signalers in an effort to figure out which plays the Jets would be running on defense. The NFL has since confiscated the tape and the camera, and will be investigating the matter.

First of all, in order to decipher the Jets signals, the Patriots would have to find all of the signalers, record every play, compare it to the signals, and hope to find a pattern with one of the signalers. Then they could apply it to gameplay, and maybe be able to tell when the Jets were blitzing, when they weren't, and things like that.

If this happened, then it's a form of cheating, and the Patriots should be punished. But I have my doubts. It seems like it would be too difficult to do this within a game. But I haven't seen any of the tapes or anything, so who knows?

This whole thing stinks like dirty diapers. Mangina and the Jets are crying because they got spanked. And they try to pull this mind game crap all the time. This and the whole business with Reche Caldwell after he got released is just another vein attempt by Mangina to overcome the fact that the Patriots are much superior to the Jets. It isn't the first time another team has acted like children after we beat them. And it won't be the last.

The Jets can join the Raiders, Steelers, Colts, and Chargers in the ever growing list of teams that need to grow up.

M-O-S-S MOSS MOSS MOSS!

I think the only Patriot that didn't have a good day was Matt Cassel, who fumbled a perfect snap during a field goal attempt. Cassel didn't even get to do the kneel down to end the game.

We just rolled all over New York. Maroney had a solid day, Brady was great, Moss was monstrous, the defense was impressive against the run and rushing the QB, and Ellis Hobbs tied an NFL record for longest play ever.

We started off with a surprisingly run heavy drive that was textbook. We had pretty bad field position, which I was worried about, because for the past 4 or 5 years, we've been a team that wins by winning the field position battle, and gradually wearing down an opponent. Not anymore, it looks like. We started at the 9 and went 91 yards on 11 plays for the touchdown.

We sputtered a bit for the rest of the 1st quarter. We also used up all our timeouts. We played some sloppy football at times, which cost us a few opportunities. We could have put this game away earlier than we did.

Cassel had a fumbled snap, we used up our timeouts thanks to the Jets' no huddle offense, Welker dropped a ball that would have been a drive continuing first down, and so on.

The Jets tied it up after the fumbled snap, but we did something that we seemed to always do a few seasons ago: score right before the 2nd quarter ends. Moss accounted for 55 yards out of the 73 total yards on the TD drive.

We exploded in the 3rd quarter. Hobbs returned the kickoff for a 108 yard touchdown. Then Pennington got hurt (which seemed to please some Jets fans. you stay classy, New York). Then we had a 4 play, 85 yard drive, with Moss catching a 19 yard pass to begin it, and a 51 yard pass to end it. Moss outran three Jets to catch the 51 yard bomb and score the touchdown. The way New York was playing, the game was over at 28-7.



The Jets responded with a touchdown drive that made the game 28-14, but their drive took nearly 5 minutes. We got the ball back and proceeded to drain the life out of the clock.

"Clock Killin" Sammy Morris just doesn't have the same ring as "Clock Killin" Corey Dillon, but Morris did to New York what Dillon had been doing for us. The Pats drove for 10:28, draining over one sixth of the game's length off the clock, kicking a field goal, and leaving 6:44 for New York to score three times.

Heath Evans got the game sealing TD behind Seau's blocking. Seau basically threw himself into the Jet linebackers. He missed everyone, but prevented Vilma from jumping at Heath, who was leaping behind Seau, over the goal line.

The story of the game was the Patriots offensive line. Brady had all day to pass, and the zone blocking seemed to work well for Maroney and Morriss. We ran for 137 yards, and Brady was only hurried once.

Part of Brady having so much time was due to our receivers. In order for the Jets to blitz, they would have to cover Moss, Stallworth, Welker, and so on, man-to-man. Covering Randy Moss man-to-man just doesn't work. So the Jets didn't blitz us very often. And when they did, we made them pay.

Brady looked good, but he also had about 20 seconds to find open receivers, and when he didn't find anyone open, he'd toss the ball in Moss's general direction, and Randy would jump 7 or 8 feet, and come down with the ball.

I was really impressed with our defensive play. We held New York to 60 yards on the ground. We stuffed a lot of plays early on and broke up a lot of those long scoring drives Pennington and the Jets like to put together. We also did a great job of pressuring Pennington. We sacked him 5 times, and kept him busy in the pocket all day.

