Red Sox
Patriots
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Bruins
Revolution
Return of Bruins gives new excitement to Boston sports scene
Hockey is back, folks.
And here in Boston, let there be no doubt we have missed it.
More than eight months have passed since the Bruins skated off the ice following a 2-1 defeat to the Washington Capitals in Game 7 of their first-round playoff series, and the B's have barely been on our minds since. Tim Thomas withdrew to Colorado shortly after the season, and Bruins executives subsequently tied up loose ends with contract extensions for Milan Lucic, Brad Marchand, and Tyler Seguin all before the league began its latest (un)civil war.
But within 8-10 days, the Bruins will be back on the ice. And their return should hit us all like a blast of 5-hour energy, particularly during a relatively barren winter sports season.
Take a good look around, sports followers. Short of the Patriots, there hasn't been much to get excited about. Even then, Patriots standards make the regular season schedule feel like a list of weekly house chores: do the dishes, put in the laundry, take out the trash. Then go out and wallop the Bills, Jets, and Dolphins, all with the intention of getting the best possible seed in the playoffs.
Since the start of September, really, that's pretty much been it. The Celtics have been an enormous disappointment, unlikeable and seemingly apathetic, at least until Friday night against Indiana. (Have they now remembered that defense is mandatory?) Meanwhile, the Red Sox have spent the large majority of their time erasing the mistakes of last winter, from Bobby Valentine to Mark Melancon to Andrew Bailey.
At the moment, we have no idea if the Red Sox are any good. What we suspect is that they will not be nearly as bad or as dysfunctional as they were a year ago, which is only the very first, small step on the road back to championship contention.
The Bruins, by contrast, would have (and will) come into the season with championship aspirations, something that should be true for years to come, even in the absence of Thomas. Prior to injuring his groin last season, Tuukka Rask had a 2.05 goals-against average and a .929 save percentage. Had the Bruins made it past the Capitals, Rask might have been ready to return for the second round of the playoffs.
Instead, the Bruins joined the rest of the league in hibernation, an absence that has extended for far, far too long.
Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs was a lead dog in the latest NHL war against the players, and maybe Jacobs feels like a bigger man now that the owners have won another seven percent. Whatever. But the most loyal Bruins fans have been stripped of at least some joy by their owner yet again, and this latest deprivation comes at a time when the Bruins should be thumping their chests at or near the top of the NHL mountain.
Think about it. More than any other team in town, the Bruins are built for the long haul. The Patriots have had an extraordinary run of success, but Tom Brady is 35. The Celtics are in the sixth year of a three-year plan. The Red Sox are rebuilding from the inside out, having failed to win even a single playoff game since 2008.
But the Bruins? The Bruins were the Stanley Cup champions in 2010-11, a wonderful blend of youth, experience, speed, toughness, skill and resolve. To some degree, we all gave them a pass on last season because they were still celebrating a championship. But coming into this year, the Bruins were again among the best teams in the NHL, further fortified by yet another coup from the glorious Phil Kessel trade - defenseman Dougie Hamilton.
And so what happened? The NHL ordered a lockout. The game stopped. The Bruins' owner was among those who ordered the players off the ice, even at a time when the Bruins project to be among the greatest forces on it.
Ugh. Talk about biting off your nose to spite your face. If the Red Sox got locked out, we might not care. But the Bruins?
The good news, of course, is that there will be a hockey season, albeit a shortened one, and that Bruins players ultimately suffered less than the fans who support them. Most fans don't give a darn about the winners or labor wars between owners and players - nor should they. We all understand the societal value and place of sports, and we know what they mean when it comes to emotional and psychological well-being of individual fans and the entire community.
So fine, the owners got more revenue, the players got longer term limits and the game will have some measure of labor peace for eight years. That last item is really the only one that fans should care about. During that span, the Bruins should be able to take the ice without interruption from their owner or anyone else, which is really all anybody wants.
Assuming no further glitches in the coming days - and that means the expected ratification of the new collective bargaining agreement by players and owners - hockey will return on either Jan. 15 or Jan. 19.
And then, finally, we can all turn our attention back to the ice, where we begin by asking the most obvious question.
Can the Bruins win another Stanley Cup?
My guesses for NFL wild card games
Here in New England, the ramifications of this week's playoff games are simple: if the Houston Texans win on Saturday, they be returning to Foxboro on Jan. 13. If the Texans lose, the Patriots will face the winner of Sunday's game between the Baltimore Ravens and Indianapolis Colts.
