Can't resist a few more lingering thoughts in the continuing aftermath of "Bill-gate,'' perhaps the perfect NFL storm for the cacophony of debate that the 24/7 news cycle generates and thrives on.....
Football Insiders: Check out Stewart Mandel's College Football Overtime.
• If I had been on the Patriots' sideline Sunday night, I might have seen it a different way, but I hated Bill Belichick's call to go for it on fourth-and-two against the Colts. As a player, you get shortsighted when you're involved in the game. On every fourth-and-two in my career I guarantee I was saying, "Give me the ball." And I'm sure the players on that New England sideline were down with the move. That's the nice thing about being a player -- it was never your call. "Blame the coach! I'm just doing what he says." You can get away with being irrational as a player. It ain't your say and it ain't your fault. Maybe Tom Brady liked it, but players aren't in the right frame of mind to make that call.
INDIANAPOLIS -- In Patriots lore, it'll forever be known as "The Call,'' the ultimate example of some Bill Belichick bravado that backfired.
The NFL's 256-game regular season is half gone (actually 50.4 percent, but who's counting?) You know the drill. It's midseason review time...
Though it threatens to become as over-played as the no-respect angle, did you notice how the revenge factor was all the rage in the NFL on Sunday?
ATLANTA -- Musings, observations and the occasional insight as we try to make some sense of Week 6...
Musings, observations and the occasional Week 5 insight as we adjust our TV's vertical hold to handle those hideous brown and mustard-colored vertically-striped socks the Broncos hopefully will put back into the time capsule after their showdown with the Patriots late Sunday afternoon ...
My weekly look at key matchups and storylines to watch in one game at each time slot. (All times Eastern).
NEW YORK (SI.com) -- Patriots running back Fred Taylor underwent surgery Thursday to repair severe ligament damage in his right ankle and could miss the rest of the season, according to the Boston Globe, which cited a league source.
Can't resist a few more lingering thoughts in the continuing aftermath of "Bill-gate,'' perhaps the perfect NFL storm for the cacophony of debate that the 24/7 news cycle generates and thrives on.....
Football Insiders: Check out Stewart Mandel's College Football Overtime.
• If I had been on the Patriots' sideline Sunday night, I might have seen it a different way, but I hated Bill Belichick's call to go for it on fourth-and-two against the Colts. As a player, you get shortsighted when you're involved in the game. On every fourth-and-two in my career I guarantee I was saying, "Give me the ball." And I'm sure the players on that New England sideline were down with the move. That's the nice thing about being a player -- it was never your call. "Blame the coach! I'm just doing what he says." You can get away with being irrational as a player. It ain't your say and it ain't your fault. Maybe Tom Brady liked it, but players aren't in the right frame of mind to make that call.
INDIANAPOLIS -- In Patriots lore, it'll forever be known as "The Call,'' the ultimate example of some Bill Belichick bravado that backfired.
The NFL's 256-game regular season is half gone (actually 50.4 percent, but who's counting?) You know the drill. It's midseason review time...
Though it threatens to become as over-played as the no-respect angle, did you notice how the revenge factor was all the rage in the NFL on Sunday?
ATLANTA -- Musings, observations and the occasional insight as we try to make some sense of Week 6...
Musings, observations and the occasional Week 5 insight as we adjust our TV's vertical hold to handle those hideous brown and mustard-colored vertically-striped socks the Broncos hopefully will put back into the time capsule after their showdown with the Patriots late Sunday afternoon ...
My weekly look at key matchups and storylines to watch in one game at each time slot. (All times Eastern).
NEW YORK (SI.com) -- Patriots running back Fred Taylor underwent surgery Thursday to repair severe ligament damage in his right ankle and could miss the rest of the season, according to the Boston Globe, which cited a league source.
NEW ORLEANS -- Musings, observations and the occasional insight as we take stock of Week 4 while simultaneously watching the Jets-Saints big-stage duel of undefeateds in a raucous and sold-out Superdome ...
We're just three weeks into the NFL's new season, and it's already starting to distinguish itself mightily from its predecessor, as seems to be the case each and every year in Roger Goodell's 32-team fiefdom.
Throughout the 2009 NFL season, SI.com's Adam Duerson will work with Jerome Bettis to get the six-time Pro Bowl running back's observations about the previous week's games. Bettis retired from the NFL in 2006 after a 13-year career.
