As Homer Simpson Once Said...

Awe....the Denver Broncos!

As it currently stands, the Pats will host the Denver Broncos in the wild card round of the playoffs. More about that to come, but first, let's talk about the big win on Sunday.

I felt like the team did a great job in 2 phases of the game and as they say, two out of three ain't bad. First, the offense did a pretty good job. Obviously the gameplan was to spread out the Jags big defense and utilize the short passing game. Of Brady's 39 pass attempts, only TWO were for more than 15 yds. He once again proved what a winner he is. Brady was NOT at his best Sunday, he missed a number of throws, but he got the job done and won the game even though it meant running a little bit. (Speaking of, I'm shocked that Clint Ingram didn't get a spearing penalty for his hit on Brady. Yes, Brady dove instead of sliding. Yes the guy was coming full speed. YES he left his feet AND lead with the crown of his helmet right into Brady's spine. I sincerely hope the league takes a look at the hit and sends the kid a fine. All he had to do was touch Brady and he would have been OK if he just fell on top of him. The league needs to send this rookie a lesson for his OWN safety. If he continues to tackle with his head, he will paralyze himself at some point.) The offensive line did a great job protecting Brady considering he dropped back 43 times and got sacked only once. Moreover, Brady had a nice pocket and good throwing lanes. David Thomas showed why he was Vince Young's favorite target at Texas and makes the potential loss of Graham to free agency a little easier to take. I'll suck it up on this one and not that I was entirely happy with the game plan, but Joshy had a pretty good game too.

Second, the defense did a great job except for two plays. Hey, it happens. Obviously the first bad play was the fluke run by Jones-Drew. (I knew I should have started him on my fantasy team!) What shocked me the most was that, even seeing him rolling on the ground, not one official blew a whistle! There is NO WAY that all officials noticed that no Patriot touched him, so why wasn't there a whistle? I don't blame Tully at all on that play, nor the rest of the D. Take away that fluke play and Drew ran for 57 yds on 18 carries, that's pretty good D. The other horrid play was the Matt Jones TD. Where was the defense? I didn't get to see who missed the tackle, and I was told it was Asante, but NO safety help? NO deep zone coverage? One DB on the entire side of the field? Somebody screwed up badly on that one, it's hard to believe that up by ten points at that point in the game they'd play strictly man coverage.
ALSO, Rodney looks better now than he did at the beginning of the season, it was GREAT to have him back. Kudos to the D for stepping up and ending the game when it had to.

Special teams was the weak link. I don't blame Gostkowski for missing a 50 yarder, that happens to everyone. I think he'll be fine heading into the playoffs. While kick coverage was decent, kick returns were bad -especially the Maroney return. I was most disappointed in Todd "Ken Walter" Sauerbrun. Field position will make a BIG difference in the playoffs, so let's hope he was just rusty.

Now there seems to be the debate over what the Pats should do next week. As I wrote last week, I believe Belichick should rest everyone and use this week as a bye. Get Cassel some snaps, get Testeverde some work - don't get Brady speared. Rest everyone that is remotely hurt. They cannot get the #3 seed unless Indy loses again. Even then, they won't know until all the games are over who the opponent will be, unlike last year, when they knew they'd get the Jags if they lost to Miami. If you are interested in who is still in the playoff hunt and how they get in, visit ESPN at http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2668613

As it stands now, SD and Baltimore have the bye week, Indy is 3rd, Pats 4, Denver 5 and Jets 6th.
That means Jets at Indy and Denver at NE.
I'm not so sure I want to face Denver. I think the match-ups work better for the Pats the other way. Denver has a running game far superior to the Jets and would have a better chance of beating Indy. The Pats against Jets would be WW3 and there is no way in hell Belichick let's Manjerky beat him at home AGAIN.

Getting back to current reality, the Jets have been hot and Indy not so hot and it is quite concievable that the Jets win that game and go to SD. Meaning a Pats win brings them to Baltimore. Jet and Pats victories in those games would mean the Pats hosting the Jets for the AFC Championship. It doesn't get any better than that!

Hopefully I'll be able to post 2-3 times a week for the rest of the season, so check back early and often and tell your friends to do the same!