As such, here are one person's thoughts on the first-round matchups as we enter every football fan's favorite month on the calendar:
CINCINNATI AT HOUSTON
Time: Saturday, 4:30 p.m.
Line: Houston by 4 1/2
Overview: My, how the mighty have fallen, eh? When the Texans came into Foxborough on Dec. 10, they were 11-1. Wide receiver Andre Johnson called it the biggest game in Texans franchise history. Houston subsequently got shwacked by a 42-12 score and then dropped games to Minnesota (23-6) and Indianapolis (28-16) in Weeks 16 and 17.
While Matt Schaub was hurt late last year, now seems a good time to mention that the Texans lost their final three games of the 2011 season, too.
The Bengals, as we know, are headed in the opposite direction. Cincinnati went 7-1 in its final eight games, dropping only a 20-19 decision to Dallas that was decided on a final kick. The Bengals finished the season ranked fifth in the NFL in total defense and have budding talents at both quarterback (Andy Dalton) and wide receiver (A.J. Green).
OK, so it's not an upset if everyone is picking it. But Houston couldn't possibly look more ripe.
The pick: Cincinnati 23, Houston 20.
MINNESOTA AT GREEN BAY
Time: Saturday, 8 p.m.
Line: Green Bay by 7 1/2
Overview: The fantasy geeks all love Adrian Peterson - and he is a tremendous talent - but it's been a long time since a running back led a team through the playoffs. Peterson has averaged 204.5 yards in two games against the Packers this season, which is a silly number. One must believe that Green Bay will gear up to stop him, which could put the game in the hands of Christian Ponder.
And does anyone really believe Ponder can beat Aaron Rodgers in Green Bay?
The Packers are of obvious intrigue entering this postseason because their talent is elite. They have playmakers on offense and defense. The Packers missed the chance for a bye by losing at Minnesota last week, but the only real question in this game seems to concern the margin or victory. Next week will be a different question.
The pick: Green Bay 34, Minnesota 10.
INDIANAPOLIS AT BALTIMORE
Time: Sunday, 1 p.m.
Line: Baltimore by 6 1/2
Overview: Quick, name the two ripest teams in the playoffs. Houston and Baltimore, right? Wrong. As much as everyone wants to write off the Ravens, who lost 4 of 5 to end the season, Baltimore is still a veteran, physical team playing at home. The Indianapolis defense allowed an average of 5.1 yards per rush this season and Ray Rice is still one of the best backs in the league.
Are the Ravens a Super Bowl threat in Ray Lewis' last season? No. But they're better than Indianapolis.
As for the Colts, they have been one of the truly great stories in the league this year. Nonetheless, Indianapolis is the only team in the playoffs with a negative point differential this season. Andrew Luck had just a 72.5 rating outdoors and, short of fading Houston in Week 17, the Colts didn't beat a team with a winning record after Week 5.
The Colts are a once again a team to be reckoned with for years to come, but their 2012 season is all but done. The Ravens are coming to Foxborough next week.
The pick: Baltimore 27, Indianapolis 14.
SEATTLE AT WASHINGTON
Time: Sunday, 4:30 p.m.
Line: Seattle by 3
Overview: The Year of the Rookie QB comes to a head in Washington, where Russell Wilson meets Robert Griffin III. Quite a story, eh? Once upon a time, it was preposterous to suggest that a first- or second-year quarterback could lead his team to the playoffs. This year alone, there are six in the postseason.
Here's a stat for you: thanks to a defense that allowed fewer points than any unit in the league, the Seahawks led the NFC in point differential. Seattle also won its last two games on the road. No one is suggesting the Seahawks can win three straight road games to get to the Super Bowl, but Pete Carroll has built an imposing team in the Northwest.
As for the Redskins, Griffin is hobbled by a knee injury. The cold weather and an attacking defense are not likely to help. America is in love with RG III, but Seattle looks like the more balanced and physical team - albeit not by much.
The pick: Seattle 24, Washington 20.
Patriots got lucky, now it's time for them to be really good
'Tis better to be lucky than good, as the saying goes. Although in the NFL, it is best to be both.
And the Patriots certainly qualify.
