AKC

I see no fit for Travis under Holmgren, I believe he actually cut Ahman Green, and Green's a better receiver than Henry. Can't imagine Gruden wanting him either.

So you'll offer not a single link, not a single scintilla of evidence to back up your farcical statement that "half of Bill's fans and the media want TDs head"? Surprise, surprise! Ah, the dishonest plagiaristic troll- scorned in his own land and hence banished to spend his miserable pus laden life like the final days of Pontius Pilate, literally swimming in his own vomit! It's OK though, we've got a couple of self proclaimed Bill's fans over here who are suffering the same symptoms, and they're closet Pat's fans to boot!

If things were that simple we'd call every 2 time Super Bowl winner a dynasty- but that's simply a fool's reality. There are multiple components in staying above the field, perhaps even the one contemplated in my original post. It's very generous of you to annoint the Pats the greatest organization in the history of the modern sports, but as history is wont to do these things will play themselves out on the field. Very soon, I might add. We'll talk about your dynasty if you're still in the hunt come 10:00 p.m. January 23. Until then you'll merely be the most nervous poster on TSW. BTW- I failed to welcome back the Joe Biden of TSW- you actually stole someone elses post and put it up here claiming it for your own? Tsk Tsk Tsk- I believe you mentioned something about honesty a few posts back ;-)

I'll gladly take you up on the honesty issue you brought up: Show me a single piece of evidence that suggests "half the fans and media are calling for his (Tom Donahoe's) head". If you're unable to provide this evidence, which of course you will be unable to, you will prove yourself to be no more than the term you brought into the conversation- a "liar". And by the way- how much does it cost to build one of those Glass Houses these days?

I won't hold your ignorance on the difference between the two against you since you don't watch our team every Sunday. In fact your posts to a large degree suggest you don't watch the Pats every Sunday either.

Recognizing the strengths of our divisional opponents is a far cry from idolizing our divisional opponents. Idolatry removes the objectivity to recognize the same flaws that all coaches, players and teams have. I believe if, like you, I reached a level of idolatry for another team it might signal that it was time for me to move my fan loyalty there also. But that's just me, forever a Bill's fan.

Perhaps you're right- Belichick may also suffer from an inability to handle some agents well. We were lucky enough recently to see Tom Donahoe handle the reputed "difficult" Drew Rosenhaus pretty well in signing Willis McGahee.

He's apparently directed his agent to contact KHardy at the football program linked here: KHardie Seeks Running Back

You might try reading the post you refer to one more time. I'm not discussing the DECISION, I'm talking about the HANDLING of decision. While a team is winning the disputes with top players don't necessarily appear as major distractions, it's when a team begins it's inevitable decline that those same flaws are exacerbated. As for your current position in Belichicks lap- my girlfiend swears that you'll find it a lot more pleasant if you have him chug a glass of pineapple juice 4 hours before you get started ;-)

I don't listen to their show. Lee Hamilton mentioned it on his show in Los Angeles yesterday. He's a former play by play man for the Chargers. It's not impossible he morphed the two but at the same he has broken a number of inside stories from his sources over time that have proven out.

I'm guessing you didn't miss those little Pittsburgh and San Francisco runs in the 70s and 80s. That's a bit more dynastic than a couple of championships- if 2 is the measure you'd have to call Miami's back to backs a dynasty, surely a more difficult task than NE has achieved. I wouldn't brand Miami's two wins a "dynasty".

You're ignoring the handling of the Miloy situation, where it was "srung" on the team within literally hours of the opener that Milloy would be gone, and worse yet playing aginst his former team in the first game. I understand you're a homer and you try to justify the piss-poor handling of this by diverting attention to whether the DECISION to let him go was justified, but I haven't ever suggested the reasoning was not, I specifically pointed out each time I mention it that it's the HANDLING of the release that was botched. Law is the same thing- coaches with better people skills might just have HANDLED their best corner in a better way- regardless of the decision of what to ultimately do with Law, which you foolishly are justifying simply because he's been injured, the reality in the NFL over the course of its history is that it's better to take action in front of personell problems than to let them become public distractions. You'll say they don't seem to be distracting the team right now- I say in the long run the long history of personell disctractions shows that it hurts teams far more often than not.

No, I'm not familiar with it.

You should read the occasional column that doesn't originate in Boston. Or have someone teach you to use the Search feature on your browser. I'm not into training trolls.

It's an interesting conclusion to reach, and obviously in the short term it's not possible to refute it. It's over the long haul, and especially if the Pat's sustain and extrended period of balls bouncing the wrong way or if Adam Vinatieri explores his Unrestricted FA status this coming off-season and due to a "lack of sentimentality" your very best player leaves the team, where we will find out if Belichick is as sly as a fox even where he looks weak, or if he is indeed unable to manage human relationships as well as is necessary to attain "dynasty" status.

