MattM

What I'm saying is simply that people here are crucifying our offense for not performing well during preseason. However, if you look at the defenses played, most of them are elite D's and not simply average D's. Many thanks to the poster above who did the research on this which bears out my original thought even more. The Pats* have, IMHO, an average D, particularly after losing Seymour. Beyond Wilfork, Warren (banged up this preseason), Thomas (a bit of a disappointment and 32 years old, but HGH is a helluva drug) and Mayo (overrated, but still a good player), I'm not really impressed by anyone else on that D. That said, they still have Belicheat as a coach, so they shouldn't be discounted too heavily. In years past it's almost as if the Pats* have had someone on our staff feeding them our game plan (which wouldn't shock me one bit if we find that to have actually had a mole sometime in future years considering what else those guys have done and been accused of). In terms of last year's games and not taking advantage of their DB's shouldn't we give our O a bit of a pass (pun intended) for the hurricane-force winds game?

That 2006 opener was also the game that the refs robbed us blind. If we get that same crew or another similar "Bob Kraft special", you can kiss this game goodbye before it starts.....

If we do beat your team on Monday night, do you promise never to come back?

In the immortal words of "Tonto", "What's the "we" stuff, kemosabe?"..... That aside, let's see, they had one possession against the Titans, moving the ball well until a bad throw by Edwards for a pick and then against Chicago, again they moved the ball well, but didn't get it in the end zone. That's the first team O, of course. They didn't play vs. Detroit and then got stoned against the Steelers and Pack. That about sums it up. Not great results, obviously--pretty crappy, really--but the sample size is also relatively small, in particular the sample size against more average D's, which is what I suspect the Pats* will have this year, particularly without Seymour. Good thing they have Brady/Moss to cover that up, but I still suspect that against better/elite teams that's not going to be enough this year to give them W's. If something should happen to any of Brady, Moss or Wilfork, that team is done, IMHO, and will be lucky to finish with 9 wins, but that's just me. I've been wrong about them before and may be again, we'll see.....

Especially on O. The Steelers and Titans D's just bashed each other last night--a great game, but a defensive game nonetheless. Those looked like two of the top D's in the League. Add in GB, who looked dominant in pre-season at least (enough that I took them in my fantasy league). Our O looked decent against more average D's like Chicago and Detroit. New England's talent level on D, particularly after the Seymour trade, is nowhere near that of the Titans or Steelers, IMHO, but they do have Belicheat as coach. Dare I say it, but Monday night may not be quite the blowout folks think. Not saying we win, but do think we'll show better than we did in August.....

Wouldn't they have had to guarantee his salary then? From the article it sounds like the game is to wait until after Week 1's games have been played because you don't have to guarantee salaries of anyone not on the team at that point. So if correct, and Walker was still on the team, the Bills would be on the hook for his salary even if they cut him if I'm following this correctly.....

I'd put the line at closer to 13-14, but that said, I think we all need to remember that there's a reason they play these games. The loss of Seymour takes their D down a few notches and our D is a better than average one, IMHO, especially if Maybin and Schobel can get some pressure. If Brady has an off night, or isn't fully recovered, then I think our D helps us keep this close and it's up to the to this point lifeless O to put some points up, ideally with some help from ST, where we do excel. That said, I can see why the spread is as high as it is easily. I'll just end by saying what I usually say before every Pats* game--I just don't want the refs to decide it. Too many times that team* seems to get a little "too lucky" in close games vis-a-vis largesse from the refs. They haven't needed it often against us in the past, but the times they have (the most recent being game 1 of the 2007 season when we got completely jobbed) they seem to get it.....

I think I read elsewhere that the personal matter is an operation on his daughter, so I hope she's alright. Kelsay gets ripped a lot on here (even by me on occasion), but let's keep things in perspective before people start ripping him for taking time off for something that might be a lot more important than football.....

Oh yeah, I forgot to add the obvious--this will weaken New England* this year mightily. Their secondary is suspect, half of their linebackers (if they stay 3-4) are "meh" and now they've gone from having perhaps the best D-line in football (behind maybe the G-Men and Stillers) to only an above average one. I suspect that above average O's may put up 30 points a game on these guys. A couple of breaks on D and ST in such a case and the Pats* will probably lose those games, even with Brady and Co. God help them if Fat Vince* were to ever get injured. Good teams would be putting 40 up on them is my guesstimate in such a case. Too bad we don't have the O to take advantage of this opportunity.....

Interesting move. While no one can predict the future and the future is when winners and losers from this trade will ultimately be determined, on balance I'd say this is a good move for the Pats*. They couldn't have afforded Wilfork and Seymour and the ton of other folks whose contracts expire after this season, including Mankins. Something like a third of their roster's contracts are up after 2009, IIRC (that number may change depending on whether 2009 is indeed uncapped and you get the 6 year rule for free agency, but even so they still had Fat Vince, Mankins and Seymour among others). This way they get something for the guy they were going to let walk. The saving grace is that (a) the Raiders may be a team on the rise, believe it or not, with youngsters like Russell, McFadden and Heyward-Bey on O and an always decent D and (b) the Pats* have pretty much sucked at the draft the last few years, even with Pioli and Dimitroff, both of whom are now gone. This week's cuts further confirmed that last part, as a number of former high to mid-level draft picks have been released or IR-ed (Crable and O'Connell, two 2008 third rounders come immediately to mind, as does Dave Thomas, who was also a 3 and who they got a bag of balls for this week). Still, it's hard for someone of Belicheat's stature to screw up the first round. All I can say is "GO RAIDERS!"......