Partly through their own doing, partly through the ineptitude of their competition, the Patriots will be standing by patiently when the NFL playoffs open on Saturday, just as they have been for so many of the last 12 years. Sunday was only the latest example of New England's tried-and-true formula. First, with everything to lose, the Houston Texans went out and lost to an Indianapolis Colts team that really had nothing to gain. Then the Patriots went out and did what the Texans could not, taking care of business against the Miami Dolphins to secure the No. 2 seed in the AFC and an all-important bye in the first round of the playoffs.
Possessors of the top seed in the AFC entering Week 17, the Texans did not merely open the door for the Patriots on Sunday -- they put down a runner, they accepted the Pats' coat, hat, and gloves, too. Bill Belichick and his players then calmly and confidently strode through, proving an adage that has delivered the Patriots to at least the divisional round in eight of the last 11 seasons.
Ninety percent of life is just showing up.
Which is apparently too much to ask of a team like the Texans.
Or even, say, the New York Giants.
Slightly less than a year ago, lest we forget, the Giants defeated the Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI, albeit off a 9-7 regular season. Nonetheless, a title is a title. The Giants were 6-2 midway through this season while the Patriots were 5-3 -- the Texans were 7-1 -- and New York loomed over the potential playoff field like a skilled, seasoned fighter still in the prime of his career.
Know what the Giants did? They fell asleep, going 3-5 the rest, losing two of their last three games. The Texans were 11-1 before they came into Foxborough and got their doors blown off, that defeat not nearly as revealing as the subsequent confidence crisis that produced two more defeats in the next three games.
The Patriots, by contrast, were seemingly on the way to a similarly dispiriting loss against the San Francisco 49ers when they decided to, you know, rally through Week 16 and 17, something that ultimately earned them a vacation week while both the Giants (out of the playoffs entirely) and Texans (hosting Cincinnati on Saturday) are trying to figure out, to varying degrees, exactly what went wrong.
Um, guys?
The last 10 percent of life becomes much more difficult -- or downright impossible -- if you don't take care of the first 90.
For the Patriots, the last 10 percent makes all the difference in the world, of course, which speaks to the pedigree of the Belichick Era. Since they have been paired together, Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady have been to six conference championships and five Super Bowls. And yet, the last seven seasons (and counting?) have failed to produce a Super Bowl title, which has left all of us wondering whether the Patriots have quite what it takes for the last 10 percent.
Over the last seven weeks, since the addition of defensive back Aqib Talib to the Patriots secondary, New England has ranked fifth in the league in defense based on points allowed. On third down, the Patriots have ranked 10th. Those are significant improvements over where the Patriots were prior to the addition of Talib, when the term "Patriots defense" too often seemed an oxymoron.
Beginning in the divisional round of the playoffs, those improvements should not be overlooked. In early December, after a huge Jerod Mayo sack stalled a Miami Dolphins drive and forced a field goal, the Patriots opened the month with a 23-16 win at Miami that featured an impressive, game-ending field goal drive that consumed most of the fourth quarter. Two weeks ago in Jacksonville, a game the Patriots won by an identical 23-16 score, the Patriots made a pair of fourth-quarter interceptions deep in their own territory to preserve the win. Miami and Jacksonville went a combined 9-23 this season, to be sure, but the Patriots showed at least some capacity to win the kind of game they have too frequently failed to win.
Prior to the Miami win, after all, the Patriots were 2-7 in their last nine games when scoring 23 points or fewer points. Their only two victories during that span came against Baltimore in last season's AFC Championship Game (when Baltimore kicker Billy Cundiff missed a a potential, game-tying 32-yard bunny to end the game) and against Dallas last season (when Cowboys coach Jason Garrett all but sat on his hands despite a chance to run out the clock). Tighter, lower-scoring games have been the Patriots' demise in recent years, largely because they could only win games with their offense.
Prior to the first Miami game, the Patriots' defeats this season followed a similar pattern. Arizona shut them down. Seattle shut them down. In the loss to San Francisco, New England was down 31-3 before the Niners backed off some. All three clubs succeeded by playing New England aggressively and physically, and the Patriots defense was not imposing enough to win what was left.
Whether this group is truly different is certainly open to debate, though the Texans certainly made things easier by shrinking in December. Houston will get another chance in New England if the Texans win on Saturday, but the Patriots have not lost to an AFC opponent at home this year. A Houston defeat would mean a Foxborough visit for either Baltimore or Indianapolis, the former of whom has an aging and fading defense, the latter of whom got throttled at Gillette earlier this season.
