OJ's Glove

"There are many teams in this league who can pull away and leave them for dead, and NE won't be able to respond." "Just blow them out, no problem." LOL The problem is NE's defense is constructed so that it's very difficult for anyone to "Pull away and leave them for dead." Sounds easy to say, but it isn't.That's the whole point of building the entire roster so that if your offense isn't a pinball machine, your defense can be damned good to complement that. Also, NE's offense isn't bad at all. It's just not a quick-strike run-up-the-score offense. The rookie QB is very good when necessary but not great like a veteran yet. But the running game and passing weapons are just fine. Implying that it will be easy to beat them in a playoff game if you get a big lead, assumes some team can actually do that. i don't buy it. ----

The Pats are constructed to be flexible. They don't have an incredibly dynamic passing offense, but it's good enough and there are plenty of games where Jones has thrown a lot. They took Tampa and Dallas down to the wire where one play would have flipped the outcome.

You know how many times people have said "they look beatable" in the last 17 years? Of course they can look "beatable", because not every game is a blowout masterpiece. Being great means still winning when you have one of those grind-it-out games where the opponent is giving you problems. "Looking beatable" doesn't matter. It's getting somebody to actually beat them when it matters.

Yawn.

I guess you missed all those other infractions where teams and players get fined for things like tampering, salary cap violations, PEDs, pumping in crowd noise, etcetera. It's ALL "cheating". The Raiders for 40 years openly bragged about trying to cheat. It was part of their ethic as a franchise. What do people think of them now and their three Super bowls? Well, everyone watches NFL Films about the old days and has a good laugh and a backslap about how cute and funny that all was. "Cheating is encouraged" and "if you aint cheatin', you aint tryin'!" Right John Madden? Right George Atkinson? Right Phil Villapiano? Just ask them. The double-standard is embarrassing. Everybody thinks Goodell and his gang of idiots are royal screw-ups and can't find their asses with both hands, but they were supposedly right on the money and in the right when they went after the Patriots? Come on. Goodell fouls everything he touches when it comes to discipline matters. Why would they go after their best team? Because Roger thinks his office and his authority are more important than any one team. Rivals in other places like Hempstead and Indy wanted them taken down a peg and pressured the League office to be harsh. You guys can't be this dumb to not realize stuff like this. "Spygate" was a minor infraction that was blown up because Belichick ignored a League memo to stop doing it, because he knew other teams did it and thought it was no big deal (which Jimmy Johnson and others also admitted) , and he figured he could justify it based of how the actual rule was worded. BB and Goodell's underling snakes in the League office hate each other (always have), the Patriots were a dominant team, Goodell felt like someone was thumbing their nose at his authority. That's all that was necessary. Despite the constant rule-bending that all teams do at one time or another, this nonsense never happened under Rozelle or Tagliabue, because they were actually good at their job and knew how to treat petty squabbles between rival teams as the whiny nonsense situations they were, rather than letting them blow up into national stories. "Deflategate" was ginned up, and when the evidence wasn't there to even show an infraction had even happened, Roger punished them anyway because AGAIN he was getting pressure from other owners to make sure they were found guilty. Mostly because they had the nerve to continue to win at historic proportions and stopping them from taping had had no effect at all on that (almost as if it didn't matter! Aw shucks!). NOBODY tries to do this to the Cleveland Browns or some 8-8 team. The paranoia around the League about the Patriots is palpable, ridiculous and embarrassing. Taking away the tapes and draft picks didn't work. So they tried to take away Brady and that didn't work. Deflategate was a legal victory but a massive PR nightmare and black eye over nothing. Maybe they've learned their lesson, but I doubt it. Park Avenue is too ignorant, vindictive and stupid. . Correct.

Well, which team recovers a fumble is usually luck. Being good at forcing fumbles, or being a ballcarrier with bad ball-security habits who fumbles more? Not so much.

Unfortunately that hasn't happened since 1993. I know it's a common refrain on this board that NE fans aren't real fans who will stop watching when the team starts losing, or that the team was nothing before Belichick and Brady. This is mostly a myth. Most of their problems came from a cash-poor owner, front-office turmoil and suburban sub-standard facilities. The team's only real down-period in historical memory was between 88 and 93, when the Bills were coming into their own as a great team. But that was an anomaly. In the 12 years between 76 (when Fairbanks' drafting started showing results) and 88 when Raymond Berry's Super Bowl team was running out of gas, they had only one losing season. In the last 41 seasons they've been below .500 in only 8 of them. Every team's history has up and down periods, but all of you guys waiting for Gillette Stadium to be empty when Belichick and Brady leave are in for a rude awakening. The Red Sox aren't getting the town back, and Boston has simply joined almost every other city in America where football is more popular than baseball. The only other one I can think of where they love baseball more is St. Louis, and they've now lost two football teams and will likely never get another one. If it makes you feel better to keep telling yourselves how lukewarm Pats fans are while you guys are sooooo hardcore, then knock yourself out.