The New England Patriots have lost football games under Bill Belichick before, but who can remember the last time they lost their composure?
ARLINGTON, Texas -- Musings, observations and the occasional insight as I find myself darn near hypnotized by the super-sized video boards that Jerry Jones has erected at the spanking new Cowboys Stadium, a.k.a. Jerry's World ...
For a reason that even Tom Brady couldn't fathom, he entered the huddle in Monday night's season-opener against Buffalo down 11 with 5:32 left in the game and, eerily, predicted the future.
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) -- The New England Patriots have trimmed their quarterbacks to two on the depth chart by releasing Andrew Walter on Friday.
Sitting down to write my annual NFL predictions column, I'm reminded of a few things we didn't know about the 2008 season at this time last year. Such as:
The interminable NFL offseason -- 221 days long this year for those of you keeping score at home -- is about to end.
You know the drill by now. It's time to recap some winners and losers from Week 3 of the preseason. While the games don't count, the perceptions sure do.....
SI.com has dispatched writers to report on the 32 NFL training camps across the country. Here's what Ben Reiter had to say about the Patriots' camp in Foxborough, Mass. For an archive of all the camp postcards, click here.
The rest of the league was no doubt looking on, and you have to figure they were thinking roughly the same thing I was thinking Thursday night as I watched the most scrutinized first half of an NFL preseason game in recent memory:
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) -- The New England Patriots have signed second-round draft pick Darius Butler.
The first decade of the 21st century is rapidly coming to a close, and it's been one of the most explosive periods in pro football history -- especially on offense, where it seems new records were set each and every year.
It may have slipped up on us all, but when training camps begin late next month, this decade's final NFL season will be at hand. Could there be a more natural starting point for the debate about which franchise deserves the league's team of the decade designation?
Tom Brady is coming off a season-ending knee injury and returning to a Patriots squad that failed to make the playoffs for the first time in six seasons. Peyton Manning is fully recovered from last off-season's knee surgery and will lead a Colts team that's made the playoffs seven years running but that lost its long-time head coach, offensive coordinator and offensive-line coach. SI.com NFL writers Don Banks, Jim Trotter, John Mullin and Ross Tucker discuss which quarterback is better set up for success in 2009.
You'll find one very predictable thing in common with every top team in my annual Tick Off Half The Football Fans In America Post-Free-Agency, Post-Draft NFL Power Rankings: quarterbacks. The best teams have 'em. The worst teams don't, at least not that we can see yet. Look at the top dozen teams. Every one has a quarterback you wouldn't be shocked to see playing deep into the playoffs this year.
Since the NFL's realignment to eight four-team divisions in 2002, the league's 12-team postseason has averaged slightly more than six new entries per year (6.4 to be exact, see table). That means we have come to count on at least half the NFL playoff field rolling over most every season, making for the annual guessing game of who's in and who's out when it comes to next January's Super Bowl tournament.
KANSAS CITY -- Busy night. Very busy night, as the Lions and agents for Matthew Stafford moved closer to a deal to make the Georgia quarterback the first pick in Saturday's NFL's draft.
Musings, observations and the occasional insight as we tip-toe through a Friday the 13th in the NFL offseason...
The New England Patriots have traded quarterback Matt Cassel and linebacker Mike Vrabel to Kansas City for the Chiefs' second-round pick in the 2009 draft, SI.com has learned.
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) -- Running back Fred Taylor signed with the New England Patriots on Friday after spending 11 seasons with Jacksonville.
Is Matt Cassel a one-year wonder or the next great quarterback?
Stop me if you've heard this one before, but the New England Patriots could be in trouble. At least that was the conventional wisdom circulating around the league last week, with some speculating that we had just witnessed the eve of destruction for this decade's only NFL dynasty.
It's tempting to just toast David Tyree for his remarkable catch one last time and call it a year. But unlike his ball-pinned-against-his-helmet grab in last February's Super Bowl upset for the ages, that's too easy, at least for my taste.
Five years ago, Julia Chuslo, an accomplished architect and mother of three lacrosse players, was designing her family's new house in Duxbury, Mass., a coastal suburb 35 miles south of Boston.