What happens after that is obviously anyone's guess.
But wherever the Patriots go now, it will have far less to do with how lucky they are, and far more to do with how good.
The Jets are football's answer to the Red Sox
Joy to the world.
The Jets are done.
So puff out your chests, Patriots fans. Gang Green has gangrene. Head coach Rex Ryan arrived in New York vowing never to kiss Bill Belichick's rings, and he may now leave New York kissing Belichick's feet. Sexy Rexy and the Jets appear headed for a complete dismantling that could begin within hours of the conclusion of the 2012 regular season, and New York now looks like nothing more than a pothole during Belichick's 12-year journey over the AFC East.
Slightly more than a year ago, like the 2011 Red Sox, the Jets were 8-5 and seemingly positioned for a playoff spot. Then they self-destructed in a season-ending losing streak marked by dissension, infighting, turmoil and finger-pointing. New York's answer to its problems came in a man whom most everyone else regarded as a potential problem, the kind of lightning rod who translated into media attention and in retrospect, undue hype.
The Red Sox had Bobby Valentine. The Jets had Tim Tebow.
When you get right down to it, what's the difference?
Each was a bill of goods.
In the case of Tebow, he is hardly to blame for what has befallen the Jets. Like Valentine, Tebow was the pawn in an internal struggle between ownership and on-field operations. One side wanted him and the other did not. In the end, he has become a symbol of everything that is wrong with the Jets, of the kind of organizational dysfunction that can eat at a franchise from within.
And now, just like the Red Sox, there is talk of the jets selling off parts, of trading away Tebow and the wildly overpaid Mark Sanchez, who might be the Jets' equivalent to, say, John Lackey.
In recent Patriots history, we all know the story of The Border War. In these parts, the Jets were largely irrelevant until Bill Parcells broke from Patriots owner Robert Kraft and took over the New York operation. Subsequent spinoffs centered around Belichick and Eric Mangini, the Belichick protege who turned on his mentor. Mangini gave way to Ryan, the kind of rebellion a teenager makes under the weight of overbearing parents.
When the Jets hired Mangini, they told the world they wanted to be more like the Patriots. When they hired Ryan, they told world they wanted to be nothing like New England.
For a time, of course, the Jets played as if liberated. Ryan went 3-2 in his first five meetings against Belichick, one victory coming in the divisional playoffs at Foxboro Stadium. The Jets went to two consecutive AFC Championship Games while the Patriots failed to win even a single postseason game. The team were both 5-3 when the Patriots traveled to the Meadowlands last season for a Week 10 matchup, New England in a relatively fragile state while the Jets had won three straight.
And then, precipitously, everything flipped.
In the time since, beginning with a 37-16 win in New York, the Patriots have gone 20-5 while the Jets have gone 9-13. The gap between the teams now feels as big as it did before Parcells left New England. The Patriots have played in one Super Bowl and look at least as capable this year as any other NFL team, and the Jets are now prepared to cut tied with both Tebow and Sanchez, perhaps Ryan, maybe even general manager Mike Tannenbaum.
Seven or eight months from now, we can only wonder if the Jets and their followers will be talking about a bridge year.
And so now, presumably, Tebow will be gone from New York as quickly as Valentine was from Boston, their roles in the failures of two franchises indisputably clear. Neither man caused the problems on his team. But in some way, shape or form, each made it worse. And lest there be any doubt, neither Valentine nor Tebow deserves as much blame as the people who imported them, the kind of detached decision-making that cannot help but make you wonder whether the people running the franchise had any clue at all.
What happens to the Jets from here is anyone's guess, and the Patriots clearly have their own issues to worry about at the moment. New England has two regular season games remaining on its 2012 regular season schedule and the Patriots are currently the No. 3 seed in the AFC. The playoffs might very well begin in two weeks. The Border is now nothing but a memory, and Ryan looks like simply another man who tried to take at Belichick.
Happy Holidays, Patriots followers.
The New Year may or may not bring another trip to the Super Bowl, but you are far, far better off than the Jets.
Do Red Sox have something big in works?
Five questions on the please-pardon-our-appearance Red Sox as we close in on the end of what was a miserable 2012:
5. What does the lineup and bench look like right now?
With the reported addition of Stephen Drew - and assuming the Mike Napoli mess gets sorted out - the Red Sox seemingly have filled all of the major holes on their positional roster. Drew may have been a bit of a surprise addition given the presence of Jose Iglesias, but the Red Sox have nothing other than money to lose on that one-year deal.
