It's not the size, it's how you use it and other thoughts

Get yer minds out of the gutter. I'm talking about Wes Welker, the Slot Machine.

Yes, I know that's what the announcers were calling him, but it fits.

Welker, with all due respect to Randy Moss, has been the Patriots best receiver over the past two seasons. Sure, Welker's the slot receiver, and yes, Moss has been the go to guy in the red zone, but Welker is the team's number one guy.

Over two seasons Welker has already far exceeded any other receiver's two season total of receptions with the 208 he's had since joining the team. Last season he set a new team record with 112. Through 13 games Welker, who has become Cassel's safety blanket, has 96, and is averaging 7.4 receptions per game, which puts him on a pace of 118 for the season. Welker is also on pace to finish with 1233 yards for the season after logging 1175 last year.

He is the guy that makes the offense work right now and possibly the toughest guy on the field.

...

The news that Tedy Bruschi is heading to the IR is not reassuring given the number of injuries on that side of the ball. Yes, Seau looked rusty, but I expected that given only one day of practice. Hopefully he's up to speed for the Raiders game. The flip side on Seau - what if the Pats hadn't signed him?

Given the news regarding Bruschi, I'm guessing we're going to hear about some other roster move to bolster the defense.

If Vince Wilfork is lost for any significant amount of time, that's a problem.

The secondary has already been exposed due to a lackluster pass rush. The last thing the DB's need is a weakened D line.

Before anybody whines about Asante Samuel - he would be just as exposed in this defense. Samuel, for all his reputation, was not significantly better than Ellis Hobbs last season (he did have a career year in regards to interceptions, but that's the only place) according to STATS, Inc. Samuel, this year, in a defense that was not getting to the QB the way the Pats were last year, has only three interceptions. A good line makes a pro-bowl defensive back. It doesn't work the other way around.

Yes, the Pats secondary has struggled this season, but that's in large part because the team has had trouble applying pressure to the quarterback. And before anyone argues that with me, think back to all of Ty Law's INT's of Peyton Manning - every time Manning has been flushed out of the pocket and was facing hits from the likes of Jarvis Green and Richard Seymour or Mike Vrabel.

It is the area in most need of being addressed by the Patriots whose defense has often looked more like the 2002 edition than any of the other editions since the Super Bowl in 2001.

Thoughts and observations at the end of a season

The Patriots took us for one hell of a ride. Eighteen straight before losing in the Super Bowl.

Sure, right now that's a Pyrrhic victory.

But as I have previously noted, this will, one day, be reflected on in the same manner as the Buffalo Bills achievement of making it to four straight Super Bowls.

Now that it is over, however, the Patriots have to look to the future.

Someone out there, probably the Jets, is going to vastly overpay for free-agent corner Asante Samuel's services. There's also a chance that the Jets will pursue free-agent Randall Gay as well, although I can see him potentially taking less money (than he would get from the Jets) to stay with the Patriots due to the potential of an expanding roll with the Patriots with the impending absence of Samuel. A side note - for all the negative that has been said about Ellis Hobbs by New England fans, he actually had a solid year statistically.

First published in the Providence Journal -

According to Stats Inc., an independent sports information and statistical analysis company, opposing teams threw in Hobbs’ direction 106 times this season, ranking him 13th, but Hobbs gave up only four touchdowns. There were 44 defensive backs in the league who gave up more touchdowns than Hobbs.

Receivers caught only 58 passes in those 106 pass attempts (54.7 success rate), which is a low ratio compared to other defenders in the league. Among defensive backs thrown against at least 30 times, 156 of them were less successful than Hobbs...

Rodney Harrison, who is under contract for another year has announced his intention to play at least one more season - meaning that Eugene Wilson is the likely odd man out in the safety rotation.

The fate of Tedy Bruschi and Junior Seau are still in question on the defensive side of the ball, and Rosevelt Colvin is scheduled for a jump in salary.

I wouldn't be surprised to see at least two of the three back in uniform next year, with one of them very likely being Colvin.

On the other side of the ball, the only major change I see is the team terminating their contract with Donte Stallworth. While I have my doubts that Stallworth will wear a Patriot uniform next season, it wouldn't surprise me if he renegotiated his deal.

