connoisseur series500

Jails are overcrowded. I doubt that any criminal stays the full prescribed sentence.

One of PFT's better photos: It's NE defensive tackle, Vince Wilfork, who was fined $15k for poking his finger through Brandon Jacob's face mask.

Steelers look awful here in the third quarter. I can't see them coming back. Update: Pittsburgh has stormed back to a one point lead in the fourth quarter. Jacksonville looks totally disoriented. Playoff football is tough! As a NE fan, I'm licking my chops over next week's matchup with either of these teams.

Why do you say that? The Seahawks are 7-1 at home in Qwest field this season and 34-7 since 2002. That's a pretty impressive home winning record, it's one of the loudest stadiums in the league (it's basically 2 band shells facing each other) and because of that the amount of false starts by visiting teams is very high (I remember watching the Giants get penalized 4 times on the same drive a few years ago). Should be an interesting game. I didn't know too much about Seattle before watching today's game. What I saw was a pretty good, but definitely not great team. They are better than the Redskins.

Not that I'm aware of. He'll stretch out on some tunes, but he's all about melody. Typically Brazilian, huh?

I'm sure you might be familiar with that feeling.

I caught up on the CTI sound late. I can't do most of it but Bob James "Nautilus" and "Mardi Gras" are amazing. Bob James did some nice work as sideman on CTI as well.

Great stuff and definitely not cheesy.

Anyone who dismisses WW as a mere lounge player is nuts. He played great lounge stuff for sure, but he was also a keen artist. I particularly like: When It Was Done Rain Forest Batacuda A Certain Smile/A Certain Sadness (w/ Astrud Gilberto) Moonbeams Samba So! (A little weaker than the others above, but still good.) Great melodies; great harmonies; great bass vamps; superb musicians. Check out WW play Deodato's tune, "Capoeira" on When it was Done. Stunning solos and nice arrangements.

Safety Brandon Meriweather was the Patriots first round pick in the 2007 draft. Unlike the other top safeties drafted (Reggie Nelson of Jax; Leron Landry of Wash and the kid in Tennessee--forgot his name) Brandon hasn't had much playing time beyond special teams. Bill Belichick doesn't like to play rookies and his is a deep squad anyway. There were concerns about Meriweather's maturity at the time of the draft, but he can stick people pretty well. Here's a funny quote from Rodney Harrison about Brandon: "He still brings us doughnuts and coffee, so he's still a rookie in that sense," said veteran safety Rodney Harrison. "But he's no longer a rookie. He's out there playing football. But he'd better continue with the Dunkin' Donuts or else he'll get tied up." Watch out rookies on live chat! (just kidding!) Selected in the first round (24th overall), Meriweather, who set a record for defensive backs at Miami with 293 career tackles, was projected as a hard hitter with the versatility to play safety or cornerback. Hope he becomes a factor in the playoffs. Meriweather went through an adjustment period - as is the case with all rookies - but made his mark on special teams, where he has recorded 18 tackles this season, including seven in the last five games.

Playoff predictions for first round: WASHINGTON PITTSBURGH NY GIANTS SAN DIEGO

Really enjoyed watching this. I am biased but you guys sound better.

Happy Birthday Marty!

Why do you say that?

Good. Now go Pack! The Pack just might be favorites to reach the Super Bowl. Favre still has to learn how to win in Dallas first.

Expect him to go after your players this offseason as well. I'll never forget it when the Pats were about to play a terrific Packers team in the Super Bowl and Bill Parcells was on the phone wrapping up his departure to the NY Jets. He does this kind of crap just as your team is focused on the playoffs. He did it to us.

Another one.... POSTED 1:16 p.m. EST, December 31, 2007 COWBOYS PERMIT TUNA TO INTERVIEW IRELAND Though some league insiders believed that Cowboys owner Jerry Jones would fight, Jones in the end opted not to. Jay Glazer of FOXSports.com reports that the Cowboys have given the Dolphins permission to interview V.P. of college and pro scouting Jeff Ireland. Per Glazer, Fins football poobah Bill Parcells is expected to offer the G.M. job to Ireland, and Ireland is expected to accept it.

Here is the first blow.... POSTED 11:14 a.m. EST; UPDATED 11:18 a.m. EST, December 31, 2007 TUNA LEANING SPARANO? Armando Salguero of the Miami Herald reports that Dolphins football poobah Bill Parcells has told owner Wayne Huizegna that Parcells wants to hire Cowboys offensive line coach Tony Sparano to be the next coach of the Fins. Actually, the guy at the top of the Tuna's wish list is Browns coach Romeo Crennel, but there's a growing sense that there's no way that Parcells will be able to pull off the move, given that Crennel is under contract in Cleveland for two more years. But reports of Parcells' desire to hire Sparano could create problems under the Rooney Rule, which requires at least one minority candidate to be interviewed for each head-coaching vacancy. If word gets out that Sparano is the guy, the Tuna might not be able to persuade any minority candidates to sit for the job. Complicating matters is that Huizenga didn't follow the spirit of the Rooney Rule in hiring Parcells, and Parcells apparently won't be adhering to the spirit of the Rooney Rule in chasing down Jeff Ireland, his former right-hand man in Dallas, to be the G.M. in Miami. As to the G.M. position, the current Herald report contains a factoid that supports the rumor (as we heard it on Sunday) that current G.M. Randy Mueller already has been fired. Per the Herald, Mueller was seen driving away from the stadium with two minutes left in the season-ending game -- and he was nowhere to be seen in the locker room after the game ended.

