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Hot damn, the Bears are something. They are kicking the shit of the 49ers. Not that that's a difficult feat, but this team really does look good. The offense is so much more composed, and the defense, like always, is just everywhere.

To those of you in the Northeast.....BEWARE!!! The Monsters of the Midway will be heading your way soon!

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Pats showing their strength tonight. I've been saying it at home for the last few weeks: this is one fine team. Looking forward to a terrific game next Sunday evening against the Dolts.

Watch it, conn- Indy is on stride right now. That (hopefully) will be a good game.

I'll really be interested in watching the Bears visit NE on November 26th.

We shall see. :rhappy:

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Pats showing their strength tonight. I've been saying it at home for the last few weeks: this is one fine team. Looking forward to a terrific game next Sunday evening against the Dolts.

Maroney and Dillon will pile up the ground yardage.

Poor Bollinger. I don't think I've ever seen a replacement QB get sacked three times in a row when he first takes to the field.

The only dumb thing I noticed out of Belichick was when, with about 8 min. left in the game, he had 'em go for the 1st down when it was something like 4th-and-3. :blink: At that point, when you're up by 22 points you give your field goal kicker a little action so that he can practice hammering home a 50 yarder or so, right?

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I'll really be interested in watching the Bears visit NE on November 26th.

This is the one match up that had me mildy worried at one point, but now has me much more worried given the fact that the Bears don't have Mike Brown in the lineup. It will be tough for them to stop Brady in shotgun with all those receivers everywhere.

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The only dumb thing I noticed out of Belichick was when, with about 8 min. left in the game, he had 'em go for the 1st down when it was something like 4th-and-3. :blink: At that point, when you're up by 22 points you give your field goal kicker a little action so that he can practice hammering home a 50 yarder or so, right?

The media feels that Belichick was punishing Childress for pre-game commentary. BB ran the score up a bit.

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Message to the League:

Don't mess with Rodney and the NE Patriot Defense!

I sure wouldn't mess with Rodney Harrison!!! :P

Pats' Harrison can't wash hands of dirtiest player label

For the second time in three years, Patriots safety Rodney Harrison tops Sports Illustrated's list of dirtiest players in the NFL.

Of the 361 NFL players polled during the preseason, 23 percent of them pointed to Harrison. Second on the list were Joey Porter of the Steelers and Jon Runyan of the Eagles at 6 percent each.

"Do I take perverse pride in this?" Harrison told the Boston media. "All I can say is as many guys as say I'm a dirty player, just as many come up and tell me they admire how I play, the hard work, the commitment, the toughness. That's the pride you're looking for. I take pride in that.

"But dirty? I don't think you guys can look in my eyes and say I'm a dirty player."

Rounding out the list were Warren Sapp of the Raiders (5 percent), Kyle Turley of the Chiefs (4 percent), Hines Ward of the Steelers (4 percent), Sean Taylor of the Redskins (3 percent), John Lynch of the Broncos (3 percent), Kevin Mawae of the Titans (3 percent) and Olin Kreutz of the Bears (2 percent).

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For Conn... :g

"after seeing him choke like Aurora Snow"

Simmons:

I grew up disliking the Yankees. Maybe I didn't have much of a choice growing up in Massachusetts, but much of that dislike happened organically, thanks to a bench-clearing brawl in '76 in which Mickey Rivers and Graig Nettles teamed up to separate Bill Lee's shoulder and give him a black eye, followed by the Boston Massacre and the Dent homer two years later. That antipathy has been part of my life ever since. I enjoy disliking the Yankees. I love watching them lose. When the Tigers upended them a few weeks ago, I was almost embarrassed how happy the whole thing made me, to the point that I decided against writing about it. I actively dislike them.

And sure, I've had other sports flings with extreme dislike: the Dolphins and Sixers in the early '80s; the Pistons and Lakers in the mid-'80s; the Canadiens in the late '70s; the Jets in the late '90s; the Penguins in the early '90s (right before I quit following the Bruins); Mr. Fuji and Mr. Saito in the late '70s; and about 20 different broadcasting teams that I'm not allowed to mention. But you know who else cracks that list?

The Manning-era Colts, that's who.

Every year, I dislike them a little bit more. I'm tired of seeing them, tired of reading about them, tired of hearing about them. Seeing their white and blue uniforms puts the same sneer on my face that Nicholson had when he saw Cruise's JAG outfit at Guantanamo Bay. Getting constantly bombarded by those insufferable Manning commercials makes me want to throw my remote against the wall. And after seeing him choke like Aurora Snow in Pittsburgh last January, I thought everyone would realize he was the A-Rod of football, someone who couldn't deliver in the clutch, someone who routinely shrunk from the pressure. How many more seasons of evidence did we need?

Of course, with the Colts undefeated through eight weeks, the same crap has started up again. Manning is the best quarterback ever. The Colts are unstoppable. On and on it goes. Nobody seems to care that their front seven can't stop anyone, or that January football is completely different that regular-season football. The whole thing gives me a headache. Even worse, everyone's lack of historical perspective has been more skewed than ever: Like Phil Simms remarking during the tail end of Indy's victory in Denver, "over on the sideline, you've got two of the best clutch players in NFL history in Adam Vinatieri and Peyton Manning." Um ... what?????? What planet is this? And to think, I used to defend Phil Simms. I don't even know how to react to a statement like that; Simms could have called Manning "one of the greatest African-American quarterbacks of all-time" and it wouldn't have been any less perplexing.

