Patriots Break Another Record

I'm back from my two month bye-week and ready to tackle the sports world once again. Yeah, blogging would be a lot easier if work didn't always get in the way.

Anyway, I wanted to start the New Year off on a positive note so I thought I'd direct you to a well written piece that came out shortly after Tom Brady went down with his season ending injury. In this piece, the author boldly predicts the Patriots will still finish the season at 11-5 without Tom Brady. Hey, that was written by me!

What I didn't predict was that they'd go 11-5 with a ton of other key contributors being lost at various times during the season, such as Rodney Harrison, Laurence Maroney (I'm not sure if he counts or not, since he pretty much stinks), Tedy Bruschi, Ellis Hobbs, Richard Seymour, Shawn Crable, Adalius Thomas, Tank Williams, Pierre Woods, Ty Warren, Terrence Wheatley and the list seems to go on forever. It got so bad that during the last game of the year, cornerback Lewis Sander went down with an arm injury and I was actually thinking that he is a vital part to the Patriots defense.

People around here are a tad bit upset that the 11-5 Patriots are heading home while teams like San Diego (8-8) and Arizona (9-7) are hosting first round playoff games by virtue of winning their sucky divisions. Not me. I think what happened to the Patriots was the best case scenario. Look, this team was so depleted that we had to call Junior Seau off the beach to fill a hole at linebacker the last four weeks. And Rosevelt Colvin was out of football until he answered the Belicheatphone. So now the Patriots have the distinction of being the winningest team to not make the playoffs. I almost think Belichick went for this record on purpose.

Back to my point about this being the best case scenario for the Patriots: had the Patriots snuck into the playoffs, I would have given them next to no chance of winning a single game. Winning their last four games in a row (against Seattle, Oakland, Arizona and Buffalo) to get to 11-5 was a nice run but the fact is that the only teams they beat with winning records this year were the Jets, Dolphins and Cardinals. That's not exactly high competition when you consider that they lost to the Chargers, Colts and Steelers. This team just wasn't going to be a factor in January football.

Anyway, there's lots to talk about in the next few weeks as it relates to the Patriots. It looks like their personnel will be raided again this year with the possible defections of Scott Pioli and Josh McDaniels. We also have some interesting stories floating out there about the resurgence of Eric Mangini and Romeo Crennel with new teams (why anyone would want to hire either of these coaches is beyond me). But even with the past defections of Mangini, Crennel and even Charlie Weiss, the story is still the same- in Belichick we trust.

So when it's time to franchise Matt Cassel, make a hard decision on Tom Brady's recovery, decide whether to bring back Rodney Harrison, fix the defense and what sleeper to pick in next year's draft, it comes down to Belichick and Belichick alone.

As a special welcome back bonus, here are my picks for this week's NFL Playoffs. I haven't forgotten that the winning team is in CAPS, have you?

INDIANAPOLIS at San Diego
I just had a really bad thought. What if it comes down to a Colts-Giants Super Bowl. Which Manning do you root against? Think of the hype for that game, plus all of the Manning commercials. I feel sick.

ATLANTA at Arizona
The Patriots absolutely demolished Arizona two weeks ago where the Cardinals looked helpless to do anything but punt the ball away. Look for that trend to continue against a tough Atlanta offense.

BALTIMORE at Miami
Hey, Miami, congratulations on winning the AFC East. Now you get to play one of the toughest defenses in the entire NFL over the last decade.

Philadelphia at MINNESOTA
I guess the Vikings are the only home team I'm picking this weekend. And the only logical reason I can think of is that I really don't trust Donovan McNabb or his mother in big games. And I'm pretty sure that Adrian Peterson is going to rush for 285 yards in the first half.