Texas toast revisited...

I love agent and lawyer speak...it's a lot like marketing speak. It's not a doll...it's an action figure (dolls are for girls). It's not a "used car" any more...it's "certified pre-owned." It's no longer a retirement home, it's "an active seniors community."

By now everyone knows that Roger Clemens agents, the Hendricks Brothers, have put out their little piece of propaganda in an effort to show there was nothing unusual in an athlete getting better in his mid-thirties after three straight years of health issues and declining performance...you know, the time period when no player in the history of any sport got better without the aid of performance enhancing drugs?

Well, here's a little tidbit from the AP report about some statistics guys at the Ivy League's University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School - one of the most renowned business schools in the world had to say about the little report and the Clemens' party reactions -

His agent, Randy Hendricks, responded Sunday to an article by four professors from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School who criticized an 18,000-word statistical report Hendricks Sports Management issued to rebut accusations that the pitcher's career rebounded about the time he is accused by McNamee of using performance-enhancing drugs.

Hendricks' report compared Clemens' performance during the second half of his career to those of Nolan Ryan, Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson.

"By comparing Clemens only to those who were successful in the second act of their careers, rather than to all pitchers who had a similarly successful first act, the report artificially minimizes the chances that Clemens' numbers will seem unusual. Statisticians call this problem selection bias," professors Eric Bradlow, Shane Jensen, Justin Wolfers and Adi Wyner wrote in Sunday's Times.

They compared Clemens' ERA and walks plus-hits-per-inning with those of 31 pitchers since 1968 with 3,000 innings and 10 or more starts in at least 15 seasons.

"The available data on Clemens's career strongly hint that some unusual factors may have been at play in producing his excellent late-career statistics," they said, while adding, "in any analysis of his career statistics, it is impossible to say whether this unusual factor was performance-enhancing drugs."

Hendricks said the criteria used by the professors was flawed, and that they ignored criteria such as Clemens' ERA margin vs. that of the league and strikeouts. Hendricks' report tried to refute any perceived misconceptions that Clemens' career was on the downside when he left Boston after the 1996 season. While the professors claimed Clemens was in decline in his late 20s, Hendricks pointed out Clemens was an All-Star in consecutive years from age 27-29, finished second in Cy Young at age 28, then won it the following year.

"The professors make the mistake of thinking that his career arc should look like the arc of every other pitcher in their selected group," Hendricks said in a statement. "These 'statisticians' are engaging in precisely the kind of insinuation with their words that they say cannot be proven by statistics."

So...the Hendricks want us to believe that his career compares favorably to other pitchers based only on the statistics they chose for the report...not based on what's considered the accepted methodology for any proper academic study. As long as the general public doesn't get to hear about improper methodology like "selection bias" this is something that might work on a handful of people who have been undecided in this whole charade...people who like to be spoon-fed their facts, and don't want to dig a little deeper for the truth. But to anyone that really sits back and looks at some basic facts of the human body and athletics at the highest levels, this just smacks of more desperation.

On a sadder note...

I would like to take a moment to note the passing of Roy Scheider.

Sure, he wasn't an athlete, and wasn't known for taking rolls in sports films like Burt Reynolds in The Longest Yard, or Dennis Quaid in movies like Everybody's All-American and Breaking Away, but he still had his moments - he had a small uncredited part in Paper Lion, the George Plympton bio-pic starring Alan Alda, and of course, for sport-fishermen everywhere, Jaws. Beyond that, I suppose you could make an argument for the movie Marathon Man, in which he plays the brother of Dustin Hoffman who is training for the Olympics.

Scheider was an excellent actor, at the top of his game in the 1970's through to the early 1980's, including a very deserved best actor Oscar nod for his portrayal of Joe Gideon, director Bob Fosse's alter ego, in 1979's All That Jazz.

But the reason I mention him here is this exchange he had while playing Dr. Heywood Floyd with John Lithgow's Walter Curnow in 2010...

Heywood Floyd: I'd love a hot dog.
Walter Curnow: Astrodome. Good hot dogs there.
Heywood Floyd: Astrodome? You can't grow a good hot dog indoors. Yankee Stadium. September. The hot dogs have been boiling since opening day in April. Now that's a hot dog.
Walter Curnow: The yellow mustard or the darker kind?
Heywood Floyd: The darker kind.
Walter Curnow: Very important.

