Go Giants! Boston sports teams must be stopped at all costs! I assumed this would be a Pats blowout, but so far so good.
« Liquid Ban | Main | Closing Arguments »
Footballblogging
29 Dec 2007 10:24 pm
Comments (39)
Not so fast! 31-28, go Pats go!!!!
Matthew jinxed it.
Tony,
I'm a Jets fan too. I think I'm rooting for a terrorist attack.
Not so fast! 37-28 Pats!
Mat, Mat, Mat.
Stick to basketball.
Go Celtics!!
Red Soxs and Patriots - I think it can only mean one thing:
God approves of Gay Marriage.
Dallas Cowboys, Houston Astros SUCK! Coincidence - I say not!
It's what they call in the industry - Divine Intervention.
Victory is sweet, but for us Pats fans, watching them give up 35 points to a team that had nothing to lose before we even hit the post-season is a little scary...
If the Pats don't win the Super Bowl, we're never going to hear the end of it. I'm personally hoping, with almost no care about football, that they do, just to spare us the self-satisfied columns that would follow their loss.
Almost.
Should give some pause to those who disrespect Eli Manning though. These are impressive stats against one of the best defenses in the NFL: 22-32, for 251 yds, 4 TDs, and only 1 INT. Playing the Pats this closely should also give the Giants some momentum against the Bucs next week.
Eat humble pie, Yglesias. Your Jets will win someday, but today is ours.
Fred,
"one of the best defenses in the NFL?" That seems like a bit of a stretch.
Top half? Undoubtedly.
Top 10? Maybe.
Top 5? No way.
Much like the Colts of a few years back, this is a D which can only really stop people when they have a big lead and can focus on stopping the pass. Great secondary, but decidedly mediocre linebackers, which means inferior run-stopping.
Nonetheless - good game for Eli in a high stakes moment, which was a pleasant surprise for anyone hoping for the Pats to go down.
Coming into the game the Pats were tied for first in points defense. They'll surely drop after this game, and they lag in other measurements, but there are grounds for the "one of the best" claim. And the knock on the Pats LBs is that they're old and slow, which has more of an effect on their passing defense than the rushing... plus there's Wilfork and Seymour on the line, etc. etc.
Victory! The enemy of my enemy is my friend! Stick it to the '72 Dolphins!
There's a reason why most NFL fans hate the Patriots.
Their fanbase does not deserve such an amazing franchise.
Most people in Boston/New England couldn't care less about the Patriots. Baseball and (to a less degree) basketball and hockey, rule the city.
Of course, the region will act like they care. But they don't really care. They are following the trades the Red Soxs make closer than anything the Patriots do.
Eli Manning deserves a LOT of disrespect. In the fourth quarter he shriveled up into the teeny, tiny little girly man that he is. Of course, the entire Giants team did, too, so maybe it's unfair to single him out. And don't get me started on his clock management on that last drive. He pissed away at least 90 seconds trying to make elaborate calls at the LOS like his big brother does.
Now, Romo, there's a guy who won't blow his second chance at the Pats. And since New England's running game has finally been exposed as a weak link, and their OL is (finally) wearing down a bit, look for the Cowboys - America's Team, you know - to exact some revenge and beat the Pats in the Super Bowl. Glory glory hallelujah, all praise Lord Thomas Landry and St. Roger of Staubach.
(Yes, I'm well into a bottle of Lagavulin. But still: Cowboys over Pats in the SB, book it.)
"Eli Manning deserves a LOT of disrespect."
Must be the Lagavulin talking. Yeah, the clock management could have been better at the end, but Eli has to make adjustments at the line when the defense changes.
You're going to feel like crap tomorrow, btw. That's what happens when you drink half a bottle of something that smells like peat moss. Try Oban next time.
Hey - I haven't had half a bottle! Not yet, anyway.
Eli's INT was the stuff of legends though. "There's Plax. I bet he's finally turned 12 feet tall, let's check". Except he thought he had more sideline for this height inspection.
Classic Eli overthrow.
