It started last week with Rex Ryan throwing a jab at Tom Brady when the Jets were preparing for the Colts.  Further fuel was added to the fire this week as more comments were made by Ryan.  Then yesterday it seemed like hell broke loose when Antonio Cromartie decided to call Tom Brady an ‘asshole’ and further stated ‘fuck him’.  Look it’s clear these teams don’t like each other nor should they.  They should despise each other because of their history and because of the fact that they are division rivals.  But why do the Jets want to do this?  Haven’t they learned from the past?

F​reddie Mitchell tried similar tactics before the Superbowl.  He called out Rodney Harrison and said he “didn’t know the the numbers of the cornerbacks”.  What happened?  The Patriots held him to 1 catch for 11 yards.  He became non-existent during the game.  After the game Belichick had this to say about Mitchell:

“All he does is talk. He’s terrible, and you can print that. I was happy when he was in the game.”

Now where is he?  He’s on the Millionaire Matchmaker TV show, that’s where.

Anthony Smith had similar bravado before the Steelers played the Patriots in the 2007 season.  If you remember correctly, he guaranteed victory.  You know what Tom Brady did?  Ian O’Conner laid it out pretty well in an article this morning on ESPN:

Brady threw for only 399 yards and four touchdowns, including two long ones at Smith’s expense, in a 34-13 victory over the Steelers that inspired Bill Belichick, of all people, to pile on. “We’ve played against a lot better safeties than [Smith],” Belichick said.

So what does this all mean?  Well it’s simple, according to Rich Cimini’s article:

Football 101: You don’t challenge Belichick, and you don’t insult Brady, one of the greatest coach-quarterback tandems in history. More often than not, they will turn your loose lips into a fat lip.

W​hy is that?  Well, as much as you want to believe Belichick when he says all this talking doesn’t mean anything and they don’t pay attention to it that’s a flat out lie. Cimini had this great nugget from the past:

In January 1991, a few days before the Giants’ famous upset of the Buffalo Bills in Super Bowl XXV, a Tampa, Fla., newspaper ran a photo of a few Buffalo players at a local jewelry store, getting measured for Super Bowl rings. Privately, the Giants delighted in the Bills’ arrogance.

“That was the defining moment of the week,” Belichick told me years later in an interview. “When we saw that picture, we got that baby and slapped it up on the wall in the meeting room. We just said to ourselves, ‘We got ‘em now. We’re going to get ‘em.’ It was a great confidence builder. Everybody was talking about that picture.”

You can bet that at the meeting on Saturday evening Belichick will be bringing up this stuff.  Listen I​’m not saying the Patriots are going to crush the Jets, hell this is a tough match-up for the Pats.  The Jets are a decent team.  But I’m saying you don’t wake a sleeping giant.  And right now you’re just adding more wood to the fire and getting yourself into a mess of trouble.  This was from an Ian Rapport article today:

”Yeah, I think he’s going to unleash hell on them,” Dilfer responded. ”I do. Early in the week, I felt like the Jets had a chance in this game. I looked for every reason why this thing could be an epic battle. That the Jets could redeem themselves from the 45-3. Then I started to look at more film, and realized the Patriots are just smarter than everyone else.

”And then I look at how they’re handling (the trash talk), and yeah, I do think it festers in a good way,” he went on. ”They have the ability to use all this stuff, and hold it inside, and use it to their advantage come game time. I don’t see how this strategy works against the Patriots that the Jets are using. I can see it working against somebody else. I just can’t see it working against the Patriots. I think Tom already with a razor sharp focus, finds even another level to his focus and his preparation. I can just see him playing one of those flawless football games.”

‘Unleash Hell’ #12, unleash hell.

Eric Wilbur, while not picking the Pats to go 14-2, had some interesting things to say in his prediction piece:

In the same vein, thats why offensively this team will be fine despite a nonexistent running game. Off-field contract boredom aside, Brady and Co. will motor, just so long as Julian Edelman and Brandon Tate can emerge as solid No. 3 guys. The Pats may even employ a tight end in the passing game this season. Imagine.

But that afternoon in January is why the Patriots will win the AFC East. That HBO bravado, the doubts that linger, and the general sense of disbelief is why they are primed to tell the world, “Told ya so.” Talent is one thing. But where the Patriots may come up short in that category, there remains a rather large chip. And if anyone can get his players - lacking in veteran leadership or not - to use that chip to the best of their advantage, its Belichick.

Sleep on them if you prefer. That seems to always be when they awaken.