We made some mistakes, and very easily we could have won this game 41-7, or even 48-0. We're going to have to work those kinks out when we play teams like San Diego and Indianapolis. However, we're 1-0, and we're already a game up on everyone in the AFC East, because they all lost yesterday.

And by the way, Belichick and Mangini had a short handshake after the game. And who friggin cares?



No photographers were harmed by Coach Belichick.

PATRIOT PESSIMISM

I remember when we traded for Randy Moss, people would come up to me and ask: "What do you think of the Moss deal?" My simple reply:

"19-0."

We had just acquired one of the most talented receivers in the NFL, along with two other very good receivers, and an amazing and versatile defensive player in Adalius Thomas. We went 14-5 without these guys, and came a few dropped passes away from making it to the Super Bowl.

Obviously, my projection of 19-0 was not a serious prediction. But I did feel supremely confident in the Patriots, and felt as though they were the favorites to win the Super Bowl. And I still feel that way. But with the beginning of the season looming on Sunday, I'm starting to have doubts.

Maybe doubts isn't the right way to describe it. I think we will win the Super Bowl, and go 17-2 or 16-3 overall. BUT, if we don't, if we fall on our faces and go 9-7 and miss the playoffs, or go 10-6 and lose in the 2nd round, I can easily see how it will happen. The margin of error for this and any other NFL team is so slim, that almost any team could go 17-2, or 7-9.

So if we fail this year, here are some of the reasons why:

Missing players:
You expect to be injured and missing players in the middle or end of the season. But the Patriots will be starting with Richard Seymour out for 6 weeks, and Rodney Harrison suspended for 4 games. These are two keystones to our defense. Thomas can step up and rush off the outside, but there is no replacement for Harrison's presence in the defensive backfield. We play the Jets and the Chargers to start the season, a pair of playoff teams, and we'll be missing two of our best defenders.

Samuel Holdout:
Asante Samuel has rejoined the team, but he missed most of training camp during his holdout. The Patriots are better with him than without him, but for the first few games, he will not be at top form. We have two divisional games in the beginning of the season, and winning them will be huge for our playoff drive. But what are we going to get out of Samuel?

Maroney:
Laurence has been wearing the red shirt for most of training camp, and he will be our only main option in the backfield this season. He's never been a runningback for a full 16 (and up to 20) game season He was very good last year, for a rookie. But he had a lot of help from Corey Dillon, which he won't be getting this season.

We ran for about 1,800 yards last year, with Maroney accounting for 745 of those. Dillon got a lot of hard yards, wearing down opposing defensive lines, which allowed Maroney to slip tackles, run to the outside, and get his kind of yardage. Maroney now has Sammy Morris and Kevin Faulk supporting him, but Faulk is not a power back like Dillon was. Morris isn't half bad, he's actually a solid back, but he is no Corey Dillon. I think it's safe to say that our running game will not be as good this season as it was last year.

Moss + Stallworth + Welker
We really have no idea what to expect from this combination of guys. Brady has never had a WR as talented as Moss. Nor have we ever had as many deep threats as we do now. I've never been a big fan of the deep ball. I think it's important for the deep pass to be a threat, but I prefer the medium routes that guys like Branch and Givens used to run to perfection, spreading out the defense horizontally, as well as vertically. I think Welker and Watson will be able to do this, and we could potentially have a really dynamic passing offensive, but it could all collapse just as easily. It's an unknown. Also, Moss just started to participate in full practices.

Loss of Daniel Graham
Ben Watson has shown some potential to be a very good TE. He was one of our best deep threats last year. But Graham was a leader, an excellent blocker, and a very good complimentary tight end to Watson. I like David Thomas, though, but we've only seen him for a few plays. I think having multiple tight-ends will be key to our offense, ensuring that linebackers don't rush Brady and have to cover TEs, creating mismatches, and blocking for Maroney. How David Thomas performs will be a big part of how we perform as a team.

Distractions
Tom Brady just had a baby, Rodney Harrison just got suspended for HGH, and Randy Moss is a potential distraction bomb waiting to detonate. The Patriots are just as vulnerable as any other team to being distracted by all this off field crap. In the past, we've been able to remain focused no matter what, but that could all change easily.