If the Cowboys beat the Pats in the Super Bowl this year, we'd never hear the end of it from all those insufferable Dallas fans. That's the one outcome that must be prevented at all costs.
"Most people in Boston/New England couldn't care less about the Patriots."
You're out of your fucking mind.
"If the Cowboys beat the Pats in the Super Bowl this year, we'd never hear the end of it from all those insufferable Dallas fans. That's the one outcome that must be prevented at all costs."
I'm an Eagles fan, and even with the bitter hatred for "America's team," we'll all be pulling for Dallas to end NE's sports tyranny. I almost borrowed a Jacobs jersey for last night's game, for chrissakes.
""Most people in Boston/New England couldn't care less about the Patriots."
You're out of your fucking mind.
Nope, thehova's right, as long as were talking long-term -- go ask one of your 'die-hard fans' who Pete Carroll is, and they'll invariably pop their Welker jersey and ask why the faack you're talking about USC. Please.
I'm a Redskins fan, so it'll be a cold day in Hell the day I root for the Cowboys against anybody.
If you'd ever consider wearing a Giants jersey you are most assuredly not a real Eagles fan.
I nominate thehova for stupidest post of the night followed by EpicureanQuaker. I know football fans from the rest of the country desperately want to believe that most New Englanders don't care about the Pats - but that's bullshit. The Patriots are actually more popular in New England than the Red Sox, as least as far as can be determined by actual quantifiable facts like TV ratings and merchandise sales, and have been for some time, since at least the Parcell/Bledsoe days. It's true that the literary and business elites around here tend to skew heavily towards the Sox but they do not accurately represent the vast majority of New Englanders. Personally I've been a die hard fan since #16 Jim Plunkett played QB so don't try to pull any band wagon crap on me.
There are plenty of bandwagon fans here in New England (as there are anywhere in the country when teams have continued success) but there are also many of us who have followed the team for as long as we can remember. In terms of popularity, the draft outdrew live Red Sox games here in New England this past spring which would seem to indicate that we're more interested in football than baseball.
What vanya said is mostly right, though a bit overstated. Comparing TV ratings really isn't fair, as the Red Sox play every day and the Pats once a week.
I can miss a Wednesday night Sox game, no big deal, there will be another (and another) coming right up. If you're a Pats fan, 'skipping' a week would really make no sense, unless you're not much of a fan. My own view is the Sox are king around here, and I don't think it is really all that close--I think they could put a 60,000-football-sized crowd in Fenway every night of the week.
The Pats, however, are amazingly popular around here, and have been for some time. Previous commenters indicating otherwise don't know what the hell they're talking about.
For myself, the most anticipated game of the weekend is tonight's Celtics/Lakers battle.
In New England it's really a class/generational thing. The media here is still dominated by boomers who fell in love with the miracle Sox of '67 and have been pushing the Red Sox down everyone's throats ever since. In reality outside of Cambridge, Brookline, Newton and the other wealthy Boston suburbs, the Red Sox have rarely been the kings of New England. In the early 70s the Bruins were actually probably the most popular sports team around. When I was in high school in the mid 80s in New Hampshire I would argue that the Celtics were #1, followed probably by the Pats, followed closely by the Sox. In the early 90s the Pats started sucking hard, and the resurging Sox started gaining again. But even in the mid-90s you could still easily walk up to Fenway on gameday and get a ticket. The sad reality is that most of Red Sox nation today consists of bandwagon jumpers who probably can't tell you who Bruce Hurst was or even what position Mo Vaughn played.
If anyone deserves success it's Patriots fans. If anyone does not deserve success, it's Cowboys fans, who are the worst front-runners this side of Yankee fans. I was working in Fort Worth, TX this year, and it is amazing how the same people who in August were telling me they could never root for Jerry Jones and a team that would have "thugs" like T.O. play for them are suddenly die hards. Please.
America's team? That's obviously the Packers. Dallas is America's most despised team, which is clearly different.
If the Cowboys beat the Pats in the Super Bowl this year, we'd never hear the end of it from all those insufferable Dallas fans. That's the one outcome that must be prevented at all costs.
