Patriots Fanatic

• Attend The Tailgate (home) or The Virtual Tailgate (road). We won’t bite
• If you can’t find a bunch of friends to cheer/complain/kibbitz with during the game, do it remotely with a bunch of hardcore fans at the PatsFans.com chat room. This can really be a blast if you’re otherwise stuck at home.
• More game discussion happens in the forums at BSMW. Just pick the Sports Radio Discussion category and then pick the thread of the day.
• For intelligent around-the-league commentary during games, check out the relevant week’s Open Thread over at Football Outsiders

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Please leave more suggestions in the comments!

Simmons again:

And here’s where you expect me to mention New England’s impossible schedule over the next five weeks, how they’re the first team in NFL history to play four games on the road in five weeks against teams that averaged 11 wins last season, and how this is doubly ironic since Indy was handed a cream-puff schedule that included a bye right before their Week 9 game in Foxboro.

One wonders what Dungheap and his Merrie Old Band of Whiners has to do with this…

Any serious Pats fan must check out Mike Reiss’s blog at least several times a day. Even though he works for the Globe, he does a great job covering the team — and his best work doesn’t even make it to print . How the Globe can continue to employ lazy, miserable hacks like Cafardo and Borges is beyond me.

I’ve been remiss in not mentioning Mrs B’s PatriotWorld site. A great place for pictures and news. Don’t forget about the podcasts, especially during training camp.

And don’t diss her steak tips!

But it’s unlikely. Very unlikely.

Q: Does anything about this Tedy Bruschi-on-the-sidelines routine smell funny? Doesn’t this seem like a WWE-style ploy by Belichick? What if we get to the first round of the playoffs, with the Pats on the road, and they need a lift? Wouldn’t the triumphant return of Bruschi be the spark they need to get the three-peat? Couldn’t the Pats hire Jim Ross for the night, just to have a “Good God, that’s Tedy Bruschi’s music!” moment?
– Bart Shirley, Dallas

SG: Loved the idea, but I think you screwed up the timeline. Bruschi is eligible to be activated after Week Six. Realistically, he could scrimmage in all the closed practices without anyone knowing, and then emerge from the tunnel during that Week 9 game against the Colts at Foxboro, which, in my opinion, would be the single most exciting moment in Patriots history if it happened — even better than both Super Bowl kicks — as well as football’s first Willis Reed moment. The Colts would be finished. D-U-N done. I’m getting the chills just thinking about it.

Seeing the look on the faces of Manning, Dungy, Irsay, and the rest of the miserable whiners on that team would be the second best thing.

Some of us were wondering why Oakland defenders weren’t flagged for (apparently) horse-collar tackling Troy Brown and Tim Dwight. Turns out it’s not just as simply as pulling someone down by the collar, as this article on NFL.com mentions:

The committee also seeks to eliminate “horse-collar tackles,” where the defender grabs the ball carrier inside the back of the shoulder pads and immediately drags him down while also falling on his legs. Such tackles would be deemed unsportsmanlike conduct, a 15-yard penalty.

The Oakland defenders never fell on anyone’s legs, so I imagine that’s why no flags were thrown.

Speaking of rules changes, I totally missed the announcement of the change whereby penalties on the kicking team during a punt return can now be tacked on to the end of the return at the receiving team’s option, instead of the receiving team being stuck with either forcing a re-punt or just declining the penalty.

Someone had a great post over on alt.sports.football.pro.ne-patriots:

Yeah, during the game things happened so fast I did not even notice Brady getting whacked in the helmut, but noticed it on the last several thousand replays. Has Brady ever mentioned about getting hit on that play?? As for that call; it did not lose the game for the Raiders. (They did a damn good job of losing it themselves). It just didn’t win it for them. They had MANY other chances to stop the Patriots AFTER that play, but could not! The best team won, regardless. Shoot… Anyway it is water under the bridge now. I guess the controversy will live in some Raider fans hearts forever, just like the phantom roughing the passer call against Sugar Bear Hamilton in 76 does in the hearts of some of the old Pats fans.
That’s football.

Except that was really an instance where the refs f*cked up. Actually, in all honesty, the “Tuck Play” is perfect. I get the satisfaction of knowing Raiders fans feel cheated out of a victory AND I get the satifaction of knowing the truth is they weren’t.

That truly is the best of both worlds.