I still think we're the top team in the NFL because of who the coach is, who the QB is, who the team leaders are, and how our talent performs. My prediction is a 13-3 regular season, and a Super Bowl victory.

I can't wait for Sunday.

NICE AND EASY

I'm glad that Terry Francona finally listened to me and benched Ortiz against Kazmir. And I'm sure it was me and only me that made Terry come to this conclusion.

End of sarcasm.

This was a nice, easy, and enjoyable victory. No Eric Gagne, no small army left in scoring position, nice starting position, and early offensive opportunities exploited.

Is Mike Lowell a dark horse for MVP of this team? Without his 85 RBI, where are we? For most of the season, he's led the team in RBI. For a while, he was the team leader in homeruns, as well. I really do hope we extend his contract and keep him on the team. He seems like a quiet guy, he's no Kevin Millar, more of a Billy Mueller kind of guy. He produces, he fields well, and he seems to gel with this team. He'll also make about a third of the money A-Rod will make. Is Mike Lowell on the same level as Rodriguez? No. But is A-Rod three times better than Lowell? No.

I'm really glad Ortiz was benched, and Kielty was hitting 3rd. I know it didn't really seem to work out as Kielty went 0 for 5, but before the game, when the lineups were announced, I think Francona put out the best possible lineup to score runs.

It was also nice to beat Scott Kazmir, and beat him pretty badly. Nothing against him, I'm just sick and tired of watching Manny and Ortiz looking like fools every time Kazmir throws that low slider.

Kevin Cash had his first start with Wakefield, and looked pretty good. I think it's either very smart or very fortunate for the Sox that we have some knuckleballers in AAA to give guys like Cash and George Kotteras some experience catching the knuckleball.

And how about Timmy Wakefield this year? He's a huge reason why we're in 1st place. his 4.35 ERA is unremarkable, but I think he's pitched better than that number suggests. This was his 13th Quality Start of the season. And for the $4 million Wake is earning this year, he might just be one of the best values in baseball. He's now tied with Beckett and Lackey for most wins in the Majors.

Lester goes tomorrow night.

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE GAGNE

The good:


The bad:


The Gagne:


Sweeping a doubleheader against the Angels would have been difficult to do, especially with Lackey on the mound. But we were very close to doing so. Clay Bucholz pitched very well in his Major League debut. I was most impressed by how he pitched after the big JD Drew error in the 1st inning. Of course, getting to Lackey for 6 runs in the bottom of the 1st made the game much easier for everybody.

The first game was the one we were supposed to lose. We had 23 year old Bucholz against one of the best pitchers in the AL. But we won, and had Beckett going in game 2. It seemed as though we had an opportunity to win a big doubleheader.

Even more surprising than us getting to Lackey was us getting to the Angels bullpen. In game 2, we rallied in the 8th and looked to be on our way to a momentous victory. But we used Okajima in the first game for 1.2 innings and Papelbon for 1.1. Gagne came in to pitch 9th, a 1 run save opportunity. And he fell flat. Again.

What the fuck is wrong with Gagne? The best theory I have is an adjustment problem to not knowing exactly when he will pitch in a game. But that's just a theory. Whatever the problem is, it is killing us.

Gagne's pitched 7 innings for us, and has allowed 13 earned runs. He's allowed a run in 5 of his appearances. He's allowed a hit in each outing. He's allowed multiple hits in 4 of his outings. He has a 16.71 ERA with us, and a WHIP of 2.429. Opponents are hitting .459 off Gagne since he joined the Sox. He's got 2 holds, and 2 blown saves. He is killing us. If he doesn't turn this around, does he even belong on a playoff roster if we make it that far?

Maybe this is part of a trend that started when Gagne was in Texas. Starting on June 23rd, and ending June 24th, Gagne's ERA saw a 1 run increase. He allowed runs in 4 of 11 outings. 7 of those 11 outings were not "clean" innings. He also blew his first save of the season.

Anyway, Wily Mo Pena was traded to Washington for a player to be named later. This marks the end of the WMP experiment. He struck out 148 times in a Red Sox uniform in 432 at-bats.

I know hindsight is 20/20, but this trade of Pena seems to be too little too late. Last year, Pena hit .301 in 276 at-bats. He was showing some potential, with some power, and a decent OBP of .349. We signed Drew in the off-season, had Ellsbury already soaring up to AA, and still had Moss and Murphy in AAA. We didn't really seem to have much of a spot for Pena. Then again, with Drew's injury history, the Sox might have felt as though having a 4th outfielder with some pop would be a good idea.

