Johnny Coli

And Drew Bledsoe has a 63% completion rating and and a passer rating of 100.4 with a slightly better running game than the Pats. I don't see your point. I don't see anyone (other than a few posters on this board) suggesting Bledsoe is carrying the 4-2 Cowboys and quickly on his way to the HOF. No way his recent success could be the coach down there, could it? Your defense of a slightly better than mediocre QB is inspiring, and far be it from me to dissuade your idol worship. But outside of this fantasy world where Brady is the keystone in a "dynasty", the reality is he is about as important to that team as Vinitieri’s holder, and a case could be made that he is less important. Also, my reluctance to reduce this debate to a third-grade level "wager" isn't gonna happen. In the end I care even less about this than you do.

That post was referring to RTDB post. Try to keep up. My argument is that when faced with significant losses in both coaching and personel, personel who had more of a hand in the Pats run than Brady did, he is being exposed as the slighlty better than mediccre QB that he has always been. If the Pats still had Ted Johnson, or any other of a host of players that are no longer with the team, and Brady was gone, in my opinion the Pats would have equal to or a better record than they have now. To sum it up for you...Brady needs the Pats more than the Pats need Brady. Hardly the definition of "One of The Best Ever."

But we're not saying our QB is one of the best ever. The Bills are at 0.500 having won 2 in a row, and could be going into The Tampon at 4-3 having won 3 in a row. The best the Pats can say is that their losing streak is at one game, and they're coming off a bye and playing at home.

He's a slightly better than mediocre QB, who happened to be in a spotlight position on a good team. Once confronted with the loss of his offensive coordinator, the loss of the team's defensive coordinator, and the loss of other players who it could be argued contributed a lot more than him during their Superbowl years, he is being exposed for who he really is... a slightly better than mediocre QB. I don't think it's that hard to follow, really. I would submit that Ty Law, Ted Johnson, and Teddy Bruschi were better at their respective positions than Brady, and if the roles were reversed, namely Brady was the one who left, the Pats would have a better record than they do right now. Which is, despite all your protesting, a medicocre 0.500.

Well see, that's where Pats fans' arguments over the past few years go right into the crapper. For three years they have been saying that stats don't mean squat, it's the Ws and Ls that really count. Now their squad is at .500 and tanking and we have to listen to how it's not Brady's fault, look at the stats. Typical NE fans. "We get no respect." "Hardest first six games ever." "Injuries." Who cares.

Bruschi won't be playing in that game, but it won't matter anyway. The Bills will go into their bye 4-4.

This conjecture is irrelevent. It will be a Bush vs. Clinton election. There is no way that Rove and Cheney will give up the White House.

Go back and re-read the post. Bledsoe couldn't manage Charlie Weis' system. As for '02, I'd hardly call that season (8-8) a success. Judging his effectiveness this early in this season is absurd. The fact is, and I live in Boston, so I've unfortunately seen and heard it all, is that Weis and Belicheck couldn't wait to get rid of Bledsoe. It also took them a year to purge all that was wrong with that team from the Pete Carroll regime. In the time since, Belicheck has stated time-and-time again at almost every press conference that they look for guys who can play in their system. I'm not making this crap up, man. I've had to listen to this for years. Your team is 3-3, guy. When Parcells coached your squad he always said "You are what you are." Well, right now, your a .500 team. (And the combined records for the teams you played up until that point in the season was 17-11...hardly six straight weeks of the Steel Curtain). The Genius has stated for years that they don't need huge names to be an effective team. Brady was an effective member of a good system. Well, the architect of that offense...the one that put up Ws, not just stats, is gone. I state again, Brady is a good system QB. But there are other QBs in this league who could do the same thing. Bledsoe couldn't. But a sample size of 2 is not good enough. A good example is Denver's running game. Every single back they put in seems to rush for 150 yards a game. That's a good system. I'd hardly call any of those guys the best at their position, and as soon as they go to another team, with another system, they are mediocre or fail.

The only other QB that was tried in that system was Bledsoe, who everyone agrees could not manage the game well. You don't think any other QB could be plugged into that thing over those four years and not accomplish the same thing? Or be just as effective? How many times has Brady been asked to carry his team? The defense, or Vinitieri, or Walt Coleman bails him out almost every time. Look, is he a good QB? Absolutely. But is he as great as you think he is? I don't believe so.

