Patriots Fanatic

Sunday, Sept. 10 – vs. Bills, 1 p.m.
Sunday, Sept. 17 – at Jets, 4:15 p.m.
Sunday, Sept. 24 – vs. Broncos, 8:15 p.m.
Sunday, Oct. 1 – at Bengals, 4:15 p.m.
Sunday, Oct. 8 – vs. Dolphins, 1 p.m.
Sunday, Oct. 15 – BYE
Sunday, Oct. 22 – at Bills, 1 p.m.
Monday, Oct. 30 – at Vikings, 8:30 p.m.
Sunday, Nov. 5 – vs. Colts, 8:15 p.m.
Sunday, Nov. 12 – vs. Jets, 1 p.m.
Sunday, Nov. 19 – at Packers, 1 p.m.
Sunday, Nov. 26 – vs. Bears, 1 p.m.
Sunday, Dec. 3 – vs. Lions, 1 p.m.
Sunday, Dec. 10 – at Dolphins, 1 p.m.
Sunday. Dec. 17 – vs. Texans, 1 p.m.
Sunday, Dec. 24 – at Jaguars, 1 p.m.
Sunday, Dec. 31 – at Titans, 1 p.m.

Weeks 10-17 (except for the Christmas Eve week) are subject to being switched to NBC’s Sunday night game on twelve days notice.

There have been some reports buzzing around that Kraft “personally intervened” in the Troy Brown negotiations to make sure that Brown re-signed with the team.

I really hope that didn’t happen.

Those of you who have been fans since 2001 and here nothing but glowing praise of Kraft (unless you make the mistake of reading Wrong Borges and Nick Cafardo) might not realize that fandom had many doubts about Kraft all through the 1990s. When he bought the team he seemed a lot like a Mini-Me to Jerry Jones’s Dr. Evil. Kraft was seen with a stopwatch timing players at camp, he was constantly glad-handing fans around the stadium on game days and looked like he might turn into a meddler, a la Jones or Steinbrenner. Then there was l’affaire Parcells and the long decay of the Carroll years, where it was clear that any player with a grudge or a whine could jump the chain of command and go to Kraft. Not good.

And now we have these reports. On one hand it could be nothing. No matter how much you like Troy Brown, you have to concede he’s a player at the end of the line. So this isn’t like the owner’s intervention determining the future of the team. On the other hand, if players begin to feel that they can evade Belichick and Pioli and get things into Kraft’s hands, that’s a very bad precedent given the system that Belichick and Pioli have put in place. If Kraft makes a lie of Belichick’s pledges to his players that everyone gets treated the same, it could get nasty, especially when the inevitable stinker season comes along.

So lets all hope those reports are wrong.

Then we were saved by the Arrival of Bill and the concomitant act of Kraft essentially agreeing to butt out of football operations. And as far as we can tell, he’s stuck to it, even as fan favorites and his own favorite player (Bledsoe) were released or traded.

So, Vinatieri’s a Colt.

Then you’ll have to pardon me for saying that I hope he shanks every FG he attempts this year, and I want him to get his bell rung when Indianapolis plays in Foxboro in the upcoming season. And I’ll be out there booing every time he steps onto the field.

Yes, I’m thankful for the kicks he’s made over the years. And if Bill “Intercepting Manning should be against the rules” Polian wants to overpay for him, you can’t really blame him for going. But he chose to join the enemy — he’s a member of the enemy now and that’s how I’m treating him. And I think he has to knock Curtis Martin off the top of the Traitor’s List.

While it is true that there’s no way the Pats should have matched the poison pill deal that the Jet offerted to Martin, the Pats shouldn’t have let it get to that. Martin was clearly a tremendous bargain and the team should have re-negotiated his contract (or at least attempted to) instead of letting him get to free agency. “How is that different than Vinatieri?”, you may say. For starters, Vinatieri has been the top-paid kicker the league and the offer from the Pats that he rejected would have kept him there. So this isn’t the case of a team refusing to up the salary of the player who is worth far, far more than his contract.

To be fair to Vinatieri, he did take the high road and said all the right things at his Indy press conference — refusing to take whacks at the Patriots even though it has been widely reported (even before free agency began) that he wanted out of New England and had been incensed over his pay, over how negotiations have been handled both this year and in the past, and over the use/non-use of the franchise tag on him.

So, I’m sorry. I’ll thank you for what you did here, but I am not wishing you good luck going forward. Good health? Sure. But after that, I hope you have horrible seasons to come. You could have gone to a different team, but you went to the Colts. You’re dead to me now.

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Well, it’s already tolled for Givens and McGinest (I expected the first, but not the second), and it may be tolling for AV and Troy Brown. Losing Adam would be tough, but I can’t get too worked up about losing Brown at this stage in his career. Sure, it would be sad for his last memorable play with the Pats to be fumbling away the Denver game, but he’s clearly lost many steps.

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.

Free agency starts at 12:01am tomorrow morning.

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…

Maybe those of us who noticed that Brady seemed to be having some problems with throwing too high were onto something. From today’s Metrowest Daily News:

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.

Seattle, of course. Why would you expect anything else?

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??

Damn, I’m jealous!

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/2006/01/06/ramblings/too-deep-zone/3469/

Today is going to be such a long day (though the return of Battlestar Galactica tonight will make it go a little faster), as we drag on toward the showdown tomorrow.

Last I checked, the Pats are favored by 7 1/2. If I bet on football, I’d take JAX and the points (which is why I don’t bet — betting against my team would ruin my enjoyment of the game). While the Pats certainly could win by 8 or more, I think it’s more likely to be a three or four point affair — say 21 to 17.

I think JAX will prevent the Pats running game from getting going and they’ll get good pressure on Brady and get quite a few solid hits on him (of course, who hasn’t done that this year? sigh). And I think the Pats will do the same to the Jags. So it’ll come down to the passing game and the performance of the QBs, receivers, and secondaries. The Pats clearly have the QB advantage, but JAX receivers have the advantage over our secondary.

It should be an entertaining game, but it’s gonna be nerve-wracking as hell.

Go Pats!