Panic in Patriot Nation

There are a lot of Patriots fans out there that don't seem to pay close attention to what's going on around the league, or that even know their history. I know that, for the most part, if you're reading this, I'm preaching to the choir, but I still have to get this off my chest.

After the beat down the Pats suffered at the hands of the Dolphins this weekend, a lot of the fans on the message boards, particularly at the Boston Globe and Yahoo, are calling for the Pats to sign Duante Culpepper. Yeah, the same Culpepper that was having trouble playing his way out of a paper bag when he had the Baltimore power running game behind him. The same Culpepper that is failing to generate interest from Kansas City, Detroit, and Cleveland - all winless teams suffering from poor quarterback play as much as from anything else.

Consider since 2001, as a starter, Culpepper has a record of 30 wins and 44 losses, has started 16 games only twice during that time, has averaged 11.1 interceptions per season (but 17 per 16 games), 15.5 touchdowns per season, and has been sacked 3.2 times per start (to put some of that into perspective - Tom Brady has been sacked an average of 1.8 times per start, or an average of 22.4 fewer times over every 16 game season; and 12.5 INT's per 16 games).

Sure, people aren't clamoring for him to replace a struggling Brady - they're clamoring for him to replace what they perceive as a struggling Cassel. Before you go calling for the head of the Pats back-up, think about this -

Culpepper is not the answer - if you think he is, if he was such an answer, why aren't any other team's looking at him? he's done.

As for Cassel -

a) That game wasn't his fault. he didn't give up 38 points. The defense seldom stopped a team that couldn't win more than one game last year. With the Dolphins far out in front, they were able to load up against the running game and basically dare the Patriots to win on the arms of Cassel.

b) A look at Brady's second game? a 30-10 loss to the dolphins in which he passed for a total of 86 yards, no TD's, no INT's and was sacked 4 times for 17 yards of losses. Cassel passed for 131 yards and a TD (1 int), and was sacked 4 times for 19 yards. additionally, the Brady led pats in that 2001 game lost three fumbles. The Patriots lost only one turnover this past Sunday.

Back in '01, after the team got shellacked, Pats fans just saw another losing season ahead of them with a back-up slogging his way through the season in place of his more accomplished predecessor.

No - Cassel is no Tom Brady, but Brady didn't light it up his first two games as a starter either -

Brady's line through his first two NFL starts...

25 for 47 (53.2 percent completion rate), 254 yards, 5 sacks for 26 yards, no TD's, no INT's.

Cassel -

35 for 54 (64.8 percent completions), 296 yards, 7 sacks for 28 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT.

If anything, Cassel has had a slightly better first two games than Brady. Be patient.

This and that...

Make no mistake, I want the Red Sox to repeat as World Series champs. However, given Hank Steinbrenner's whining about how divisional play and the wild card give other teams an unfair competitive advantage (yes, the same Steinbrenner whose payroll is roughly $70.4 million higher than the next highest team and $90 million more than the Dodgers that he singled out) I would be perfectly happy seeing the Rays, who carry a payroll roughly a quarter that of the Yanks, walk home with this year's championship.

I would be happy to see the Brewers win, even at the expense of the Sox (not thrilled, mind you), but it would be a nice FU to the way the Steinbrenner family has done business.

Anyone else waiting for the Ford Family to say April Fools, no we really still have Matt Millen as our GM. The fact the man set a new standard for futility as a GM is impressive - particularly in an era that has seen the likes of Carl Peterson of the Chiefs, Jay Zygmunt of the Rams, Bill Bavasi of the Mariners, and, of course, Isiah Thomas of the Knicks. The fact he finagled a contract extension during that stretch is nothing less than puzzling. It never fails to amaze me that Lions fans didn't march on the stadium with torches and pitchforks.

Speaking of puzzling - how did Omar Minaya manage a contract extension in the middle of a second consecutive collapse?

Finally, with all the hits cycling has taken in the last two years, all the suspensions of many of the sport's top talents, am I the only one out there thinking that Lance Armstrong, in spite of his age, should be considered the favorite to win next year's Tour de France? I also suspect, considering he's riding gratis, that this is, more or less, a BIG FU to the French.

For the fans

I used to watch the All-Star game.

I still remember back in the late 1980's when Dwight Evans made his last one. Late in a close game, Evans was in right with speedster Tim Raines on third. Evans charged hard on a sinking liner as Raines cheated up the line, waiting for his chance to break on the ball. The rock hit the ground about a step in front of Evans and Raines broke. Dewey played the ball cleanly and fired, as he did many a time from Fenway's eastern-most lawns, a heat seeking laser.

Raines stopped after two steps, and walked back to third, watching the throw.

He knew.

I remember actually being excited about the All-Star game. Watching people at or close to the top of their game. Sure, there was the occasional player who really didn't belong. But most of the time these were the guys.

Then, somewhere along the way the players stopped taking it seriously and baseball worried about their cash cow - a meaningless game intended to maximize viewership and minimize other real costs associated with the 162 game drag of a season. They wanted us to believe that it was about the fans, want us to still believe - that tickets to an event with no real impact and stars appearing for an inning or two at a time selling for hundreds of dollars is about us and not their bottom line. That a voting process that doesn't allow for the best shortstop this year to be starting, or a catcher batting under .220 is a good thing for the game.

It's not.

It's not a good thing for the game, and it's not about anything other than the corporation that is Major League Baseball finding another way to line their pockets.