Anyone who spends time at the ballpark gets this.

But, in regards to Scheider, I think it's more appropriate that he be remembered with this exchange from All That Jazz with Angelique, who is symbolic of death...

Joe Gideon: No, nothing I ever do is good enough. Not beautiful enough, it's not funny enough, it's not deep enough, it's not anything enough. Now, when I see a rose, that's perfect. I mean, that's perfect. I want to look up to God and say, "How the hell did you do that? And why the hell can't I do that?"
Angelique: Now that's probably one of your better con lines.
Joe Gideon: Yeah, it is. But that doesn't mean I don't mean it.

It's showtime folks!

Short timers...

With the close of the season, I have been reflecting upon who will and who won't be back in a Patriots uniform next year...some of which I think is dependent on whether or not the Pats win the Super Bowl this year, but this is what I think...

Gone regardless, or unless...

Asante Samuel is not likely to be back for the 2008 campaign. I just can't see the Pats ponying up the money that Samuel will demand.

Eugene Wilson. After a strong first couple of years, Wilson, whether due to injury or some other reason, has backslid in each of the last three seasons, this year losing his starting position to James Sanders. With Rodney Harrison under contract through the 2008 season, and the need to continue the development of Brandon Meriweather, I just don't see the Pats bringing Wilson back.

Dante Stallworth. Stallworth signed a multi-year contract in joining the Patriots, however, with his contract scheduled to count for over $11 million against next season's salary cap, don't expect this to be any more than a one year contract that was more about rebuilding image and reputation around the league than it was about being with New England for the long haul. Unless Stallworth renegotiates that contract, and with Jabar Gaffney often showing up as the third receiver, don't expect to see Stallworth in the red, white, and blue come September.

If they win a ring...

Troy Brown, Tedy Bruschi, Junior Seau - These three players have 45 seasons of NFL experience between the three of them, 29 of those playing with the Patriots. Their last several years have been haunted by injury, limiting their effectiveness. Bruschi and Seau have been healthy this year, however, there have been times that their age has shown.

All that said, if the Pats won it all last season, I think that both Bruschi and Seau would have retired at the end of last season.

Others that I wouldn't rule out leaving once a ring is on their finger...

Rodney Harrison, Kyle Brady - Both of these players are under contract through the end of next season, however they are the two other old-timers on the team with 27 years of experience between the two of them. Harrison and Brady have had a few injury issues of late, and Brady even said when he signed with the Patriots that he was looking for a place where he had a good chance of winning a Super Bowl. I think Harrison hanging them up at the end of this season as unlikely, but it wouldn't surprise me.

There will doubtless be others that will be gone - borderline cases, back-ups, special-teamers - but these are, I believe, the top name candidates for moving on. Randy Moss will be a free-agent at the end of the season, but I have a hunch that he will take a little less to stay somewhere that he is happy, and he knows he's unlikely to find a quarterback like Brady elsewhere unless he goes to Indianapolis.

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

The Patriots won last night.

As a New England fan, that's pretty much the good of it.

I suppose you can throw in the following facts as well - when the chips were down, the Pats came up big while the Ravens made the mistakes that lose you games. Even when the Pats made mistakes, they turned them to an advantage - like a late penalty before the snap that negated a fourth down play that would have given the Ravens the ball back with less than a minute-and-a-half to play. Instead, it was fourth and six, and Tom Brady scrambled for a first down.

Oh...and the forced fumble by Kevin Faulk after Brady was intercepted just before the half was probably worth at least a three point swing in the final score of 27-24.

As for the bad and the ugly...well, there was a whole lot of that in this game.

This was, for Brady and the wideouts, a bad game. Brady completed less than 50 percent of his passes, including a couple of poor throws (the interception at the end of the first half and the ricochet off a Raven helmet in the red zone late in the game come to mind). The receivers dropped a number of balls that hit them on the hands - Randy Moss had at least two and tight end Ben Watson one. Of those, at least two of them would have accounted for touchdowns and an 11 point swing (Watson's unforced error in the back of the end zone turned into a field goal attempt).