We've got miles and miles to go until we get there, but after watching Week 10's results, I'm already starting to wonder if there's a Super Bowl rematch in the cards next February? Only this time, in an ironic turn of events, the Matt Cassel-led Patriots would be the heavy underdogs, and the steamrolling Giants the prohibitive favorite.
Breaking down Sunday's New England Patriots at Indianapolis Colts game (8:15 p.m., Eastern, NBC) ...
MONTCLAIR, N.J. -- I have been voting at the Montclair First Ward District 3 polling place for 17 years. Even with presidential elections, we never had a line longer than two or three people. This morning, at 6:48, there was a line of 36 citizens in front of us, many of them New York commuters. One of the poll workers said the normal turnout in this 1,000-voter district for a presidential election was 500 or 600, and she expected "close to 1,000'' today. It took 31 minutes to get through the line, get into the voting booth and make my choice -- time very well spent.
Look at Sunday's big winners and tell me what they have in common.
Five things we learned from the Colts' 18-15 conquest of the Patriots Sunday night at Lucas Oil Stadium.....
Heading into the NFL's Week 7, we hold these truths to be self-evident:
The calendar says it's Patriots-Chargers week, but of course this isn't the same game we had circled since the moment the NFL schedule came out in April. There's no Tom Brady for New England. There's no Shawne Merriman or even a healthy LaDainian Tomlinson for San Diego. And there's no first-place standing for either AFC perennial power. The Chargers are trailing the 4-1 Broncos in the AFC West, and the Patriots are chasing the surprising 4-1 Bills in the AFC East.
Breaking down Sunday's New England Patriots at San Diego Chargers game (8:15 p.m., Eastern, NBC) ...
No matter how long you stare at them, the AFC standings after three weeks just look a bit off kilter, don't they? Not upside down per se, but refreshingly out of order, and jumbled to the point where our customary quick glance can't take it all in.
Musings, observations and the occasional insight as we take in the Keystone State's smash-mouth showdown between the Steelers and Eagles at The Linc ...
Musings, observations and the occasional insight as we behold maybe the grittiest, guttiest Colts comeback victory in the entire 11-year points-apalooza that has been the Peyton Manning era, that 18-15 slugging match with the shellshocked Vikings....
New quarterback, same result for New England. The Pats punished the Jets with a familiar cocktail of special teams and defense, and any New England QB from Steve Grogan to Tony Eason to Scott Zolak could have steered the offense in their 19-10 win on Sunday.
OK, let me get this straight now. How many enemies did I make this week with my Power Rankings? Cardinals fans hate me for ranking them lower than Miami. Steelers fans hate me for placing them two notches below the Patriots, who, if you haven't heard, are having QB identity problems. Giant fans hate me on general principles (how about normal sized fans?).
We've heard lots already about the remarkable similarities between the situation that fate has thrust Patriots quarterback Matt Cassel into this season and the one that launched Tom Brady on his way to a Hall of Fame career back in September 2001. But what tends to get overlooked in those will-lightning-strike-twice comparisons is a rather sizable advantage belonging to Cassel that Brady did not enjoy: He has Tom Brady to lean on and learn from.
Who are the winners and losers now that New England quarterback Tom Brady is out for the season with a left knee injury? We thought you'd never ask....
After an exhaustive sampling of data that stretched throughout one week of the NFL's regular season -- and that was even before the Monday night games were completed -- the pronouncements came fast and furious from the punditry class:
The Patriots are at the center of the NFL universe again, for lots of reasons. Five questions, one very insightful E-mail from a Central Michigan Chippewa, five answers:
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. -- Musings, observations and the occasional insight as we were witnessing the winning, but at times sloppy beginning of the Jets' Brett Favre era.
Peering into my Roger Goodell-autographed crystal ball -- it's actually more oblong-shaped -- just hours before the NFL kicks off its regular season with the Redskins-Giants showdown at the Meadowlands, here are 10 things I foresee unfolding this year.....
Musings, observations and the occasional insight as we count down the hours until the NFL's regular-season opening kickoff on Thursday night in Giants Stadium.....
There are exactly 267 games that matter in an NFL season, and it's always a guessing game to predict the winners and losers. But when I searched for my projected Super Bowl matchup after six weeks of watching, listening and learning this preseason, I kept coming back to two teams that have what I consider the key factor in any Super Bowl run: Motivation that borders on an obsession.