I, for one, would be happy to see the MLB All-Star game go, as well as the NFL's Pro-Bowl. Just do the all-pro lists, keep the fan voting away from it and call it good. Just stop telling me that this annual ritual in money grubbing and the fans, as it is only the soft-minded fan that really believes this game is about him or her and not about lining the corporate pockets.

Before I sign off for the evening, I would like to note that I was going to touch on the Brett Favre cluster-fuck, but I think that no one out there has addressed this better than Paul Zimmerman at si.com.

Mob Mentallity

"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it."

-Agent K, Men in Black

I've been inspired to touch on something because of a debate that I've having with Lisa over at A Red Sox State of Maine. I won't rehash that conversation over here, but I do want to touch on the decay of fandom.

It is something I have discussed before, to some extent.

I think that over the last 20 years we have witnessed a decline in etiquette from fans while we have progressively become a society of entitlement. More and more often we are reading about schools and teachers that no longer discipline children because parental reactions aren't, "what did my child do wrong." Rather, most parents' reactions are, "what did you do to my child." Personal responsibility is going out the window.

This is as evident with fans as anywhere else.

With the purchase of a ticket to an event, people feel that their money spent gives them the right to act inappropriately.

As late as 1960 people still dressed in their Sunday best for a day at the ball park. While I understand not dressing to a tee to go to a game, there was enough respect for what was happening on the field that most of what goes on now didn't happen then.

People feel that the money spent gives them the right to throw syringes at Barry Bonds, batteries at JD Drew, beer bottles at opponents in Cleveland, and curse and spit at children and adults wearing opponents' uniforms in Philadelphia and Baltimore. Sure, it gives them the right to cheer or boo accordingly, to show your approval or disapproval of what happens on the field, but that right stops when the actions make other fans feel threatened, or could do damage to...well, anyone.

No batteries. No bottles. No syringes. No threats. No spitting.

In 2003 in Chicago there were four separate incidents of fans running on the field during a White Sox-Royals game. This culminated in the assault of one of the umpires by a couple of the fans. There was also the assault of the Royals first base coach by a father-son tandem in Chicago.

Sports Illustrated has a list of eleven incidents of fan boorishness and assault of which only one incident is before 1974, and eight of them are since 1984. It is by no means a complete list.

The incidents are legion, and they didn't start at the professional games.

Unfortunately, parents and youth coaches are regularly setting a horrible example for future generations, engaging in this same behavior at little league games and pee wee football. Just last year a mob attacked the umpires at a little league game in New Hampshire. There was, in Philly, a man who pulled a gun on his son's youth football coach because he felt the boy wasn't getting enough playing time, or the coach in Pittsburgh who paid his pitcher $25 to throw at an autistic player on an opposing team.

Does racism play a part? Yes. Is it the driving force? I have my doubts. I think that it's more the mass stupidity. The heavy drinking. And the belief that a ticket entitles them to be morons.

Merry Chismakwanzuka!

Being a fan of a sports franchise inherently makes it easier on loved ones purchasing holiday gifts. To wit - my wife purchased for me a Richard Seymour jersey. It is the first jersey that I have owned with a currently active player's name on it.

Allow me to explain.

I'm cheap.

I own two Bledsoe jerseys and a Ben Coates jersey, all of which I got on clearance racks for a combined total of less than $45.00. The Bledsoes I bought in a show of support for both the Patriots and the man's career while playing for the fightin' flying Elvii. The Coates jersey was the first that I purchased, just to have a Pats jersey (and I liked the player, even though he had moved on by the time I bought it).

And as much as I like the Seymour jersey, on Saturday night I will be found in my living room wearing the same silver number 11 as I have on 15 other weekends of this season, watching the Pats play the Giants. Why? Because I am just as freakishly superstitious as most fans and athletes.

Throughout high school, as a sprinter for my track team, I wore the same bandanna on my left ankle to every track meet I ran in over the course of the four years I ran. By my senior year, it was little more than a tattered green scrap of cloth, but I continued to wear it.

Back to the gifts...

My wife's parents got me a grey Pats hoodie that feels like it's fleece-lined. It's nicer than most of my winter gear.

Heck, on Sunday, as I was pulling on my ratty Bledsoe jersey, my five-year-old daughter asked for a jersey of her own to wear on "football days." I'm already looking for her for her birthday.

Then, of course, there are the gifts that come from unexpected sources - particularly if you're a New England/Boston fan of at least a particular age...

As I have mentioned before - if I had been sitting in a bar back in 1992 watching that atrocious Pats team, and the current day me had gone back and told 22-year old me that the Patriots would dominate the first decade of the new millennium with three Super Bowl wins, that in 15 years they would be the best team that football had ever seen, and that the Red Sox would have won two World Series, I would have kicked the crap out of me for mocking my pain as a Boston fan.

But how's this for a Christmas present for fans of the Hub's sports franchises -

• Red Sox 2nd World Series of the decade.
• 15-0, and on the verge of the best offensive performance in a season by any football team, ever - and with the potential to finish the season with both the number one offense and number one defense.
  
• Resurgent Celtics and Bruins franchises that look like they could compete beyond this year.
• Harvard's Ivy League title in football.
• Boston College's 10-3 flirtation with a national title, and potential Bowl win in the upcoming game.
• New England Revolution Eastern Conference champions.
  

Happy Holidays Hub Fans, know that the nation hates us right now!