Better to let others think of you as a fool then to begin typing and remove all doubts ;-)

If you can't recognize the Milloy situation might have been handled better you're just not a very good student of the game. But then again- you are a Patsy bandwagoneer- we weren't able to locate more than 849 Pats fans nationwide before 2001! But it is very telling that you support the Pat's inability to make peace with Law. You're a real seer. I'm guessing your run ends on one of the next two Sundays. We may then begin to be able to assess whether the undercurrents some objective outsiders speculate are inherent in NE are actually there, or on the other hand if all glasses in NE are rose colored and Belichick can call on any bandwagoneer like yourself for a little fellatio. No doubt you can make part of that proposition work, we shall see about the balance.

It's foolish not to recognize the exceptional work Bill Belichick is doing in New England now year after year when it comes to strategy and preparation and also recognizing that he can get his team to buy into those same strategies and prep. At the same time with divisional rivals I always want to look for the wrinkles in the armor of the enemy, and since the football chinks for Belichick are so subtle it's intriguing watching his continued problems with his players on a personal level. When he was Parcell's underling the Tuna had the player relationships tied up and either Belichick just doesn't have the personality to apply the Parcells "charm" or it's an area where he's just a very, very poor student. Then again maybe he doesn't beleive it's very important! But year after year his teams have the types of personell squabbles that usually you find plaguing the perennial goats like Cleveland or Arizona- one year it's the handling of the popular Lawyer Milloy or another year the very public discontent of a Ty Law and today rumors of bad blood between Richard Seymour and the team are brewing, supposedly based upon their desire for him to play Sunday and his desire to protect his knee for the future. The funny thing about all this is that it's hard to imagine the same things going on with other franchises at the seeming height of their success, at least to the extent that it happens with the better players on the Pat's roster versus some #4 RB or a disgruntled special teamer. I'm virtually certain Parcells wouldn't allow it, not the way he sets a social order among his players. It also might be fair to speculate that it's something that's likely to snowball if the wheels begin to fall off the success cart. It'll be interesting watching those wheels this Sunday.

It might take him that long to gain the size/strength he needs to play as an any down TE. His listing at 257 is one of those great smoke and mirrors NFL roster tricks. He blocks like he's 220.

I believe most of the arguments pro paying/treating him like a top WR most directly suggest the desirabily of his size/RAC ability as far as the read I get. He clearly in my mind has never overcome his less than great hands/concentration level over his career which, again for me, takes him out of the top ranks. I've done the excercise in the past with him of posting the Wideouts I'd take before him and today that number is probably up around 25-30 in the league. The obvious problem is anyone of those top 25 or 30 changing teams this off-season is certain to cost their new team a bundle, and that's where the value proposition comes into play. I'd fall down on the side, as some have suggested, of letting Evans get another year of development before putting him on top of the depth chart, which leaves the question of whether we can bring in an effective #1 like Eric who draws opponent attention without spending 8.7 mill or keeping Eric without getting trapped into more future cap trauma with with a "restructured" contract that merely extends the pain of the big Moulds deal.

Not if Vanderjadt kicks like he did in '04- he missed 2 of his FGs from the 30s, 2 of his FGs from the 40s and his only attempt in the 50s. His net after return on KOs was more than 2 yards shy of Lindells, and on the average in much better conditions.

In some ways he is. Watching Lee Evans bring in balls with his great feel for catching with his hands and securing the ball remind me of virtually every season in Moulds career where Eric has proven he simply does not have the natural hands of the great receivers. Much like at the QB position, where teams, fans and the media alike tend to covet the 6-4 240 pounder, we're all also bought to some degree into the bigger receiver as a must have, best possible scenario athlete as a #1 Wideout. For my money there's no better receiver in the league than Marvin Harrison, a guy who has proven to have the type of hands Lee Evans might just be gifted with, not to mention that their otherr physical traits and gifts are in a lot of ways similar.

While that's one of the minor points it's just too obvious- the far more important goal for discussion is representing a football team as dynamic: studies of individual pieces of that dynamic structure have little value without wide ranging studies of all the components and then, and only then, a comparison can be made about the net value of each piece in the overall equation. This off-season has seen a run on the study of a single piece and there's little, if anything, to be gained from that. I'm happy to see more pieces of the structure being scrutinized, in my mind it helps those of us seeking a greater understanding of the full picture to come closer to achieving just that. You obviously fall into that percentage of us who seek a more analytical study of the team and while the excercises themselves may get childish and mean-spirited at times, it can also result in a benefit to the community.

You introduced the analysis, now you try to play a semantic game with their formula. OK, let's do it your way- you don't like "player ranking", we'll instead use their assumed conclusion that their Defense Adjusted Point Over Replacement is a measure of "total performance". So they're saying that on a seasonal average using their formula, in the past 4 seasons there have been 69, 54, 53 and 44 others receivers who have- ahem- "performed" better than Eric Moulds. Big difference there! A little advice- if offered something under the guise of "knowledge" that requires you to contradict yourself over and over while making excuses for the how that "knowledge" was arrived at- you might be better off thinking for yourself- then again.......

Keep adding onto the pile of crap you've had to assume since I asked you a simple question about the flawed analysis you insisted upon introducing.