AKC

You can't possibly suggest that www.trollsbilldrive.com is less amiable a place for football fans than 8433 Sunset Blvd.? My god, methinks you need 20 minutes in the Belly Room to recover from the miasma.

That's kinda' like calling Kraft Mac and Cheese an "entree". Since the Yankees have won 5 Championships in a row, and also 4 Championships in a row, and also 3 Championships in a row, should we also count their multiple 2 consecutive Championships as "Dynastys"? If accuracy is the standard, it's more accurate to say that Tom Thumb was a full grown man than to describe the 3 point squeakers the Pats won in just two consecutive years a "dynasty".

Here in America we consider a Football Dynasty to be a team who has dominated their opponents for some extended period of time, not merely eke out a couple of 3 point squeakers and then declare themselves "A Dynasty". One thing no one will ever argue (rationally) is that the Pat's "dominated" their Super Bowl opponents. Not after your FG kicker had to bail you out in each game. But do try to press your losing argument forward since you clearly believe that little run of squeakers has come to an end.

While at the same moment precluding any honest or accurate mention of the label "Dynasty".

What, you like +9 instead- the total that shows how in the most recent three trips it took three field goals to eke out victories? Oh, excuse me, that was what I said in the first place!

VIOLIN- VIOLIN PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The average margin of score for the Patriot's Super Bowls is MINUS 8 points- the 2nd worst among all NFL champions since the first Super Bowl. This supports the conclusion that the Pats are among the least convincing championship teams in the history of the sport, and no respectable student of the game would ever accept those anemic numbers as an indication of a "dynasty" when they in fact indicate just the opposite. The Pats have eked out these timid victories at a time when their NFC opponents are at their weakest in over 25 years. The fact is there is a tremendous chasm between being "barely good enough by your kicker's foot" and the huge leap from there to being an actual "Dynasty".

The most recent Bill of Goods sold us was the "Steelers of the AFC East" - this sounds like a bit of the ol' Deja Vu?

Gimme' a fleet of vessels run by the Mess Cranks and I'll give you a Navy any non-Mormon would enjoy serving in.

I've always been a fan of Marvin Harrison's, a hyper-reliable speed guy without the ego of his contemporaries at the position. When Indy took him just before EMoulds oh so many moons ago this was one fan who was severly disappointed. On the reception totals I missed some the first time through and among the Indy top 4 WRs there were 15 more grabs than among the NE top 4 while NE threw 25 more balls to their RBs. I'd say that's really only significant to the difference in strategy between the two offenses and less significant as some indicator of a major difference in the quality of the receivers.

That's what this is all about. Help me to fully understand your opinion because it's a bit confusing to me right now- Outside of red zone production, something I'm sure you'll concede has far more to do with QB play and offensive philosophy, Harrison and Branch have little separating them statisically in 2005. There's a gap of from 83 catches to 59 between Wayne and Givens but with similar YPC, etc., but Troy Brown has 25 more grabs than Indy's #3, and I'm not even counting the catches by Tim Dwight against your presumption. Overall, during the 2005 regular season, statistics make it unsupportable to claim the Indy WR rotation is more talented than NE's, in fact just the opposite appears to be the case. The only statistical category where Indy kicked butt among the WR corps is in TD production, and anyone wanting to make some point ultimately in favor of Brady would want to steer clear of this fact that simply is more evidence of his career long red zone difficulties. Manning, as always, holds the edge over Brady on hitting his WRs in the Red Zone. Brady has a nasty little habit of hitting defenders instead in the red zone if you haven't noticed. Here's where I think the difference is between a lot of media and fans and those of us who like to consider the full skill package of players versus the system they are playing in. You've used the phrase "much better" to describe the all-around skills of Edgerrin James. You'll get no argument from me that he's better in the passing game, both as a receiver and blocker, so calling him "much better" as an all-around back could be fair. At the same time Edgerrin James is not a runner in the same class as Corey Dillon, one of the better pure runners of the past decade. And in fact Dillon's receiving numbers have only become anemic since joining the Pats- in Cincy he saw far more passes come his way. The bottom line is that Belichick wants a feature guy with power and hardly cares whether he can contribute in the passing game. And that's exactly what he got in Dillon, a guy who fits his system perfectly. Is Edgerrin James a BETTER running back than Corey Dillon? It's all based upon the system you play in and I think both would be diminished if playing for the other's team in systems that don't take full advantage of the exceptional skills each bring to the table. So for my money this is exactly the same place that the "Brady is the greatest QB" argument simply fails- of all the offenses on the winning side of NFL Championships and Super Bowls, Brady has the type of skills that might have allowed him to effectively run 15, or maybe at the high end 20% of those offenses. If you look at the more pure QBs with the more complete toolboxes- in the modern era guys like Elway or Steve Young- their skills would allow them to play in 60 or 70 percent of those championship offenses. And as a measure of the "greatest of all time" I think this must be a primary consideration- could you go to another team and have the same success?