Asante Samuel was bad. He was picked on, and he made few plays. The biggest play he made was for the Ravens when he misplayed a 15-yard sideline pass into a 50+ yard reception in the first half.

The refereeing was bad as well, although I would say not as bad as the Colts game. The refs left calls on the field against both teams. I will even grant that the Pats touchdown to Jabar Gaffney was borderline, but I also don't believe there was enough to merit overturning the call on the field. Of course none of this matters since Raven Bart Scott was undergoing a meltdown which would have given the Pats the ball with four fresh downs on the Raven two yard line.

As for the Ravens public claim that the officials were trying to give the game to the Patriots, they might want to re-watch the film of the bomb at the end when the official kept the flag in his pocket in spite of the fact that Derrick Mason did not play the ball. Replays clearly show that Mason threw a block on Asante Samuel, the closest defensive back to receiver Mark Clayton who came down with the ball. Not only did Mason hit Samuel, he then wrapped the corner from behind, aiding Mason in making the reception that almost won the game for the Ravens.

Yeah, refs conspiring to get the Patriots an undefeated season are going to ignore that every time, I'm sure.

As for the ugly...

The Patriots run defense was ugly through most of the game, as Willis McGahee carved up the Pats (at least until the game was on the line late in the fourth quarter). The Pats secondary was also carved up for the second week running by a career second string quarterback.

That the Ravens can't come to terms with the fact that their own mistakes killed them is ugly.

What could possibly have been the ugliest is what the Ravens allege about one of the refs calling Sumari Rolle "boy," throughout the game...were the ref white. Head linesman Phil McKinley, a black man and former player in the late sixties and early seventies (ie: the man grew up during segregation and the Civil Rights Movement). Given the background of the "name caller" I would say that Rolle and his teammates are looking for any reason to try and discredit a mediocre officiating staff just because they don't want to accept responsibility for melting down in their loss.

On a different note - the time of year has come again for the annual weight loss contest. Husband and wife teams: me and my wife, my wife's sister and her husband. Whichever pair drops a combined 40 pounds first, or whichever pair has the greatest combined weight loss by May 1 wins. I weighed 188.5 yesterday. Let the games begin.

Thanks Don Pardo, now tell us what he won....

Asante Samuel - a chance to put his lack of money where his mouth is. Yesterday was Samuel's final chance to come to a long-term deal with the Patriots. Failure to do so means that Samuel and the Patriots cannot come to a long-term deal until after the 2007 season.

The sticking point - Samuel wanted Nate Clements San Fran money through the first three years of the deal. The Patriots offered, based on the contracts of Dre Bly and Nathan Vasher, fair market value for a corner of Samuel's career numbers.

To put it in a nutshell - Samuel wanted the Patriots to do something idiotic, the Patriots said no.

Now we get to see if Samuel will really hold out and lose a fair chunk of $7.79 million, or if he will make the business savvy decision and get his butt into camp and play out the season (keeping in mind that last year has been the only year that Samuel remained healthy through a full season - likely another of the Patriots' sticking points).

Kason Gabbard - Three wins in three decisions and five starts (four in place of the injured Curt Schilling) and a chance for a longer look from the big league club for the Red Sox rookie. Gabbard is currently 3-0 with a 3.38 ERA and averaging just under six innings per start. Opponents are batting an anemic .206 against him right now.

The man whose seat Gabbard is keeping warm - 4.20 ERA and batters are hitting at a .288 clip through 15 starts.

Baltimore/Washington Eagles - Higher expectations. Winners of Division II at the Nationals in Las Vegas last year, the Australian football club has started off 3-0 with two wins against the North Carolina Tigers and the Boston Demons, both Division I teams last year. The hot start has seen the Eagles rising in the polls to number five.

With a match looming at the end of August, when the team comes off its summer break, against Eastern powerhouse and the third ranked New York Magpies, the Eagles have their work cut out for them.

L.A. Galaxy - A lingering ankle injury. Giving the term "Bend it like Beckham" a different meaning, the British soccer star's injured ankle is likely to delay the premier of the $250 million man. Not exactly the auspicious start that American soccer fans had hoped for.

Back off, man

According to a report that hit the Boston papers this weekend, sources close to Asante Samuel say the corner-back is unlikely to go through with his threat to sit out the season.