To our Cowboy fans on this board: Watch out! Looks like Parcells is going to rape the Cowboys. I'll post some news here shortly. I hate Parcells for this reason. I give him props for being a superb judgment of talent. He can build a team and make them good very fast. As a coach, he is only slightly above average and hasn't had a sniff of the Super Bowl when Bill Belichick wasn't working with him. But he knows talent! He's every bit as good as Belichick and Scott Pioli when it comes to identifying good football players. Cowboys better watch their pockets! But I don't like Parcells and his ways. He never sticks around and leaves his teams ripe for a good pillaging afterwards.

I echo these sentiments. Get better soon! Although I have no interest in any of your sets, it does look like you've got a pack of people who are interested! Good luck to you and make sure you hang around!

Here's Florio's angle of it (from PFT): 2. Colts should have gone for the kill. Two years ago, Colts quarterback Peyton Manning played only one series in the team's regular-season finale. Two weeks later, the Colts lost to the Steelers, 21-18, in the divisional round of the playoffs. On Sunday, Manning played roughly a quarter and a half. Regardless of whether Manning and the others starters who got extra rest will be sharp when the Colts play again, Indianapolis could eventually rue its decision not to knock the Titans out of the tournament when it had the chance. With the Titans' victory putting them in the playoffs, two of the other five teams in the AFC field are division rivals of the defending Super Bowl champions. And teams that play in a team's division are less likely to be awed or intimidated by a gaudy record or an eye-popping resume. The only potential benefit for the Colts is that the Titans might knock out the No. 3 seed Chargers, who could possibly give the Colts the same type of challenge they'd face from Tennessee or Jacksonville. Still, the smartest move is to keep a home-and-home rival out of the playoffs, because that's the kind of team that will give a favorite fits in January.

Happy New Year everybody!

Dungy's strategy of resting his players arguably led to their playoff loss to the Steelers in 2006 when the Colts were clearly the best team in the NFL. Indy's Super Bowl victory last year should have been their second straight.

Here's more of this crap. Fans actually pay to see these loafers? It's a huge disrespect for the game. Gruden, Wade Phillips and Dungy: shame! . Tampa Bay (9-7). In the last six weeks of the season, Jeff Garcia played seven quarters. Against the Giants next week, will he be rested or rusty?

From Peter King's column: Two: America tuned into a game that, with different coaches, might well have been a Cactus League game in the middle of March. Instead, what we saw was the seventh game of the World Series. Bill Belichick's mantra with his team all season has been "60 minutes,'' dating back to last year's AFC Championship Game, when the Patriots blew a 21-3 lead with 31 minutes left and lost to the Colts. That kind of second-half lethargy wasn't going to happen to the Patriots again. And so instead of waltzing through second-half blowouts this year, New England instead kept the foot on the gas, because Belichick felt the team was better prepping for January football by playing full games instead of partial ones. Other than the fourth-quarter stomping of the Redskins, my feeling is the Patriots haven't run up the score on anyone. Rather, they've been most concerned with doing what's best for their team in the playoffs. This storyline has been picked by too few in the media. Anyway, there was no way Belichick was going to change in Week 17, especially with two weeks off before the first playoff game. Re: the Giants, I can just tell you this: The players badly wanted to play. They wanted to be the ones to knock the Patriots off. Tom Coughlin read this situation. He also has a sense for football history and doing what is right for the game. It certainly would not have been right to be playing a cadre of backups in a game this big. And he wanted his offense to get back in a groove before the playoffs. Injuries? He'd risk them. I loved the call. Loved it. Football players should play football, particularly with so much on the line, and coaches should read their players, which Coughlin did so well. So the time was right for both teams to play hard. The Giants would judge how long they'd go with their first-teamers at halftime; if the game was a new England rout, Coughlin likely would rest as many starters as he could for the wild-card game against Tampa Bay. and... As Saturday turned into Sunday, player-turned-telecaster Cris Collinsworth said the game made him proud to be associated with the game. John Madden thought so much of it that he called Coughlin on Sunday to congratulate him on playing his guys and them playing so well. I heard a few Giants fans harp on the injured players, and I thought: Sad. Just sad. Here's art on a sporting canvas, and some people can't appreciate it. I did. So did a stiff-upper-lipped losing coach and a quarterback we'll one day acknowledge as one of the five best quarterbacks ever to take a snap. Yes, a night like this doesn't happen often in sports. Cherish it. The more I think about this, the more happy I am to cheer for teams such as these. Colts are a great team but their coach is a lily-livered corporate guy. It's his duty to put the best product on the field each Sunday. Shame! He's a nice guy personally, but thank god he and his ilk don't coach the Patriots or the Giants.