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As is my habit, last Sunday I was chugging up a perennial 1.5 incline at the gym while watching the Patriots play the Dolphins. I'm a natural fidgeter, so running, or knitting or painting WWII-era model airplanes while watching television is a necessity. As is not my habit, I watched the Patriots get utterly clobbered. Battered and beaten like a bad outtake from the Victor Kiam era. There were no halftime adjustments, no one rising to the occasion, no one coming off the bench to lift a sinking ship. This was the first five minutes of Rocky IV and nothing else. Put baldly, this was nothing like what we'd come to expect from the Patriots in the last five years. Although, expect might be too soft a word, really. Judging by the reaction from both the media and the fans, myself included, entitled might be a better word. It was December dammit. Screw the eleven or so players on IR. Forget Jason Taylor slicing through the line like a Henkel through soft brie. Don't tell me about Filene's basement wideouts and tight ends with goose greased hands. It's December, four weeks till the playoffs and the Patriots should be revving up like an '86 Iroc Z at a Federal Hill stoplight. It's evolutionary, it's expected, it's inevitable. Right?

One thing that used to make the Yankee fans so easy to hate, prior to the Sox upping the payroll to match Guam's GDP, was their smarmy sense of entitlement. There was nothing worse than the simple shrugging off a series sweep in May because they knew it would be the other way around come September. After my self imposed 48 hour cooling off period, it strikes me that Pat's fans have been cozying up to that characteristic for awhile now. We had it nicely wrapped around our fleshy necks each winter like a Burberry scarf and probably even adopted a posh accent to match our expectations. In the process simply having a good, competitive team to watch come Sunday had become less enjoyable and more of a burden. They couldn't just win, they had to dominate. They couldn't squeak by opponents, but had to graciously and creatively annihilate them. In 2001 Sundays were giddy fun. My god the Patriots, pinch me, the Patriots were rising to the top of the NFL, even a Chris Berman narrated highlight was a sweet symphony.

In late 2006, Sundays bring nervous anxiety and the dull ache of those dominating, rose-tinted memories. There is now the dawning realization that the Patriots have slid firmly back to the pack. Maybe there will also be the realization that we should appreciate what we've got. Back in the late eighties, getting firmly put in our place twice a year by Miami was New England's birthright and four or five wins was considered a success. So the fact that this team is now talented, but flawed, like just about everyone else in the NFL, is a bit disheartening, sure, but four or five losses should still be appreciated. Unless it's to Houston, then all bets are off!

Labels: football, mike d

According to local Boston news, it appears as if Tom Brady is now a single man. Ridiculous as it may sound, this is quite newsworthy in Boston after he and his girlfriend of three years, Bridget Moynahan, announced their break up. Now, to be clear, I don't really care about this. And I'm sure that none of you care about this. But I'll tell you who does care about this a whole bunch ... Tom Brady's penis. Can you imagine the miles of whores that thing will be plowing through in the coming months? Oh man, I'd be excited too.

Now I don't know how other cities handle their news coverage. But in the Boston area, if someone who's "kind of a big deal" like Tom Brady so much as takes a liquidy shit, the cameras are out there covering the story. And since this was such a monumental, life-changing event in Prince Brady's life, the station I was watching had a 3 minute, pun-filled expose about it. I'm genuinely surprised it wasn't their leading story.

Normally, the news is an orgy of overly depressing coverage of tragedy after tragedy with a sprinkling of stupidity in between. But last night, they broke out of their normal drudgery with a slew of laser beam sound effects "p-pew-pew" and a backdrop picture of Tom Brady with some snappy (re: dumb) headline. They also traipsed out the token "attractive" female newscaster to tell the story in excruciating detail and visibly get moist at the thought of a night with Tom Brady. So as you can imagine, it was a compelling, well thought out report. It even went on to speculate that maybe Tom's poor play of late was due to heartache. And that when playing Detroit, sources say "Tom was acting funny". Well, there you go. Why is Brady playing poorly? "He's sad." Mystery solved. Of course, not mentioned in the report was the fact that most high school girls field hockey teams have better wide receivers than the Patriots. But, you know, whatever.

And hey, I'm not defending Tom Brady, and I'm especially not defending the Patriots. I mean, if they never win another game again, I would care less. But the complete ridiculousness of this whole thing was mind boggling. I will say that my favorite line of the report was in reference to why Brady and Moynahan broke up. Something along the lines of (and I'm paraphrasing from memory here), "Tom Brady's got three rings, but the ring she wanted ... one with a big diamond ... was not to be."

That, my friends, is journalism at its most awesomeness.

Labels: football, greg

There are a few things in life that give me an instant erection. Obviously, boobies and vajay-jay's come to mind as immediate qualifiers. Also listed under "boner inducing" would be the Yankees winning the World Series, Michigan winning a national title, the Bears winning the Super Bowl and the Celtics or Bruins winning more than 9 games. Of course, also on the list (but more towards the bottom) would be Monica Seles eating skittles, prostitutes playing RC Pro-AM and brisk Fall breezes (it's a long list). But, what would really throw the front of my sweatpants into a whirlwind of chaos would be scoring Bears tickets for Sunday's game against the Patriots at Foxboro Stadium. So by that logic (and this is about to get awkward), I have a rather impressive boner right now. Why? Because through complete luck, I was able to get two tickets. So, my friends, I am going to watch the Bears play the Patriots this weekend. Live. Oh glorious, glorious day!

So I figure I'll write about it. Sometime next week, I'll recap my experience. Not to spoil what must be incredible suspense already building, it will probably go something like this. "I got there. I drank beer. I urinated upwards of 30 times. The Bears won." Of course, I'll be sure to sneak in a few genitalia and/or diarrhea joke along the way. I might even take some pictures. Of course, none will be of me, since I like to stay shrouded in a ninja-like cloud of mystery and awesomeness. But it'll be fun. So, you know, Bears stuff. Next week. If you give a rats shit.

By the way, has this ever happened to you? You're sitting on your couch writing a mindless post on your sports-themed blog, eating a delicious snack. Then sometime later, after your snack is finished, you look down at your shirt and see what appears to be a piece of food on it. So you mindlessly pick it up and just put it in your mouth. Then when you start chewing it you realize it tastes nothing like anything you've eaten in the past five years. Do you ever get that "Hmm, I really hope that was food and not pigeon shit I just ate" panic? Yeah, me neither. That totally never happened about 5 minutes ago. I was just making conversation.

Labels: football, greg, NFL