As such, allowing some latitude, the projected starting lineup and roster look something like this:
STARTING LINEUP
Jacoby Ellsbury, cf
Shane Victorino, rf
Dustin Pedroia, 2b
David Ortiz, dh
Will Middlebrooks, 3b
Mike Napoli, 1b
Johnny Gomes, lf
Jarrod Saltalamacchia, c
Stephen Drew, ss
BENCH
Davis Ross, c
Ryan Kalish, of
Pedro Ciriaco, if
Jose Iglesias, if
Ryan Lavarnway, c
Mauro Gomez, 1b
ROTATION
Jon Lester, lhp
Clay Buchholz, rhp
John Lackey, rhp
Ryan Dempster, rhp
Felix Doubront, lhp
BULLPEN
Alfredo Aceves, rhp
Andrew Bailey, rhp
Daniel Bard, rhp
Mark Melancon, rhp
Clayton Mortensen, rhp
Koji Uekhara, rhp
Andrew Miller, lhp
Franklin Morales, lhp
Craig Breslow, lhp
Junichi Tazawa, lhp
Yes, there are 30 names there, including 15 pitchers and 15 positional players. The pitchers should not a surprise because most teams will carry a surplus into camp. The positional list is admittedly liberal, allowing for people like Mauro. Whether you think the Red Sox are competitive is certainly debatable, but some of the extra pieces lead to additional questions, like:
4. What exactly does the future hold for Jose Iglesias?
If the Drew signing sounds any alarms, they should be between the ears of the soon-to-be 23-year-old Iglesias, whom the Red Sox signed out of Cuba three years ago. In three minor league seasons, Iglesias has a career OPS of .626. In the big leagues, he's 10 for 74 (a .135 average) with 18 strikeouts and a .413 OPS. If Iglesias is legitimately 23, there's still time for growth. If the Red Sox have questions about that age, they may be ready to move on.
Think about it. The Red Sox are essentially rebuilding. Now would be the time to play someone like Iglesias and to start getting some answers. Prospects Xander Bogaerts and Deven Marrero are both playing shortstop in the minor leagues. Bogaerts may not project as a shortstop in the majors - many teams will draft an excess of players in the middle of the diamond - but it's getting close to decision time on Iglesias, assuming the Sox haven't made one already.
Is he nothing more than utility man at this stage? Or are the Red Sox positioned to package Iglesias with people like Ellsbury and/or Saltalamacchia in a deal for pitching?
3. What gives with Ryan Kalish?
Kalish made his major league debut on July 31, 2010, and his inaugural big league season was quite respectable. In 53 games, Kalish batted .252 with a .710 OPS and 10 stolen bases while playing all three outfield positions. The Red Sox made it quite clear at the time that they regarded Kalish as a better outfield prospect than Josh Reddick, whom they subsequently traded to the Oakland A's for Andrew Bailey. Some people in the organization even compared him to a young Trot Nixon.
Injuries have set Kalish back some, of course, and he missed considerable chunks of the 2011 and 2012 seasons. Other than switch-hitting, shouldn't he be capable of giving the Red Sox something close to what Shane Victorino will give the Red Sox in 2013? Kalish will be 25 next spring. The clock on him is now ticking louder than ever. Any complaints on the Victorino signing should have nothing to do with the money - the Red Sox still have plenty. But why isn't Kalish getting a shot?
2. Do the Red Sox have something big up their sleeves?
Do the math. At catcher, the Red Sox currently have a group that includes Ross, Lavarnway and Saltalamacchia. Iglesias looks like he's getting squeezed from both ends (the majors and minors) at shortstop. Kalish is being bumped by Johnny Gomes in left and Victorino in right. At various points during the offseason, the Sox have reportedly had trade discussions involving Ellsbury, Bailey and others.
Individually, all of those pieces may have limited value. Ellsbury is a free agent at the end of 2013. Iglesias hasn't hit. Kalish has been hurt. Saltalamacchia and Lavarnway are regarded as below-average defenders. But put an combination of them together - throwing in a pitcher perhaps - and the package might be significant enough for the Red Sox to add a starting pitcher.