I'll leave a menu from the mess decks on your rack and pencil you in for Midrats until you get settled in. The bad news is that having just boarded you will be required to do a 2 week tour in the skullery.

So Corey Dillon "pales in comparison" to Edgerrin James and Deion Branch "pales in comparison to old man Harrison? Add to this the fact that you've got to ignore that you have NEVER during the Brady regime seen the NE blocking scheme repetitively ignore the edge rusher as happened to Manning yesterday in crunch time on consecutive plays. Just how many of you are there in that Barrel LA mentioned?

In your haste to make excuses, don't forget Corey Dillon (the leading rusher for the Pats on Saturday and #3 league-wide in 2004), or Super Bowl MVP Deion Branch!

Ruben had only 2 false starts in the 2005 season. He is credited with giving up 1.5 sacks. Bennie Anderson saved us a bunch of money while allowing 6 sacks and being called 5 times for false starts.

Methinks you don't even know what you are on to here- I've always held the same position, that Brady will play like he did Saturday just like other QBs when he's pressured. The problem with most media and fan positons about Brady is making him out to be "one of the great" talents at the position WHEN HE IS UNDER NO PRESSURE AT ALL. They've done a great job giving him plenty of time to run their scheme in the past, Saturday they didn't. And he looked like I've seen him loook against the Fish last year when he got a little pressure on him and earlier this season when Indy put a little presure on him. What's been typical for the guy is to stand in the pocket for 4-5 seconds as he needs it on most game days. No one else around the league has had the same consistency in protection.

You inspire an interesting question- would the Pats have won Sunday with Brad Johnson or Trent Dilfer at QB?

Succinctly put. For fans not to recognize that the Brady skill set is far more Drew Brees than John Elway is amusing- and I have little doubt the slightly stronger armed but equally adept at reading the field Brees would have had similar success to Brady given the great defense they've played complimented by the best protection scheme in the NFL on the O side of the ball for the past 4 seasons.

