Schilling Opines On Pats

From Curt Schilling's Blog, "38 Ptiches":

"When anyone talks greatest team ever my first defense is the mid to late 70s Steelers who, it seems, has their entire rosters in the HOF. This team trumps that and any other team I’ve ever seen. In a day and age of TOTAL parity in the NFL, where everyone has to play by the same rules, the Pats have done the unthinkable.

Take ‘camera gate’ and place it where the sun doesn’t shine, using that as a basis for any discussion on why this team is what it is means you’re nothing more than a Bellicheck/Pats/Kraft hater with minimal football knowledge."

Wake-Up Win

Finally. A challenge. Maybe a little too much of a challenge!

Coach Andy Reid and the Eagles devised a brilliant game plan last night that all but de-railed the Patriots' "Greatest Team In The History of The Universe Express." By exploiting the Pats tendency to cover out-bound pass patterns, Philadelphia used inelegantly termed "in-cuts" to pick apart the New England secondary with laser-like accuracy across the middle of the field.

On the other side of the ball, they went with a 3-man front and still managed to get pressure on Brady and coverage on Moss to effectively neutralize that tandem. The beauty of the Pat's multiple option pass attack is that Wes Welker could then catch 13 balls and be the difference in the game. Two Assante Samuel interceptions (one for a TD) didn't hurt either.

Basically, the offense was OK, just kept off the field a lot and denied its hottest weapon. It is a testament to how good this team is that they weathered this adversity and still came out on top, 31-28 and went to 11-0.

Nevertheless, every upcoming opposition coach will now mimic the Eagles approach (if they can) and try to make the Gillette Juggernaut a little shaky.

A Modest Proposal To The NFL

So, how's this for an idea? We allow every other team in the NFL to photograph and/or video-tape every Patriots coach, ball-boy, cheerleader and mascot. Also, Bob Kraft pays for the video equipment out of his Revolution Championship Party Fund (which is way over-funded). No, wait. How about if we just give every opponent the Pats playbook 2 days before a game? Nah, I still think they'd go undefeated. Oh, well.

By the way, the Pats had another scrimmage on Sunday night, defeating the "surging" Bills 56-10 in Mistake II By The Lake. This wasn't even interesting on a "rout" level, as Al Michaels and John Madden started vamping in the second quarter.

What can you say? Brady passed for 5 TDs and 373 yards; Randy Moss caught 4 of those scoring passes from Brady; and they are now 10-0.

Come on, someone offer these guys a challenge!

Non-Boring Win #1

Your New England Patriots are undefeated all right—now a stellar 1-0 in non-boring wins. Finally, a team has challenged the Foxboro Express, pushing them to recapture the old Fourth Quarter Comeback mojo. The Pats stared a 20-10 deficit straight in the eyes with less than 10 minutes to play and reeled off a patented 2 TD blitz (the final one in only 3 plays) to snare a 24-20 win over previously un-beaten Indy.

Peyton Manning sealed the victory as he coughed up the ball via a Jarvis Green/Rossevelt Colvin strip/recovery late. The win was iced with a clutch third-down pass to Wes Welker (the Pat's un-sung MVP of the season so far), which led to a rare three-knee ending to it all.

The only downsides were the inability of the offensive line to protect Brady well enough from the quick Colts pass rush and the poor tackling that led to a end-of-half 70-yard plus romp by Joesph Addai.

Randy Moss was again huge, along with other newcomers Stallworth and Welker, as the Pats moved to 9-0 on the Magical Dolphin De-Throwning Tour. Oh yeah, and Brady had 3 more TD passes (33) to add to his legendary year. Next up, the bye week and the surprisingly mediocre (meaning better than we all thought) Bills.

Rare Belichick Interview

The typical DEFCON 5 media lock-down we're used to in New England was somehow broken by Chicago Tribune columnist Dan Pompei, as he offers up an in-depth interview with Coach B. You can read the entire interview here.

"Run-Up" To Super Bowl Lite

Just a warning to the reader: I may plan on running-up the word total on this article above the normal 350 or so. You want to stop me? Log off!

The New England Patriots once again exposed the inferiority of the NFC by walloping the Washington (formerly Boston) Redskins 52-7. The unbeaten Pats (8-0) now prepare for Sunday's regular season Super Bowl against the mighty Colts in the Air Bubble in Indy. The Pats are actually favored in this game, which could determine the site of the AFC Championship game.

Tom Brady ran his touchdown pass total to an astounding 30, and, for good measure, ran for two more to make this a laugher almost from the opening gun. And, this is from the 5th best defense in the NFL!

Again, we need some real opponents here to get interested! OK, Peyton, think you can deliver an interesting challenge? We'll see.