I think this is called, in the parlance, "blinking first."

According to this source, it has "occurred" to Samuel, that he would be better able to showcase his abilities over the course of a full season...and would be more likely to avoid a catastrophic injury by being in "game shape." This reasoning all seems quite familiar to me.

Of course, this also means that, with this source close to him going public, his source has destroyed any of what little negotiating leverage Samuel may have had with a hold-out - which I still think was none at all.

Hubris and David McDade -

Anyone who reads my blog knows I have been posting here about the travesty that is the Genarlow Wilson case in Georgia - the then 17-year old convicted of child-molestation and serving ten-years for receiving a blow-job, freely given, from a then 15-year old at a party. Recently an appeals judge ruled that the punishment didn't fit the...crime, for lack of a better word (and I refuse to call our society setting an arbitrary age at which a person can legally consent to sex a crime).

The judge, in essence, changed the ruling to a misdemeanor and granted Wilson time served. For more details, see my other posts on Wilson - there are several.

Douglas County District Attorney David McDade, the DA who originally prosecuted Wilson, has appealed the ruling. Until the appeal is hear and ruled upon, Wilson will continue to languish in jail.

McDade is making no friends with Georgia law-makers according to a recent article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. His philosophy seems to be all or nothing, and that the law should have no gray area. It might just be me - but it strikes me that that philosophy is about to bite him on the ass based on the following passages from the AJC:

Douglas County District Attorney David McDade violated federal law when he distributed a videotape from a rape and child molestation case to legislators and journalists, the U.S. Attorney in Atlanta said Wednesday.

U.S. Attorney David Nahmias said in a statement that federal law prohibits the distribution of the Genarlow Wilson videotape because it depicts minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct. He warned that people who had received it would be in violation of federal child pornography laws

Federal law prohibits the distribution, receipt and possession of child pornography in most circumstances, Nahmias said...

McDade told the Associated Press that he was required to release the tape under the state's Open Records Act because it was introduced as evidence at the trial.

Nahmias, though, said federal law trumps any contrary requirement of the open records law.

Nahmias said that his office issued the statement to end further distribution of the videotape and advised those who possessed it to destroy or return it. His office, under federal policy, would neither confirm nor deny whether it was investigating the distribution.

State Sen. Emanuel Jones (D-Decatur) has called for an investigation to determine whether McDade violated federal law in distributing the videotape in response to requests under the open records law.

On Tuesday, Jones characterized the videotape as child pornography and called it "an absolute, utter disgrace" that a videotape of the raunchy party in a Douglasville hotel room that led to the conviction of Wilson on aggravated child molestation charges has been given to reporters and legislators.

Now, it might just be me, but - if you're a lawyer, isn't it just common sense that you wouldn't be able to distribute any sort of visual recording of teenagers having sex? No matter what the public access laws are? I mean, even I knew this dude was in trouble when I heard that the tape had been distributed based on public requests. Also, does it sound like the legislator wants to put the screws to McDade, the way McDade has been to Wilson? This isn't just an investigation. He's calling for the DA to be investigated for distribution of child pornography.

As the DA has supplied tapes to news outlets outside of Georgia, we're talking federal investigation and a sentence of at least 21 months, possibly longer, from the federal statutes that I have found. Once again, maybe it's me, but it seems to me that the legislator, in his own subtle way, is telling McDade to back-off.

Asante and Strategy

Dave, the author of The Coffin Corner, and subject of a mild bit of jealous on my part for living on the edge of one of my favorite cities, recently made some great observations about the Asante Samuel situation in the Razor. As usual, Dave has taken his position on Samuel's contract demands and backed them up with solid arguments.

In the second to last paragraph he wrote on the subject, something he put on his blog caught my eye and made me think. Dave observed:

The deadline for a multi-year extension is next Monday at 4 pm. After that, Samuel can only play for the one-year deal and we'll likely see the same thing happen next year. My guess is that the Bly and Vasher contracts will give the Pats a clear example to present to Samuel's reps and that a deal will get done. It really doesn't benefit Samuel to do it any other way. If he holds out until week 10 he'll only make a little over one million this year. And if he shows up to camp to play out the one-year franchise tender, then why did he hold out?