Sometimes it just seems like the Red Sox lack a big picture, long term plan. I understand trading Arroyo when we did. His stock was high, and Pena seemed like a good opportunity to grab a talented hitter. Last year Pena showed some promise. But he was still a 4th outfielder on this team, any way you cut it. We'll get a player to be named later from the Nationals, but we could have gotten a lot more had we traded Pena before this season.

Doug Mirabelli was placed on the 15 day DL. The Red Sox purchased the contract of Kevin Cash from AAA Pawtucket and he will be the backup while Mirabelli mends his calf-strain. Mirabelli is not expected to be on the DL for long.

The Red Sox also brought up newly acquired Bobby Kielty. He essentially took the place of Wily Mo Pena.

Schilling against Weaver tonight.

CAPTAIN AND COCO

1-41. That was our record when trailing after the 8th inning. Now it's 2-41, which isn't much of an improvement. But let's be optimistic here. We've DOUBLED our 9th inning come from behind wins! Hooray!

Anywho, I find it funny that my last article criticised Jon Lester. A few articles ago, I criticised Gagne. So what happens? Lester throws a gem, and Gagne gets the win. Should I take responsibility for this a la Steinbrenner? I probably shouldn't, but I will. Your welcome, Sox fans.

Here's my favorite stat for Jon Lester's night: 13.9 pitches per inning. That's actually really good. For him, that's simply astonishing. This was Jon's best start in a Red Sox uniform since he went 8 scoreless against the Royals on July 18th of last year.

As of right now, our 5th starter is Lester, and probably will be for a few weeks, at least.

Gagne's inning wasn't perfect, but it might have been his best with us so far. He allowed a double, but also struck out the side. He threw 17 pitches, 11 of which were strikes.

Some fans at Fenway gave some boos to Gagne. He was also booed a bit at Camden Yards. I think it might be a bit too early to be booing him. This is what happens in Red Sox Nation. We fall in love with the likes of Butch Huskey, and Rico Brogna, who we expect nothing from. Then when we get a top of the line player and they perform less than perfectly, we start to dislike them.

For some reason, Manny Delcarmen struggles against the Devil Rays. He let up a hit and a pair of walks last night. He had that awful outing on the 29th in Tampa, allowing 3 runs. I don't know what it could be. Maybe because he's up against Tampa, he thinks he's back in AAA, so he eases up a little.

At the end of the game NESN did the dramatic "cut to nervous fans" series of shots in between pitches. However, I have to give props to the director for showing attractive female fans being nervous. I still hate the constant cutting to fans to see how some person in Box 86 is feeling, but having it be a cute girl makes it a fair compromise.

There was also some guy right behind home plate that was calling out Al Reyes' pitches before they were thrown. In Varitek's at-bat in the 9th, the guy yelled "Change-Up!" before the 1-2 pitch was delivered. It was a high changeup that Varitek took for ball 2. The next pitch, the fan called for the same thing. Lo and behold, Tek hit the changeup to right for a double. The guy behind home plate must have done his homework. Either that or Al Reyes pretty much throws changeup after changeup. I think it's the latter.

The next time we face Kazmir, I don't think David Ortiz should start. He's got that bad knee, and bad shoulder anyway. He's hitting .147 (5 for 34) against Kazmir. Manny is actually doing a little bit worse. He's hitting .139 off Kazmir (5 for 39). Using these numbers, the odds of either Manny or Ortiz getting a hit off of Kazmir in an inning are about 1 in 4. That means that neither one of them will get a hit off Kazmir 3 times out of 4 chances. For you hold em players out there, those are slightly better than the odds of hitting a gutshot straight draw on the turn or river. And if you don't know, I'll tell you that you shouldn't be chasing gutshot straight draws.

Having Ortiz and Manny hitting 3 and 4 against Kazmir is just a bad idea. He owns them, let's face it. Having the heart of your lineup having very little chance of doing anything is not the way to score runs.

Anyway, a nice heart warming win for the Sox, which was made even warmer by the Yankees loss to the Orioles. Daisuke goes tonight, looking for the sweep.