Obviously, no team builds a 25-man roster during the winter. The goal is to build a group much deeper than that with the idea that there will be injuries, mishaps, failures. But the Red Sox' short-term depth is far less of a concern than the long-term, and the Sox might be wise to sacrifice some lesser, short-term talent for a bigger, long-term gain.
1. Is Texas a trade partner?
The loss of Josh Hamilton to free agency seemingly leaves the Rangers with a significant hole in their lineup, and there has long been speculation that the Rangers would be players for Ellsbury if and when Hamilton departed. The most publicized scenario has a featured a swap of Ellsbury for shortstop Elvis Andrus, who seems destined to be replaced by wunderkind Jurickson Profar, a shortstop regarded as the best prospect in the Texas system.
Remember, too, that the Rangers traded Michael Young to the Philadelphia Phillies. The Rangers have said publicly that they intend to give an opportunity to their prospects - corner infielder Mike Olt is projected as a power hitter - and the Rangers might be telling the truth. They may even be inclined to go with outfielder Leonys Martin in center field.
Still, Ellsbury to the Rangers is an obvious fit, even if only for a year. The Rangers have a deep roster and strong farm system, and the Los Angeles Angels' acquisition of Hamilton upped the ante in the American league West. Minus Hamilton and Young, the Rangers also might have the money to give Ellsbury the money he will command on the free agent market next fall, though that obviously could dissuade them from making a deal for the player now.
After all, why give up the prospects, too?
Patriots got what they deserved vs. 49ers
New England was due for a dose of humility, so maybe it was best that it came in this form. The San Francisco 49ers came into Foxborough on Sunday and beat the Patriots at their own game. The 49ers forced turnovers. They scored. And they beat the Patriots up.
And so just like that, the Patriots went from pursuers of the No. 1 seed in the AFC to possessors of No. 3, to the team that would host the Cincinnati Bengals on wild card weekend if the playoffs opened this week. New England showed grit and resolve in this game, to be sure, but the simple truth is that the Patriots never led against a 49ers team that is - and can we all agree on this now? - a certified, bona fide Super Bowl threat.
No ifs, ands or buts. No excuses. No whining. The Niners just came in here and poked an array of holes in what seemed an air of invincibility following the Patriots' convincing win over the Houston Texans, and the only question now is whether the Patriots will be better off for it.
Or worse.
Despite the final score of this game, let the record show that the Niners used a familiar formula to unseat the Patriots: good, old-fashioned, hard-nosed defense. The Patriots went 2-for-13 on third down in this game, both conversions coming during an early third-quarter drive after the Niners had built a 31-3 lead that should have been even bigger. The Patriots started moving the ball in this game only after the Niners backed off some, and then the Patriots got on a roll that nearly made for one of the greatest comebacks in NFL history.
In the end, the Patriots got what they deserved in this game, if only because a team cannot expect to play 20 minutes of a 60-minute game and win against elite competition.
Now, does this mean the Patriots are cooked, that they are incapable of winning three games to reach the sixth Super Bowl of the Bill Belichick and Tom Brady Era? Of course not. It just means the road got longer and tougher. It means the Patriots still have some work to do in their secondary. And it means the Patriots still have some young players who are unknowns when it comes to playing the biggest games on the grandest stages against the toughest competition.
Stevan Ridley has fumbled in each of the last two games, after all, and he fumbled in the divisional playoffs against Denver last year. (He now has four fumbles this season.) Shane Vereen also fumbled in this game. Nate Solder was schooled by Aldon Smith in the earliest stages of play and allowed a huge sack late, and the New England secondary took a step back, Niners quarterback Colin Kaepernick exploiting the safety play of Steve Gregory and Devin McCourty.
Whatever weaknesses the Patriots have possessed this season, the Niners seemingly took advantage of them. Which brings us to another issue, Niners coach Jim Harbaugh, who showed no trepidation in taking on the great Belichick, faking a punt on fourth-and-10 from his own 41-yard line when it was just a 7-0 lead in the first quarter.
How's that for gumption?
For the Patriots, the end result was a 1-3 record against the NFC West this season, with losses to Arizona, Seattle, and San Francisco, all of whom beat the Patriots up at the line of scrimmage and effectively contained the New England passing attack. And this game, unlike the others, was played on a cold, wet, and wintry New England night, the kind of conditions that are supposed to favor weathered New Englanders, not their visitors from the Bay Area.