What did they expect to find? Karl is a master of Washington DC trash-can and garage espionage. Only in his case it’s done under cover of darkness and/or chloroform. The Master of political black ops would never be careless enough to leave anything important in his own cans or garage. "The absence of evidence is evidence." This story has legs.

More importantly, can I still eat turkey? The answer lies within

If Peyton Manning wins one or two Superbowls, everyone will remember Brady as a product of a good system. Especially if they don't win another one without Charlie Weis. He's a system QB, that makes good decisions within a system. When the talent level dropped around him, witness Sunday vs. Denver, he looked very amateur. They were only in that game at the end because Shannahan sat on a 25 point lead for two quarters. Flame away Patriot fan a-holes.

99% turnout, ALL voting "yes"?

Vote rigging, you say? Well, Karl Rove and Scooter Libby have alibis...you know, the whole Grand Jury thingy. Where was Andy "WHIG" Card, though?

Paine Stewart?

I have some antigenic drift/shift questions wrt influenza vaccine development, if you don't mind. How much change in the individual envelope components is necessary for an evasion of recognition? Basically, do minor changes in the protein secondary structure result in major problems for antigen recognition? How predictive are the models as far as measuring the rate of antigenic drift? Is there a known frequency for the point mutations that lead to antigenic drift in influenza, and are there biases towards certain envelope component combinations? Lastly, , how much of the above is taken into account when designing the vaccine, if any?

To be completely fair, I am a bacteriologist, not a virologist. However, the basic hurdles for getting something safely into humans are roughly the same for antibiotics or vaccines. As far as safety is concerned, you just can’t mass-manufacture something overnight and start injecting it into humans, no matter how “fast-tracked” that something is. Unlike antibiotics or some antivirals which act directly on the organism/virus, a vaccine is designed to produce an immune response and recognition mechanism so that the second time an individual “sees” this object again it can eliminate it before it can do considerable damage. That can compound the safety/effectiveness issue for a vaccine. The hurdles are how much should be administered to get the appropriate primary response, yet also achieve immunologic memory, ie the ability to quickly recognize the foreign object. A memory response can take several days for the body to ramp up its mechanisms to combat an infection. In the case of the influenza virus, it has such a rapid incubation period that symptoms are already apparent before the body can muster a defense. Therefore, you need to have the primary response already in place, via an adequate number (serum level or titer) of antibodies. A second problem is the viral surface variability. The vaccine could ultimately be useless if the primary immune response and immunologic memory are generated for the H5N1 (the components of the viral envelope) surface, but a mutation changes the makeup of the envelop proteins. You will probably hear the words “antigenic shift” in the news. All this means is that a mutation occurred and the proteins of the viral envelope that the body recognizes have changed, causing problems with the recognition aspect of the immune response. Clearly there are people infinitely more qualified than me in the virology field who could probably do a better job of relaying this information. But I will do my best to explain in simpler terms any information that I come across on this subject…dude.

To be fair, I made a post last week asking what it was that he did that was so great (other than be the QB of note for the W). But, a win is a win. Would I rather see a win AND see JP develop on the field? Hell yeah. But, if this is the way the team is going to go, who the hell am I to B word about it?

The games most knowledgable fans AND cardiologists...is there nothing Pats fans can't do?

Tomorrow you're homeless...tonight it's a blast!

Great post, Nick. I agree 100%. I would have preferred to see JP at the helm, and agree we may be sacrificing next year for good times this year. But, a win is a win, and they're tied for first in the division 6 games in. I still think this team is capable of going 4-4, bye week, 6-2, playoffs, despite who is the QB.

Not in the US they haven't. The WHO suggested years ago that nations stockpile enough anti-virals to administer them to at least 25% of their populations. While many European nations have already met that goal, the US has barely enough for 2% of the population. CIDRAP: Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy Vaccine Status The vaccine, while being tested, has some hurdles associated with it. One is the size of the dose needed to produce an adequate immune response. Have a nice day.

Here's to alphabetical order!

Tell that to the Repub Senators and Reps that are up for reelection next year. At the rate his popularity is dropping, he'll be stumping for them with single digit approval ratings.

That's why they have mods, man. "I raped Towanna Brawley" It's got everything...a total package. Insulting, degrading, relevant pop culture reference, irony. It's shocking at first, but then you can't help but smile at the boldness of it.