Jets
@ Bears
Packers
@ Bills
Dolphins

Every single one of those games will be meaningful for a team that would like to have a bye and would like to play at home.

Belichick loves to let players know that the real season begins after Thanksgiving. Well folks, the real season is beginning and the Patriots have a lot of work to do…

Back to the Patriots game though. Awful. Abysmal. Atrocious. Three words that pretty much sum up the Patriots efforts yesterday against the lackluster, yet up-and-coming Browns. The Patriots were handled on every single facet of the game. Special Teams, Defense, and Offense.

The special teams couldn’t figure our a way to handle the ‘wussy’ kickoff. The defense couldn’t stop the run nor handle a rookie quarterback on the run. The offense couldn’t get any sort of rhythm going. Tom Brady looked below average, while Colt McCoy looked like a probowl quarterback.

Hats off to ManGina and the rest of the coaching staff including Rex Ryans less-evil twin. They put together a terrific game plan and executed it perfectly.

There’s nothing good that came out of this game. As a Pats fan you can only hope that they learn A LOT from this awful loss. On the plus side at least I’m not a Cowboys fan. Ouch.

By the way, the Browns gave out a Gatorade bath. How lame is that? Your third win of the season and you are giving out a Gatorade bath. This was the Browns Superbowl ladies and gentlemen.

Patriots fans should be semi-glad that the Titans claimed him. Why? Because at the very worst a division rival could have picked him up. That would have led to some interesting yet awful situations for the Patriots in their playoff run. At the very least the Titans may very well help the Patriots in playoff seeding. How?  Well the Titans take on Miami next week and still have the Colts left on their schedule, twice mind you.  So all-in-all it could very well be key if they can take one out of two from the Colts and beat Miami, helping the Patriots tremendously w/ record seeding being an important factor.

On another note, how brilliant of a coach/gm does Belichick look like at this moment in time?   He was able to get rid of a disenchanted Randy Moss & his contract to the Vikings for a third-round pick, which on most accounts he was berated for, but he seemed to know something no one did.  Randy Moss also praised the hell out of the team, the organization, and the head coach in his postgame press-conference last week.  So much so, that it felt like the ex-girlfriend finally realizing how good she had it with her old boyfriend.  Brad Childress on the other-hand, basically tossed the Patriots a third-round pick for four-weeks worth of work and then got slammed by Randy Moss.  Goes to show you how this organization works, eh?

Impressive to say the least.

The C’s took down the Heat last night 88-80.  The final score isn’t indicative of how the game played out, the C’s really dominated the game on all fronts. The Heat though are still a work-in-progress and they will only get better as the season progresses but the C’s were smacking them around last night. The one thing I have to say though is the C’s still showed that second-half paralysis that they along w/ the rest of New England teams showed last season. I’m hoping that’s not going to be the case going forward. The Patriots are slowly putting it past themselves and I’m hoping that’s the case for the C’s.

I walked into a Trader Joe’s two Sundays ago only to get blindsided by a radio broadcast of Game 3 of the Division Series against Atlanta, which played on the store’s public address system. I angrily heard that the Giants were leading 1-0, though thankfully the announcer didn’t say which inning it was. I sprinted out of the store and waited for a half hour in the car as my wife and a friend bought our groceries.

Ugh..  Come on are you serious?

I love my sports too, but seriously dude?  You call yourself a fan cause you DVR games?

Two days earlier, on a Friday night, I had dinner at a restaurant located less than a half-mile from the baseball stadium while Game 2 was wrapping up. Midway through dinner, two older Giants fans who had been at the game walked in and sat the table next to mine. I gave my usual don’t-tell-me speech and they said they would abide. I later found out that when I turned around, they made a thumbs-down motion to my friends, who were kind enough not to blow it for me.

Sports and DVR’s really don’t go together that well.  To tell you the truth a real fan wouldn’t go out to dinner the night of a playoff game.  How about you stop trying to be a dick and actually watch the game live?  Skip work, stream it (MLB.TV the quality and additions make it almost as good if not better than TV), listen to it on the radio, or seriously just stop pretending to be a fan…

Ugh, really don’t have much to say. It was a great game up until the fourth, both teams played their butts off on defense. It was heart-breaking to see the Cs offense flutter in the fourth. I blame that partially on the refs.. They let the players play for three quarters then they decide to gift wrap it for the lakers by putting Boston in the penalty with seven minutes to go. Cs could never get into a partial rhythm..

I’ve got the World Cup and the US Open to drown my sorrows in.. Oh and the Sox are only 2 games back and Manny is in town