This paragraph got me thinking about the hold-out as a negotiating tool, and I realized that it is only a truly effective ploy if the player is someone that a team can not do without...say, Peyton Manning for the Colts. Not Asante Samuel.

Last year Deion Branch was on the verge of a regular season hold-out with the Patriots when he was traded to Seattle. As much as the local and national sports media blasted the Patriots brain-trust for that move, in the end, it really didn't hurt them. They can say what they like about Reche Caldwell, but statistically, he adequately replaced Branch's numbers - which were never reflective of the money he was demanding. That Seattle gave that money to him is a whole separate issue.

But let's attack the hold-out strategy for Samuel.

1. Samuel replaced an aging Ty Law who was set free due to a high cap-number. The team was blasted by the press for letting Law go while not having a replacement ready. The replacement turned out to be Samuel himself. Armed with this little nugget, and the knowledge that Ellis Hobbs is probably in a comparable place in his development after a similar amount of time in the pros, Samuel's camp should know that it's unlikely that the Patriots are going to blink in this little game of chicken.
2. The common argument, used by Samuel himself, is, "I could go out there and hurt myself on the first play" of the season, and never see the [guaranteed bonus] money from a new contract. When analyzed, this argument is one of the most boneheaded you can come across. To wit - as the franchise designee, the so designated player will receive a one year salary equal to the average of the top five players at his position. In Samuel's case, this comes to somewhere in the neighborhood of $7.3 million. That is guaranteed. If Samuel sits out until the tenth game, he will receive only a prorated amount of that. After the fines he incurs, it's likely to be less than $1.5 million. So he sits out in order to make maybe 25 percent of what he could make, and takes that exact same risk in week ten he whined about having to take in week one - never mind the fact that no franchised player has ever suffered the career ending injury they all cite as why they don't want to sign that tender.
   
3. The strategy backs the player into a corner they can't get out of. If Samuel shows up, even at the beginning of the regular season in order to get the whole check, then he loses face. If he doesn't show up until week 10, who really thinks that he will see time as anything other than a nickel corner during those last four weeks - and I say four, because who really believes that he will get any playing time while he gets into, as Bill Belichick would put it, "game shape." He doesn't show up until week 10 and he might as well have lost a whole season in his prime.

The bottom line is that holding out is not just a desperate move, but a stupid move.

The only way it could possibly work for Samuel is if something went horribly wrong in the secondary - so much so that the Patriots would need to start Troy Brown at corner. Otherwise someone in his camp needs to tell him that he is nowhere near a position of power in his bargaining.

Samuel and a lack of class

I've been debating whether or not to address this for some time...until I read the following by Don Banks at Sports Illustrated, "Moss last week traveled with his new teammates to New Orleans for the wake of Patriots defensive lineman Marquise Hill -- who drowned May 27 after his jet ski flipped in Lake Pontchartrain -- a player he had barely met."

Reports in the Boston Globe and Boston Herald noted Samuel's absence from the funeral. I wasn't thrilled about it at the time, as Samuel had been Hill's teammate on the defensive side of the ball for Hill's entire professional career.

Samuel has repeatedly claimed to understand that the NFL is a business, but it seems to me, when a person spurns a teammate's funeral during a contract dispute, then the dispute is moved into the personal. Maybe he had a family emergency...maybe. Or maybe he wanted to avoid having to face the Patriot front office which attended.

Either way, I think he needs to explain his absence. That event wasn't about team. It was about our connection to each other as individuals - and right now I'm seeing someone for whom money is king over all else. I don't know if that's a teammate I would want back.

Pats back in the news

With training camp upon us, the Patriots are back in the news. There have been multiple articles and what a good citizen Randy Moss has been thus far (come back to me when he's been with the team for significantly more than six weeks), how versatile Adalius Thomas is, and of course, the Patriots' very own "Where's Waldo" situation...delusional cornerback Asante Samuel.

In April, around draft time, Samuel told the NFL Network “We have a difference of opinion in my value. They think I’m worth one price and the other teams think I’m worth a lot more. If a long-term deal can’t be done at fair numbers for me and New England, then I want to be traded.”