The good news in all of this? There aren't many teams out there like the Niners, whom the Patriots would love to see again in the Super Bowl, if New England can get that far. And the Patriots still can. Though the Texans and surging Denver Broncos now stand ahead of the Patriots in the AFC hierarchy, New England has already defeated both teams, albeit on the home turf of Foxborough. Neither the Denver nor the Houston defense showed the real capacity to do to the Patriots what the Niners did, and there certainly is no one to fear in the AFC.
Over the coming weeks, then, the challenges for Belichick and the Patriots are obvious. Assuming that cornerback Alfonzo Dennard is fine, the Patriots need to continue improving in a secondary that already has made some strides. Offensively, a healthy Rob Gronkowski wouldn't hurt. With the exception of Wes Welker, New England receivers are more finesse than power - Welker is deceptively tough - though that changes dramatically when Gronkowski is on the field.
Months ago, when the New England schedule was released, the consecutive games against Houston and San Francisco clearly stood out as the gauntlet. The chances of making it through both unscathed seemed relatively slim. And yet, the Patriots had that chance when a Danny Woodhead touchdown run tied the score at 31-31 with 6:45 to play, even if the opportunity evaporated in a matter of seconds.
At that instant, the Patriots' chances of a first-round bye have similarly disappeared.
But their chances of going to the Super Bowl did not.
Time for an encore from the Patriots
Out of the frying pan and into the fire, as the saying goes, and so let there be no doubt about the implications of Sunday night's game between clubs who might very well meet in the Super Bowl come February. With a win, New England all but cements itself as the No. 2 seed in the AFC with a chance at No. 1. With a loss, the Patriots could slide out of a bye and into a potential first-round matchup with a team like, perhaps, the Pittsburgh Steelers in the first-round of the playoffs.
In the NFL, in December, there is no rest for the weary.
What we learned on Monday, after all, is that the Patriots have improved every bit as much as we thought they had, particularly on defense, and that New England is once again the team to beat in the AFC. Now the Pats just have to maintain their position. Doing so will require an encore performance against the Niners, who seemingly have the first prerequisite for defeating the Patriots in the aerial show that has become the modern NFL.
An elite defense.
Or, more specifically, an elite pass defense that can turn the mighty New England offense into something less than prolific.
Here's the problem: there are those who continue to perceive the Patriots offense as an unstoppable force of nature, and that simply is not true. The fact is that the Patriots can score against most everyone. But in recent seasons, including this one, there is mounting evidence is that the first step to beating Tom Brady is not a comparable quarterback, but rather a stingy pass defense.
For those of you who believe in football metrics, Kerry Byrne of Cold Hard Football Facts has been preaching the historical value of defensive passer rating, which effectively measures defensive efficiency against the pass. This year, the Arizona Cardinals, Seattle Seahawks, and Baltimore Ravens rank a respective second, third and 10th in the league in that area. Baltimore has augmented its position by allowing the fewest touchdown passes in the league (12 - tied with Seattle), half the total allowed by the Texans (24, who rank 25th in the league in that category.
Let's say that again. As good as the Houston defense has been this season - and it has been good - the Texans have also been shredded by Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers, Matthew Stafford and the Detroit Lions, and even Chad Henne and the Jacksonville Jaguars. Brady threw four touchdown passes against them on Monday night, one-third of the season total allowed by Seattle or Baltimore all year.
And, of course, Arizona, Seattle and Baltimore just happen to be the three teams to have defeated the Patriots this season which hardly seems a coincidence when looking at other years, too.
For example: beyond an aberrational loss to the Buffalo Bills last season, the Patriots dropped three other games - two to the New York Giants and one to the Pittsburgh Steelers. Pittsburgh had one of the best defense in the league. And while the Giants rated in the middle of the pack, even the harshest skeptic might acknowledge that the Giants are a schizophrenic team that, for lack of a better description, takes weeks off.
The point is that the Giants are capable of playing elite pass defense, which they did during their trip to Foxborough last season and again in the Super Bowl. In the postseason last year, in fact, the Giants faced the Atlanta Falcons (Matt Ryan), the Green Bay Packers (Rodgers), the Niners (Alex Smith) and the Patriots (Brady). Incredibly, New York's defensive passer rating improved, which seems illogical given the quality of quarterback the team faced.
The Giants, it seems, play when they have to, which is what still makes them a frightening matchup for any team.
