Patriot Games

Last night the New England Patriots beat the NY Giants 38-35 to wrap up the first 16-0 regular season in NFL history.

I was torn about the Pats pursuit of an unbeaten season. On one hand, I usually cheer for athletes and teams going after all-time records, New England is a fun football team to watch, and I'm glad someone finally shut up the 1972 Dolphins. On the other hand, New England has had enough sports success this year (the Red Sox, the Celtics, the BC Eagles, even the Revolution made it to the MLS Cup finals), so it would be nice for the area and their insufferable fans to finally get a dose of humility. There are few things worse that Boston sports fans when their teams are doing well, and one of them is Boston sports fans when their teams aren't doing well.

The Patriots still need to win three more games (two playoff games and the Super Bowl) to go through the entire year undefeated. They could still get knocked off in the postseason, because the AFC isn't a cakewalk this year, but they look pretty invincible, so it's going to take a top effort for someone to beat them. Still there's a big difference between 16-0 and 19-0.

The Pats took the lead last night on a touchdown pass from Tom Brady to Randy Moss that set single season records for both of them. It was Brady's 50th TD pass (breaking Peyton Manning's record of 49) and Moss's 23rd TD catch (breaking Jerry Rice's record of 22). I don't have strong feelings one way or the other about Brady breaking Manning's record, but Randy Moss having the single season TD catch record is Just Wrong!

Jerry Rice had his 22 catches in 12 games during the strike-shortened 1987 season, and would have had 30 if he'd played those four extra games since he was averaging two TDs a game. Jerry Rice is the greatest wide receiver in the history of the NFL, and Moss isn't worthy to lick the sweat off Rice's headband. I was hoping that Brady would throw his record breaking TD pass to someone else. Randy Moss is having a really good year, and 23 touchdowns is an accomplishment in any number of games, but this more or less proves that he was dogging it during his two years with the Raiders. The great Jerry Rice never dogged it!

Last night's game was supposed to be on the NFL network, but the league caved in at the last moment and allowed it to be simulcast on two networks (NBC and CBS). Earlier this year, the NFL scheduled some top-level games to be on their NFL network, hoping to strong-arm cable systems to include the channel in their basic package. They then started this propaganda campaign to rally fans against "Big Cable" when it was "Big Football" that took the games off free broadcast television in the first place, hoping to fatten their own revenues. I don't get the NFL network on my cable, and probably wouldn't pay extra for it, so it was nice to have this game on free TV, the way God and Pete Rozelle intended it to be.

So far I'm getting clobbered in my college bowl picks. The lower-end bowls are a total crapshoot, and my time-tested strategy of picking against teams from "Big" conferences (Big 10, Big 12, Big East) hasn't worked out this year. I'm picking at 50% so far, which is no better than flipping the proverbial coin. Hopefully my picks will get better as the bowl season progresses.

Coming Tomorrow: The year in music and my long awaited Best of 2007 mix.