IMO what happened Saturday in Denver was brought on by decision making from the Pat’s head coach and his players reaction to it. In the final regular season game the Pats threw the game in order to avoid facing the Steelers in the Wild Card round. Every Pat player knew it, most fans of any ilk who watched the game knew it, but the decision that cost Belichick the most this past Saturday was his choice to deny the obvious flop to the press. These Pats had been built upon an effective coaching strategy where the Head Coach could be left to develop big picture concepts while allowing the public tone to be set by his Coordinators. This arrangement resulted in a team with quiet confidence and a belief they could beat any team in the league, and those things on most Sundays proved to be just enough to put the Pats over the top. The season for the Pats began to unravel while Belichick snickered on the sidelines as the clock expired in the Dolphin surrender. He went on to exacerbate the decision to give the game away with BS like “ask the guys the Bengals beat if they want to play them again”. There are coaches out there who might do a credible job with this type of disingenuousness, but Bill Belichick isn’t one of them. Every player on his team know he didn’t want to play Pittsburgh the following week. For a team built upon confidence, there’s no better way to erode it than to tug at your collar and let the sweat bead on your forehead. Belichick spent a week doing both. The underlying confidence formerly set by their Coordinators was effectively vanquished by the actions of their HC and that resulted in their QB publicly whining about respect. And that kind of action is far more Terrel Owens than Joe Montana. Even with Belichick’s poor choices, this Saturday we saw the same Patriots defense they’ve ridden to three league titles come out and play a very good game of football against a Denver team playing at home. We saw the Pat’s QB face a little pressure, the kind most NFL QB’s face every time they take the field. We saw other things we see in almost every NFL game- a dropped pass and a fumble. From some of the posts in this string you’d think those were as rare as drop kicks. And what we saw, even with the type of defensive efforts that makes winners out of good QBs, was a failure to keep the wheels on their offense. The 5 pins hammered into Al Wilson’s hand last week prevented a Denver INT for a Touchdown although the ball was “thrown right to him”. Denver’s offense saw their QB sacked twice, while the Denver defense ended up without a single sack. They put a little pressure on NE and turned that pressure into mistakes by the NE QB that assured Denver the win. And so begins just another in the long historical lines of the diminishing importance of the “great QBs”. Both of this playoffs supposed “great QBs” looked humble- or less- this past weekend. Which simply means that this year, joining Brad Johnson, Trent Dilfer and Kurt Warner will be one of the Jakes or maybe Matt Hasselback or Ben Roethlisberger as quarterbacks “good enough” to quarterback a Super Bowl winner. Because after all, in the context of the balance of the play on the field isn’t that all the guys playing the position when their team wins the big game really are- good enough to quarterback a winning Super Bowl team?

On Edwards- he's a viable backup one-gap DT, nothing more. At the league mini he's OK off the bench in a rotation, especially as a third down DT due to his decent foot speed upfield. Grady has seemed on his last legs for about the past three seasons, at some point (like now) that prediction will be more true than false. I haven't watched the Ravens at all this year but I hear Kemoeatu may be hitting his stride at the job out of a 2 technique set. He seems strong enough to play a 0 or a 2 technique and that's the kind of flexibility that would really give a new DC a jump start (hybrid 3-4 with 2 DTs) , plus allow us to focus back to bringing in a good SOLB instead of another DT to add to a rotation of Adams, Kemoeatu, Anderson and Edwards.

Maybe mimicing the situation in Orchard Park, the conversation here is focused on the immaterial versus the one very important thing said in the Adams interview- If it's true Sam Adams is intent on wearing our uni next year, our draft focus can change to just one high draft pick for a DT versus almost being forced into drafting DT with 2 of our 4 top picks. Sam remains one of the league's most dangerous one-gap DTs and if he is given a true 0 technique guy as Ngata is being billed we could move right back into the top among NFL defenses with the other heavy lifting being done in FA.

That seems like a fair read. I loved him as a player but as a coach Haslett always seems to have some major disconnect with his players, and not in a good way. He sure doesn't strike me as the Field General of the Saints when I see them play, he's more reminiscent of the guy about the get fragged by his own troops.

So now you'll simply defer to acting as if you've performed a self-administered lobotomy that has gone dramatically bad? OK Sherlock, you really want to pretend you're the only one on TSW who can't see his Avatar, read his sig line or his derogatory name? You've surely made a strong case for yourself being a Troll since it's hard to imagine any Bill's fan would be so publicly dishonest. To expose your Trolldom after establishing a posting record simply to carry another Troll's water is hard to imagine, but then again "ashes to ashes, scum to scum". Or something like that ;-)

Not at all- what he's saying is that instead of the ludicrous measure you've decided upon- "A Troll is a Troll when they say they are a Troll and not a moment before no matter what they name themsleves or post about has no bearing on them bieing a Troll", Johnny has a bit more liberal interpretation. For instance, if some jackass comes to a Bill's message board and signs up under a name derogatory to members or former members of our organization and commences posting photos and love letters to his own teams players over 1700 times, Johnny (and every coherent Bill's fan in this forum) will recognize that that Troll is clearly a Troll, even though Johnnie's measure is quite different from yours.

Isn't that called the Donahoe Blueprint? ;-)