You must have been hibernating these past four or five years. New England sports fans have invented all kinds of new ways to be insufferable.
1. The Colts are a better team than the Patriots and will beat them if they meet in the AFC championship.
2. Whether they go 19-0 or not this is not the best team of all time. They have feasted on a pathetic schedule and have played nothing like a great team for at least 6 weeks.
Uh, Freddie, what are you talking about pathetic schedule?
The Patriots have beaten this season Indianapolis, San Diego, Dallas, the New York Giants, and Pittsburgh, all of whom are already in the playoffs. They've also beaten Cleveland and Washington, who could both end up there after today. That means that almost half of their regular season was played against Super Bowl contenders.
Freddie,
Yes, by beating the Colts, the Cowboys, the Chargers, the Steelers, and the Chargers, your argument that the Colts are the better team is clearly justified by the evidence.
Colts lost to the Pats AND the Chargers. Go fig.
As far as New England being Sox territory, I think posters above are right that it's both a generational and a class thing. Wealthy boomers and the WW2 generation seem to be big Sox fans, blue-collar folks seem to like football a lot more than the older and/or wealthier folks.
Plus, the Sox are just firmly ingrained into New England culture. Even people like me who don't care a bit for baseball have a couple of pieces of Sox swag; it's just the way it is.
Go to a working class bar anywhere in New England when the Pats or B's are on TV and you'll see fanhood on par with anywhere else in the country...except Ohio.
In Steubenville, OH recently for a funeral, I had a long conversation with the decedent's 92 year-old neighbor about football from the state high school playoffs, to Ohio State, to Pittsburgh.
That's fanhood.
The Colts are a better team than the Patriots and will beat them if they meet in the AFC championship.
Freddie: I doubt it. The Patriots have a better QB, a better receiving corps, a better offensive line, a better defensive secondary, better special teams, and a better coach. They're also healthier this year than the Colts. They demonstrated this superiority earlier this season by defeating Indy. And this year they're playing in Foxboro. To put it another way, they nearly got by the Colts last year in Indianapolis. Which team has improved more in the last twelve months?
I don't much care for the football. Let's argue over something with a point...like who's the best guitarist in the world or..abortion.
vanya: I've been a die hard fan since #16 Jim Plunkett played QB so don't try to pull any band wagon crap on me.
Jim Plunkett to Randy Vataha! Man, it's been awhile since I thought about that combo.
And do you remember in the fall of 1976, when (with Grogan at QB) the Pats came out of nowhere to beat the Dolphins, Steelers, and Raiders - the dominant teams of the AFC at the time - on three consecutive Sundays? Man, was that ever something.
Freddie writes: "Whether they go 19-0 or not this is not the best team of all time. They have feasted on a pathetic schedule and have played nothing like a great team for at least 6 weeks."
I generally like your posts, Freddie, but this is clearly unhinged. Their schedule was much harder than that of the vastly-overrated 72 Dolphins, and if they finish 19-0 they'll be acknowledged as the best team ever by most rational people.
If people think the Freeney-less Colts are going to win in Foxboro I suggest that they have been doing some early New Years drinking.
Just to put things in perspective: I think the '85 Bears would have beaten today's Patriots. Those Bears were arguably the most dominating team in decades. The only reason they didn't have a perfect season was Dan Marino's preternaturally quick release. Discuss amongst yourselves.
If you could adjust for scale the '85 Bears would beat the Pats, but if you could magically put the teams head to head and play by 2007 rules the Pats would win, probably easily, because the players are simply bigger, faster, and more sophisticated. The Cowboys or Colts could beat the '85 Bears as well. The '72 Dolphins transported to our time probably couldn't even beat the 2007 Dolphins, and might struggle against LSU.
Comments closed January 12, 2008.
| 
Heads in the Sand
So torn-- as a Jet fan, choosing between the Pats and the Jints is as hard as, being a met fan, choosing between the Sox and the Yanks!
Posted by Tony Iovino | December 29, 2007 10:40 PM