The Patriots haven't won a game since mid-January, Tom Brady has yet to play this preseason, and things are getting a little tense for the Team That Previously Could Not Lose. Making matters worse, New England just got embarrassed at Tampa Bay, on the very field it hopes to be playing on in February's Super Bowl.
We were just looking back at last season, lost in lazy reverie of days gone by and dreaming of the golden days of the gridiron ahead this autumn, when we stopped briefly to ponder the historical dominance of the 2007 Patriots.
Bill Belichick's legacy cracked apart last year like the lobster claws at a Gillette Stadium tailgate.
SI.com has dispatched 10 writers to report on the 32 NFL training camps across the country. For the complete schedule of postcards, click here.
His summer fun in the sun vacation to Key West, Fla., over, A.J. Smith went back to work Tuesday morning, beginning the long, slow push of the rock back up the hill that the NFL season requires. And while I can't be 100 percent certain of it, I'm willing to bet the first thoughts that ran through his head once the Chargers general manager hit the lights in his office were mere echoes of the ones he's been having for most of the past two years now:
Spending eight years in the Oakland Raiders organization was a real education -- in every area. You learned what to do and what not to do. Both lessons are vital as you craft your football knowledge. One of the most valuable things I learned was the art of game management. Game management is a term used to describe the effect each play call -- both offensively and defensively -- has on the eventual outcome of the game. It's not as basic as deciding whether to go for it on fourth down or the right time to go for a two-point conversion; it's much deeper and much more analytical. Let me offer a few examples, both positive and negative.
HAMILTON, N.Y. -- Notes on Spygate and lessons from a scandal, on a damp, graduation weekend at Colgate University:
Former Patriots video assistant Matt Walsh and I have only one thing in common. We both drew our paychecks for a while from one of the most detail-oriented and successful teams in the NFL, but also a franchise that wasn't afraid to break the rules.
Sen. Arlen Specter on Wednesday called for an independent investigation of the New England Patriots' taping of opposing coaches' signals
Musings, observations and the occasional insight as we endured Matt Walsh Day in the carnival-like fashion we expected in New York. ...
NEW YORK -- So, is it over? Is the nine-month Spygate nightmare finally over?
I've been in Manhattan all day, following the Matt Walsh-Roger Goodell circus, so this column will serve as the top to my weekly mailbag.
The final chapter of the 2008 draft was written when the seventh round closed out this afternoon at Radio City Music Hall. There were a number of surprises, both good and bad, as is the case every April. Here's a look at the biggest steals and reaches from this weekend.
CLEVELAND -- One Monday closer to the draft, and in this morning's issue, here are the headlines:
PALM BEACH, Fla. -- New England owner Robert Kraft, hustling to a meeting this morning at the annual NFL meetings at this mecca of wealth, stopped in his tracks when he saw a former Patriots employee off the lobby of The Breakers hotel. Kraft stuck out his hand and warmly shook Thomas Dimitroff's.
Forty seconds. Not much time. Barely longer than the shortest of television commercials that you buzz through with your DVR. Count it off: One, two, three.... You get to 40 in a blink.
Strangely enough, the screaming headline news of Brett Favre's retirement led my thoughts in an unexpected direction: to the lowly Falcons, and some reflection on how different the fate of two franchises might have been had the Packers never wrested Favre away from Atlanta in their memorable February 1992 trade.
INDIANAPOLIS -- I actually saw the scouting combine Sunday afternoon for the first time in my life, and I came away thinking, "Is that all there is?"
Also in this column: • Another loss for the Patriots • Darren McFadden not the top-rated running back? • More NFL news and notes.
INDIANAPOLIS -- Spygate may be the story that never ends in the minds of fans and the media, but I'd say the NFL's Competition Committee is definitively over it. The league's governing body in terms of rules and regulations has been known to debate the most arcane issues for days or even weeks on end. The committee's attempts to define what constitutes illegal contact a few years back wound up just shy of involving forensic science.
Musings, observations and the occasional insight as we count down to the start of the annual meat market that is the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis ...
"As Mike Tyson would say, 'Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.' "
GLENDALE, Ariz. -- That's the thing about perfection: It's so unforgiving. Just ask the previously unbeaten New England Patriots, who realized Sunday night that 18-1 just doesn't have quite the right ring to it.