Meanwhile, here's Tom Brady and his three Super Bowl rings. He's never had a top-10 receiver on his team. He's never had a top-10 tight end on his team. He's never had an elite runner except for Corey Dillon in 2004. His receivers leave for other teams and completely fall off the face of the earth. During his first Super Bowl season, he survived a QB controversy with local hero Drew Bledsoe and the loss of his only deep threat (Terry Glenn). Two summers ago, his offensive coordinator fled for Notre Dame and the team didn't even bother spending money to replace him. This season, they lowballed his top two receivers, pushed them out the door, then expected Brady to break in a new group of guys as the season was going on. And the guy just keeps winning. Out of all the must-win games over the years, he came up short only in Denver last January.

And obviously, I'm horribly biased on this subject. But after everything that's happened since 2001, for the life of me, I can't understand why anyone would ...

A. Take Manning over Brady in a big game.

B. Even bring this topic up.

It's perplexing. It's completely illogical. It's like standing in front of a used car dealership looking for something reliable for a cross-country trip, having the oily salesman tell you, "The car on the left won't knock your socks off, but it will definitely make it to the West Coast, while the car on the right is more fun to drive, but there's a 99 percent chance it will break down somewhere around Arizona or Nevada," then saying, "Screw it, I'll take my chances with the car on the right."

If I wasn't a diehard Pats fan, I'd write about this subject more often because it's one of those debates that gets to the heart of sports. What REALLY matters here? Would you rather have the guy with great stats or the guy who comes through when it matters? And if you'd go with the guy with the great stats, why even play these games in the first place?

For instance, there's been a revisionist movement over the past 20-25 years from basketball writers (mostly statheads) arguing that Chamberlain was better than Russell, which is completely absurd. Ask anyone who watched basketball then and they all say the same things: Russell wouldn't be denied in big games, while Chamberlain consistently shrunk from the moment. Wilt was obsessed with individual stats, while Russell was obsessed with team play and doing everything possible to make his teammates better. (Note: If you ever want to read a decent book about Wilt-Russell, check out "The Rivalry" by John Taylor, and if you ever want to read a great piece about Russell's obsession with winning, check out the chapter in "Second Wind" called "Teammates.") That's why Russell won 11 titles in 13 years, and that's why Wilt was the centerpiece of as many titles as trades: two.

Look, I'd never be dumb enough to compare Manning to someone as famously selfish as Wilt. But his playoff track record is eerily similar to Wilt's before the '67 season -- right down to the lack of titles and the boatload of excuses -- and if you really want to get technical, you could argue that Wilt's Philly team beat Boston in '67 only because it was Russell's first year as player-coach, he didn't have any assistants, and he would always lose track of how long people had been playing and forget to bring back his best players into games (something Taylor's book covers really well -- Philly didn't win the title that season as much as Red and the Celtics gave it away by mistakenly thinking Russell could handle his player-coach role without any help). Whether Manning enjoys his version of Wilt's '67 season remains to be seen. But how can we keep comparing a player who repeatedly comes up big to a player who repeatedly does not?

The ongoing debate (and the inanity of it) makes me dislike the Colts a little more every year. Which is a good thing. I like having rivals. I like having opponents to actively dislike. And now we're at the point where I don't just want the Pats to win on Sunday night, I want to destroy the Colts. I want to see their hearts get ripped out. I want to see Manning limping off the field with his chin strap dangling and one of those dumb looks on his face where he looks like a psychiatric-ward patient who was just heavily sedated after he hit someone over the head with a metal chair. I want to see them leave Foxborough with everyone saying, "Yup, we're idiots, we forgot that you shouldn't go against Brady in a big game" and "God, I'm dumb, I forgot that you can't beat a great team in a big game if you can't stop the run."

All of this would make me happy. Really, really happy. As weird as this sounds, I'd like to thank Manning and the Colts, as well as everyone who keeps blowing smoke up their butts. You're making sports more fun for me. It's always fun to have a team you actively dislike. In my case, I have two. So thank you.

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Thanks for the fun read, Noj.

I don't dislike the Dolts as much as Simmons does; in fact, I hold mixed feelings. I dislike Polian and Manning is the all-goody wonder boy. But I do like the fact that they've developed a successful NFL franchise in a small town. You have to support teams like that.

Conn's Sunday prediction: win for Pats.

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Thanks for the fun read, Noj.

I don't dislike the Dolts as much as Simmons does; in fact, I hold mixed feelings. I dislike Polian and Manning is the all-goody wonder boy. But I do like the fact that they've developed a successful NFL franchise in a small town. You have to support teams like that.

Conn's Sunday prediction: win for Pats.

....well, I hope the Colts win but I don't make predictions as they are silly and meaningless!!!.....those who execute will win.

m~

....might be easier with a little run defense!

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