The problem is that the big market owners (which also includes guys who bought recent expansion teams like the Texans and Browns since they paid such a high price for them) who think like Jones does (like Kraft, Snyder, Lurie, McNair, etc.) seem to have been the ones who chose Goodell and who have his ear. He knows where his bread is buttered and I strongly suspect who he'll side with here, to the detriment of teams like Buffalo, Jacksonville, Minnesota, New Orleans, etc.....

None did, but their second round pick Chung (who Pats* fans are talking up on their boards, or at least "were" talking up on their boards) looked pretty bad in coverage, getting burned for at least two of those TDs. Chung, as you may recall, was Byrd's secondary-mate at Oregon.....

After watching him get absolutely burned by Chris Cooley Friday night, I suspect he was told he'd be cut and given the chance to go out on his own terms before that. The Pats* are arseholes, but even they would probably give him that at least.....

Since RTS service was canceled in 2008 due to Laidlaw's lawsuit, does anyone know if anyone else is running buses to the games from Rochester this season? My dad has put me on the case to find out for him, since he hates driving to the games.....

I just finished watching the first half on NFL Network and recall seeing us send more than our 4 linemen only twice. Once was the sack when Corner blitzed and one other time when we got pressure but not the sack. I suspect they'll be a little less vanilla when the season starts. On the other hand, was it just me or did the Steelers seem to blitz a bit more than we did? Not an excuse, but just what it seemed like to me. Something else I noticed in getting ready for my fantasy draft tonight is that the 4 D's we've played so far are all in the top 12 according to my fantasy service. Pitt's No. 1, and GB, Tenn and Chicago were 10-12 respectively. As this list was from late July, I strongly suspect that GB is now up at around 4 or 5 after shutting us and Cleveland out and holding the AZ starters to 10 points. Not an excuse, but something to be considered in all the recent criticism. If you boil it down, our 1st team O has gone a little over one full game of time, scored 3 points, given up 5 turnovers and gained about 300 yards total against on average a number 5 or 6 defense and without our best offensive player for almost all of that span. Again, not an excuse (I'm still worried about the O and TE's lack of confidence), but those are all just facts to be considered before people jump off bridges here. My concern is that it all becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in terms of our O (and QB) getting its confidence shot, thereby having an even worse effect on our team.....

The whole "leaving the field early" thing that game was just weird. You can clearly see an NFL official (not a ref, but someone from the League office) going over to him telling him the game wasn't over as he trotted off the field, but he didn't care. He'd rather leave early and look like the a-hole that he is than have half a billion people watch him crying on national TV is my guess.....

Don't be so sure--I recall reading a quote this week from Brady saying they were treating this one like a real game, meaning film study and the whole nine yards. The Pats* seemed to play a lot of their starters well into the third. Their 1st team D-line was going against the Skins 2nd stringers in the third quarter. That said, they also seemed to blend in more second stringers in the second quarter as well. Maybe that's Belicheat's master plan this year--platooning his way to victory (along with the cheating).....

I recently read somewhere (here?) an article that laid out how many yards a pass traveled in the air last year versus YAC for each of the NFL's starting QBs. Guess what? Our buddy Matty boy there was second to last in yards actually thrown (FWIW, TE was 18th). Didn't surprise me in the slightest--he can't hit the broad side of a barn more than 15 yards out and a lot of "his" yards were YAC. Combine that to throwing to two Pro Bowl wideouts behind one of the better O-lines in the League and it looks to me like the Chiefs got major-league fleeced.....

Except maybe that floater pick he had. Looked like he didn't get too much into that throw......

Many thanks, John--as always, it's very much appreciated when you keep us up to speed with what's going on, especially with regard to stuff like injuries.....

That's a fair answer, IMHO.....

At the cost of needing to win so badly that cheating becomes part of his SOP? No thanks.....

I'm glad--I hope they really suck this year. I've hated them ever since my dad and I went out West to Denver to see the Bills-Broncos game earlier this decade. Their fans were just downright arrogant and obnoxious. We've traveled to a bunch of other places since then and they remain by far the worst folks we've encountered (although we haven't made it to Foxboro yet).....

Yet it does seem odd that Dungy is in Rochester, doesn't it? Could be a coincidence, of course, but the tailor thing seemed a little weird, too. I mean, who goes and helps their tailor celebrate? Tony must have dropped an awful lot on clothes over the years if that part is true.....

I got to meet Ralph at camp a few years ago and actually thanked him for not moving the team for more money. His reaction? He just laughed and said, "Pish posh [or some such], what am I going to do, sit around my kitchen table and count my money?" He gets a bum rap here by some for being cheap--he's not cheap, he's just smart enough to realize that playing in a small market increasingly makes it more difficult to compete in today's not really capped League. By "not really capped", I mean that the cap has come to have less and less meaning, as it's set high enough to allow large market teams to outspend small market ones, kind of defeating its purpose of a more level playing field. Let Kraft, Jones, Snyder et al have their way, it will be gone altogether and will go the way of MLB, which I haven't cared about personally in years.....