You're not wrong. But it's preseason. What if they're decimated by injury like they were in '15? That's what stopped them in Denver, and crippled them in some other years they didn't win, too.

Right. It's a tall order to repeat, even if you have the best roster. And stay away from the Falcons, too. The last time a Super Bowl loser won it all the following year was the '72 Dolphins. Right, but it's much easier for a lucky underdog in the NFL rather than the NBA. One game and you're out.

Even if the "in the know" has the Pats at 30% to win 52 (which is absurdly high), that means they think it's 70% someone else wins it. Always take the field.

Always take the field.

In your place, I'm sure I would have enjoyed it too. To be fair, we knew Brissett had a thumb injury, but we didn't know it was so bad it needed surgery right after, and he couldn't really throw in that game so Belichick severely limited the playbook. You can't expect Pats fans to consider that an important win. Saying you beat a third string QB with an injured throwing hand is just the fact of the matter. /shrug/

Never claimed I was a Bills fan. I went to SU, though. I live in MA and heard it on the radio today. The radio guys were complaining that they had nothing to biitch about. Doesn't matter to them - usually they'll just make something up.

Good luck with that, I guess. Since 2001, the 4 major Boston sports teams have made at least the final 4 of their respective playoffs 23 times.

He's a little banged up.

Tell me you were there for the 32-31 win over WV that pushed them to 11-0. I've seen 5 AFC Title games in person and that SU-WV game was one of the most memorable sporting events I ever went to.

Having a good chuckle at this thread. Who knew the comedy in Buffalo actually starts before the season?

Sure, but the next logical question would be: Does he miss less often than other coaches and GM's? I don't know the answer. I suspect that's one reason why he usually likes to stockpile picks (this year being an exception). He know the draft is a crapshoot - he's just trying to increase his odds. Yeah, that's part of it. Having Brady also makes it easier to let a guy go who isn't with the program. Even if his replacement isn't as talented, he might be cheaper and fit the team philosophy better, and they'll continue to win with #12 anyway. The most dysfunctional team they ever had was still 10-6. Gives you a lot of flexibility when you don't have the media and fans demanding you change something immediately or get fired. Although, BB was like that even without Brady. Not falling in love with fan favorites or reputation players, I mean. He eventually (correctly) replaced Kosar with Testaverde, even though many Cleveland fans wanted him dead for that. He did it anyway, reaction be damned.

Belichick is always on the lookout for a certain type of player, with an idea in mind of exactly how that player will be used. His ideas aren't always the same as other coaching staffs. Of course Brady makes receivers like Hogan look better than they'd look in a place like Buffalo, but it works for other players too. Belichick had certain ideas about how to use a guy like Mike Vrabel, ways that the Steelers either didn't notice or care about. Sometimes he's wrong (Scott Chandler, for example), but he's right more often than most coaches. When BB decides to trade or cut someone, it's because he feels the player is either on the downside, or he thinks the player isn't as integral to his overall success as outside observers do, and he figures it's better to let someone else over pay for that guy. Doesn't fall in love with anybody. See Chandler Jones and Jamie Collins. Jones is good but too expensive, and the Pats just won the SB without him. Collins is talented but is now stuck on the Browns, who aren't going to get as much out of him as better teams would.

Well, yes and no. Part of the Pats successful culture started in 94 when they got stable ownership. They were the worst team in the league in 92. But they got a great coach in Parcells and a franchise QB, which backs up your point. Even when Carroll replaced Parcells, Pete never had a losing season in NE, but the team was slowly getting worse and Kraft needed to make a tough decision to jettison Pete and hire BB when everyone was telling him what a mistake it was. Of course Brady is a big reason why they're THIS great. Otherworldly great. But Bill being there is a perfect storm because he's excellent at in-game strategy, roster management and knowing who to pay and who to let go. The HC, FO and owner are a part of the culture. Do you know how often GB fans complain that their HOF franchise QB has only won the SB once because the "culture" around him (coaching staff and FO) haven't done enough to make the team around him good enough? Especially the defense? Yeah, you need the QB, but if the team structure is underwhelming it definitely affects how the team performs. The idea that BB "failed" in Cleveland is a bit of a canard. He took over a really bad team and had them in the playoffs in three years. They cratered the next year after Modell announced the move. The perception exists that he failed because he benched Kosar which angered fans, alienated the Cleveland sports media, and became collateral damage when the city turned against the team when Modell announced he was skipping town.