I'd like to know what NFL team gave Samuel any sort of numbers to go by as to what his worth is. It's my understanding that no team has talked to Samuel or his agent. And while I acknowledge that I don't know if the agent has talked to anyone or not, I do know that these things tend to get out, and there hasn't been a sniff of a rumor.

I will say this one more time - Samuel had one great year. One. He has not been as consistent as Clemens, or had as good a career as Bly. At least twice during the season, if the opposing QB had pump faked and gone to Samuel's man, the passes would have gone for touchdowns.

Samuel wants to get paid, by all reports, as the best corner in the game. As much as I like him, I don't think he's in the top five (for last season, yes, he was one of the five best...but I need to see more than one great season to call him elite. There have been a lot of one season wonders in the NFL).

A shout out to Joe Andruzzi
I have been remiss in addressing this. Get well soon big guy. May the docs at Dana Farber get you through the lymphoma quickly.

Just a quick note about Andruzzi. The former Patriots guard, to some extent, became the face of the 2001 Patriots after 9/11. With Bledsoe injured, and a then little known Tom Brady at the helm, the most memorable images from that regular season, outside of Bledsoe being put in the hospital by Mo Lewis, were of the Andruzzi brothers clad in Pats jerseys and firefighting gear at the center of the field tipping their helmets to the crows, and of Joe Andruzzi, the first Patriot to take the field after 9/11, charging out of the tunnel, American flags in hand.

The man is a lunch pail, blue collar type player who, in his prime, set the tone for the Patriots line.

May you be beating on a defensive lineman somewhere soon, big guy. The NFL needs guys like you.

"It is a privilege to represent the NFL, not a right," and other thoughts

The above quote was ganked from the AP report on NFL commissioner Roger Goodell's decision to suspend Titans corner Adam "Pacman" Jones for the 2007 season and Bengals receiver Chris Henry for the first half of the season. Goodell went on to explain, "These players and all members of our league have to make the right choices and decisions in their conduct on a consistent basis."

According to the report, both the Bengals and Titans are publicly supporting the commissioner's ruling and Jones can even make it back before the end of the season if he plays ball with his employers...

He could be reinstated before season's end if he adheres to a strict set of conditions set by the NFL that include no further involvement with law enforcement; counseling, education and treatment under league and court-ordered programs; follows restrictions on his activities agreed to with the Titans; and a community-service program submitted to the league for review and approval.

Ranting on contracts...

Check out Bitterfans for an elaboration on my rant about Asante Samuel and his contract SNAFU.

T'ain't a sport...it's an activity...

Could somebody explain to me why golf gets so much play on ESPN? When golf ratings are high, they're in the realm of baseball, but that's the exception, not the rule. According to golf-blogger Geoff Shackelford, this year's season opening event, the Mercedes, had a ratings drop of 44 percent from last year. If I dropped 44 percent of my body weight, I'd be hospitalized - if not dead.

And on the golf note - is it just me, or is getting a green blazer possibly the lames award in sports? Super Bowl/ World Series rings, Lord Stanley's Cup, The Lombardi Trophy...green jacket. And...I know she hasn't been in the news in a couple of months now, but it's only a matter of time before she's back, but could we lay off reporting anything about Michelle Wie until she actually wins something? Is that too much to ask?

Tumblin' Dice...

Last week Daisuke Matsuzaka made his Major League debut against a weak Kansas City line-up and looked like he came as advertised. Tomorrow he faces a somewhat better Seattle Mariners line-up. Should be interesting to see what happens...for now he's looking pretty damn good. The offense on the other hand...

Na-na-na-na, Na-na-na-na, Hey-ey, Good-bye

I think that it's pretty safe to say that Asante Samuel will not be a Patriot much longer, particularly if he thinks his contract demands are realistic. I give him an outside chance of being in the red, white and blue next season, but based on what I read in the Boston Globe, Samuel has no actual clue of his market value...

As part of the recent negotiations between cornerback Asante Samuel and the New England Patriots, Samuel's representatives were seeking a contract that included about $30 million to be paid out in the first three years of the deal.
The Patriots were offering a package that averaged around $6 million per season, and although it is not known how much money would be paid out in the first three years, one thing is clear: It wasn't close to the $30 million Samuel was seeking, which led to his recent comments about being unhappy with the state of negotiations.