It feels like an ice age ago that the Patriots took the field at Super Bowl XXXVI as lovable, 14-point underdogs against the Greatest Show on Turf Rams. Their 20-17 victory on Adam Vinatieri's kick as time expired was heartwarming stuff -- unless you were a Rams fan or a partisan of an AFC rival sworn to lasting enmity for the Patriots. But for a fence-sitter, Tom Brady was the grist of beloved lore: a guy who rose from high school backup and sixth-round obscurity to steely champion. His clutch, gritty team-first crew was a refreshing antidote to a flood of me-first showboats.
PHOENIX -- The Giants' Super Bowl win on Sunday night will rightfully take its place among the greatest upsets in NFL history. New York was just the fifth wild-card entry to win a Super Bowl, and the first from the NFC.
Perhaps Monday's headlines summing up Super Bowl XLII said it best, with New York's newspapers proudly trumpeting what the Giants had achieved and Boston's lamenting what the Patriots had not.
While the scoreboard offers the only mark that really matters, SI.com's Bucky Brooks takes a look at how each team's units performed in Super Bowl XLII.
Musings, observations and the occasional insight from Super Bowl XLII, a game so ugly it was absolutely beautiful. And historic. And dramatic. And everything a New York fan could have dreamed of ...
Tim Rueckert of Liberty, Missouri, has been watching football since he was a child some 30 years ago, but he says never thought he'd see a team go 19 - 0. The New England Patriots have a chance to do just that when they take on the New York Giants in the 2008 Super Bowl Championship.
The New England Patriots and their fans have spent the last few weeks acting as if a victory in Super Bowl XLII is a fait accompli.
PHOENIX -- Musings, observations and the occasional insight as we thankfully close in on Super Bowl XLII ...
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Quarterback Tom Brady was having a tough afternoon. Through three quarters of the AFC Championship Game on Jan. 20, he had thrown more interceptions (three) than touchdowns (two) and the Patriots were struggling to separate themselves from the hobbled (but determined) Chargers. Needing a spark, New England did just what you would expect: It turned to a running back whose toughness and maturity were questioned late in the season when anonymous teammates left diapers in front of his locker.
The 1972 Miami Dolphins held a half-hour conference call last week; and for the first 25 minutes, they were about as boring as they could possibly be. They praised Bill Belichick. They hailed Tom Brady. They talked about the benefits of playing one game at a time. As they went on, they started to sound a little like the New England Patriots.
Here on Thursday, the interviewing ended. Put another way, the New England Patriots were allowed to stop talking and the New York Giants were forced to do likewise. This is literally true; 15 minutes after his last interview session was to have ended, the Giants' Michael Strahan at last rose from his microphone and was nudged away from his inquisitors (audience might be a more appropriate description) back to the team's inner sanctum. He was still talking over his shoulder as he disappeared behind a curtain, his voice trailing off like the closing chords of a song fading into the air but never really ending, as if big No. 92 is still talking somewhere, right at this minute.
GLENDALE, Ariz. -- Got a confession to make here in the desert: I love listening to Randy Moss talk. I have since the day the Vikings drafted him in 1998, when I first heard his trademark West Virginia drawl over a scratchy speaker phone in the Vikings press room.
I have a chance to settle an old score, right an old wrong, find peace in my old age and apologize, in sideways fashion, to those whom I wronged so many years ago.
With all due respect to my friend and colleague Paul Zimmerman, the esteemed Dr. Z., the psychic guilt of having not picked Joe Namath and the Jets to beat the Colts in the Super Bowl 39 years ago is no reason to compound one's mistake by predicting a Giants upset of the Patriots in next week's Super Bowl, as he did for both SI.com and Sports Illustrated earlier this week.
There's a saying that big-time players perform best in big-time games. While that may be true in theory, the reality is that relative unknowns also have stepped up in big games and turned in memorable performances. One need only look to the Super Bowl for confirmation.
PHOENIX -- Musings, observations and the occasional insight as the circus known as Super Bowl XLII cranks to life ...
SI.com's Don Banks talked to a veteran NFC insider about the Patriots-Giants Super Bowl matchup.
SI.com's Don Banks talked to a veteran AFC insider about the Patriots-Giants Super Bowl matchup.
In the Super Bowl XLII matchup between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots, there is one overriding truth: Patriots quarterback Tom Brady must go down, and he must go down hard.
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