OvrOfficiousJerk

What about a hurricane named Ditka or Ditka?

we'll we're probably mediocre because we lost Stamer, Haggan and Aiken too...don't get me wrong, guys like Corto and Wendling can step up, but the loss of Wire is only one part of the large turnover in our ST corps as of last year

I must admit, though losing another LB will be rough, at least we've seen that we can play nickel defense with Youbouty [instead of the third LB] and not have a drop-off in the quality of run defense or pass rushing, as he's been doing both pretty well.

Let's not forget CB Will James; we signed him even before we drafted McKelvin. If they drafted McKelvin despite having signed a notable free agent to shore up the DB corps, I'd say it was a case of "we're taking the best player on the board regardless of the position" mantra that we picked McKelvin. Had they known Ashton "Shake" Youbouty would have been such a good player, they probably wouldn't have signed James, but they probably would've still drafted Leodis.

As it relates to our "soft" schedule this year, can anyone speak to how soft our schedule was in 2003 after our 2-0 start? I forgot how good the teams we played at the time actually were...

Not to minimalize the awesome special teams we have (don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan; I can recite April's nicknames for each of the phases from memory), but the biggest positive about the win is that we were able to do it without a special teams TD or special teams trick play. We can't beat good teams like JAX on special teams alone, and we proved today that the other two phases aren't too shabby. Also Ashton "Kutcher"-"Shake" Youbouty was awesome, in on almost every play and had a sick CB blitz too.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story...=simmons/080909 Dude, when even the granddaddy of all Boston homers, the Sports Guy, sides against you, you gotta be wrong...

I agree, his podcasts are great. Also, he donated an entire column/mail-bag to the Sonics' fans this past year to air their grievances about their team being ripped out of their community (something we all could appreciate in Buffalo). Moreover, more important to the current discussion about Brady, he directly compared Wilfork's hit on JP to what happened to Brady: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story...=simmons/080909 Unlike the fairweather prima donnas over on the Pats board, he admits that Wilfork was guilty of a cheap shot; he may be a homer, but at least he's consistent.

"Three's company too."