Randall Gay has been placed on IR, and Hank Poteat has been signed to replace him.

On the brighter side, it’s not like Tedy needs to learn the Pats’ D. If he can keep his conditioning up, he should be able to get back in the starting lineup soon after the injury is healed enough.

So what should the replacement music be? Comment away!

Q: Would you feel comfortable with Matt Cassell as a backup?
A: I don’t know. I don’t know. I think Brady has established himself.

Ya think, Bill?

In an interview, Jackson said that on one of his visits the Pats gave him some offensive game film and told him to have it broken down by the time of his next visit. Jackson said no other team he visited did anything like that. Add another player to the list of those who have in interviews pointed to something the Patriots do that no other team does. The weird thing to me is that for a lot of those examples I hear (like this one with Jackson and like when Rodney Harrison talked about the situational practices the Pats do that he’d never seen before) are things I would have assumed that all teams do as a matter of course. And yet the Pats seem to be the only ones doing them. Hail Bill!

Not surprisingly, the Patriots didn’t forget about that rule and ESPN has reported that the $18.66mil option bonus is broken into two pieces — a $6.66mil piece that can be paid anytime between 5 August 2006 and next March and a $12mil piece due next March. I think it’s fair to say that the $6.66mil will be paid on 5 August , thereby moving a decent chunk of the contract onto this year’s cap.

It’s been clear in interviews since the Givens signing that a large part of Givens leaving was that he wanted to be (and of course be paid for being ) a #1 receiver.

Since he wasn’t going to be a #1 in the Pats scheme, there was (a) no way the Pats would pay him #1 money, and (b) predispose him to go to a team where he’d be a #1 even if the offers were equal.

As for McGinest, while I’m sad to see him go, I don’t think it would have been wise for the Pats to cough up that sum.

Vinatieri is more interesting. I think there has definitely been some behind the scenes friction there for a few years. The Pats had to tag AV last year, and I think before that he was on a relatively short-term contract. So the parties haven’t been able to come to a long-term agreement for some time now. AV also brings up the question of do you (percentage-wise) hugely overpay AV to keep him on the grounds that even a big percentage overpay to a kicker is lost in the noise? Or will a big percentage overpay still cause pay-scale problems because then everyone will start saying “if he is so high percentage-wise, why not me?”

Finally, what has bothered me isn’t as much losing these guys (and potentially Troy Brown, too, though at this stage of his career that’s not a big loss) is that these guys’ agents have said the Pats haven’t even talked to them. Of course, I also wouldn’t put it past agents to make stuff to make the team look bad, either.

I’m almost certain Givens will end up signing elsewhere. I have a bad feeling about Vinatieri and think he will end up elsewhere. I expect McGinest and Troy Brown to end up returning to the Pats. Not sure either way about Ashworth and Neal. I’d like to see us keep Dwight.

We’ll find out soon enough…

Patriots quarterback Tom Brady played half of the season with a
hernia and will have surgery to correct the problem, probably within two weeks, according to a source with knowledge of the situation.

The hernia problem did not keep Brady from practicing or force him to miss any time, but he did throw some passes uncharacteristically high as the season went on, indicating the injury may have affected his
release.

I can’t stand Cowher. I want to see him always fail. My ideal Superbowl would be for Pittsburgh to jump out to a big lead and then choke it away due to the usual Cowher stupidity.

Pittsburgh is dirty. Intentionally taking out Palmer (don’t give me that “the DLman was blocked into Palmer” garbage. That’s total BS as even a quick glance at the replay will show you. The DLman reached out with his arm, wrapped it around Palmer’s leg, and pushed his shoulder into Palmer’s knee). Dirty, dirty, dirty. And this isn’t the first time the Cowher’s cowards have tried to win a playoff game by taking out the opponent’s QB. Queue up the tape of the AFC championship four years ago. Lee Flowers twice rolled into Brady’s legs untouched and very late, succeeding in knocking Brady out of the game the second time. Cowher and his team are dirty and deserve to lose.

Pittsburgh has that idiot loudmouth Joey Porter.

Two Seattle players (Matt Hasselbeck and Lofa Tatupu) are sons of former Patriots.

Given all that, how could any Pats fan root for Pittsburgh??

“I think we’ve probably been disrespected more than any team in the league this year. I think we’ve been given up on by a lot of media people, a lot of fans, our own fans, other people around the league. I think if there’s one team that feels like they’re disrespected, it’s us. I don’t disrespect Jacksonville. It’s [hard] to disrespect a team that’s 12-4. If we were 12-4 it would be different. I think people gave up on us a long time ago.”