Good Lord, that's stupid! Fans don't make a profit on TicketExchange, and the League encourages STH to use it. So this guy gets yanked for that? The story is kind of light on details. Guy claimed he only sold tickets in the approved way, but I wonder if the team would dispute that. If teams ever actually revoked tix from STH's who sell more than half their games on TE, then a huge percentage of the entire league's STH would lose their tickets. if the Bucs are worried about opposing team's fans going to games in Tampa, maybe they should improve the team so that more Bucs fans are on the waiting list, and will buy those tix offered on TE before opposing fans do.

I don't think the article says that the offending parties used Ticket Exchange. Did they? It just says one of the guys sold his tix on the "secondary market" for the last 4 years. I get why the article highlighted fans with sick relatives to make the point. Sob stories always sell. But I do think it would have been a PR advantage for the Broncos to give warnings and allow people who had been scalping all their tickets to adjust their behavior. I think it's a little harsh. I've had season tix in Foxboro for 23 years, and I use Ticket Exchange all the time, because I can't afford to go to every game. I go to at least two games a year and all playoff games, but I use Ticket Exchange precisely because I want the security of the team not penalizing me for whoever my seats might be sold to. STH don't make a profit using Ticket Exchange, the team does. So I don't think that's what the Broncos are doing here.

This thread is ridiculous. And I read the Patsfans thread and there's nothing really objectionable there, based on the Bills track record. If you want the Bills to be laughed at less frequently, there's a solution for that. Play better football. WIN MORE GAMES. Showcasing your inferiority complex again by getting pissy about the Patriots' fans dismissive reaction to whatever it is you're doing is not a good look. And there was nothing more arrogant and douchey than the Bills fans in the 90's who traveled to Foxboro for those games against the Patriots. I witnessed it personally. You all acted like you were kings of the mountain, and you never even actually won it. That didn't stop you, though. What goes around comes around. OoH, look! Another thread which devolves into....blah blah blah...cheatriots!...blah..Bandwagon fans...blah blah... they'll suck again soon when Brady's gone...blah blah... Rinse and repeat. Come on. Most of you should be better than this.

Yes, but NE sports radio claims a lot of things on a daily basis that are really, really stupid. Not liking the cold (even if true) isn't a reason to turn down an offer if it's substantially better than anyone else's.

This is classic conspiracy thinking. Confirmation Bias. The minute the Pats were pinched for Spygate, people are likely to remember anything untoward that happens that's associated with them, and simply forget it when it happens with other teams. For example, headset problems happen with every team and in every stadium, with a system controlled by the League. Only when the Patriots are involved does it become a story that people remember for precisely this reason. It happens in other games all the time but never becomes a story. it goes right down the memory hole, and/or the media ignores it because it's not the big, bad Patriots. Look at how Harbaugh reacted when he was faced with completely legal but unorthodox formations that he wasn't ready for. He lost his mind and wrongly complained that they were "deceptive" and 'illegal". No, he just got outsmarted and couldn't handle it, and he assumed he was being cheated when he wasn't. This is Patriots Derangement Syndrome 101. Shanahan loses track of his backpack (his fault), we know the media guy who took it by accident, but people somehow make that the Patriots fault too. Why isn't Shanahan simply a moron for losing track of something so important? it isn't the Patriots fault some reporter picked it up by accident. But something like that is guaranteed to attract the conspiracy weirdos like bees to honey. If the same thing happens but the Falcons are playing someone else, it's much less of a story, if it's one at all. The same thing used to happen with the Boston Celtics. Other teams complaining about dead spots in the parquet floor, or cold water in the visiting locker room showers, or many other hijinks that visiting teams were worried about. Red Auerbach wasn't doing anything like that, but he allowed opposing teams to believe it because they were psychologically beaten before even playing the Celtics. It was a huge psychological edge to have other teams waste time worrying about this phantom stuff and chasing wild gooses.