Even in 2010, when the Patriots went 14-3, two of their losses were to Rex Ryan and the New York Jets, who then possessed one of the best pass defenses in the league. The team's only other defeat came at Cleveland, whose defensive coordinator was none other than Rob Ryan, Rex's twin brother and a man who shares many of the same defensive philosophies.
In the process, Mark Sanchez and Colt McCoy joined Kevin Kolb, Russell Wilson, Joe Flacco, Eli Manning, and Ben Roethlisberger on the list of quarterbacks who have beaten the Patriots in recent years. Some of those are considered good players and others aren't. But they all had good defenses - even if only for a day.
As for the Niners, they rank sixth in the NFL in defensive passer rating while having allowed only 13 touchdown passes, just one behind Seattle and Baltimore for best in the league. With Alex Smith or Colin Kaepernick at quarterback, San Francisco seems to have the necessary ingredient to give the Patriots a game, something the Texas were obviously unable to do on Monday.
Does that mean San Francisco will win? Hardly, particularly given the improvement in the New England pass defense in recent weeks. Through Week 10 against Buffalo, the Patriots ranked a dreadful 28th in the NFL in defensive passer rating. Since that time - a period that coincides with the arrival of Aqib Talib, the full-time move of Devin McCourty to safety and Bill Belichick's perceived involvement with the defense - they rank eighth.
In the modern NFL, in that brief span of time, most anyone will tell you that you can only travel that far through the air.
Still plenty of football to be played
The Patriots clearly have established themselves as the team to beat in the AFC, but their margin for error is still quite slim at the moment. If the Denver Broncos win at Baltimore on Sunday and the Patriots lose against San Francisco, New England will slip into the No. 3 seed and lose a first-round bye.
How's that for a reality check?
As big as the Houston game was on Monday night, Sunday night's upcoming game with the Niners has major implications for the Patriots, whether it is a conference game or not. If the Patriots were the No. 3 seed today, they would open the playoffs at home against the Pittsburgh Steelers, hardly an appealing option given the experience and potential of a team led by Ben Roethlisberger.
The flip side, of course, is that the Patriots end up with the No. 1 seed, which could happen if and when Houston slips up in the final three weeks (and assuming the Pats run the table). That require someone to come to Foxborough and beat these Patriots in January to prevent another New England trip to the Super Bowl, a scenario that is hard to envision at the moment.
The point? There is still lots of football to be played and a significant amount at stake.
Moving on ...
-- The owners clearly picked the fight in the ongoing labor discussions between NHL owners and players, but union director Donald Fehr and the players are hypocrites if they dig in on the length of player contracts. Unions are supposed to be about protecting the majority, not the estimated 5-7 percent of players who are blessed enough to warrant long-term deals in excess of five seasons.
So is this the players fighting the owners, or the richest players fighting the owners?
-- Still remember the day a Red Sox official told me Lars Anderson was a "stud," and now wondering whether Diamondbacks officials feel the same way given that Anderson has been a part of three organizations in fewer than six months.
Which brings us to this:
-- Shin-soo Choo and Ben Revere now have been traded to teams seeking help in center field, and Choo, like Jacoby Ellsbury, has Scott Boras as an agent and is eligible for free agency at the end of the 2013 season. In moving Choo and adding people like Anderson to the package, the Indians got 22-year-old Trevor Bauer, the No. 3 overall pick in the 2011 draft.
Isn't that a deal the Red Sox should have made?
-- Not sure about the rest of you, but I haven't given up on Jeff Green. Over the weekend, Green played in crunch time of Friday's overtime loss to Philadelphia and showed no reluctance to take some important shots in the fourth quarter and overtime. The Celtics clearly have made it a priority to build Green's confidence and establish him as a legitimate NBA starter, and it looks like it's working.
Albeit slowly.
-- The NFL has changed a great deal in recent years, and there has been an obvious influx of talent that will affect the league for years to come, most notably in the form of Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III. And yet, despite all of that, one still can't help but get the feeling at the moment that the AFC is going to come down to the same thing it has for the large majority of this millennium.
Tom Brady and Peyton Manning.
-- Los Angeles Lakers center Dwight Howard has taken 242 free throws this year and missed 124 of them. The next-closest player on the list of missed free throws is Los Angeles Clippers forward Blake Griffin with 41.
Maybe it's the rims at the Staples Center?
-- Placed the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot in the mail on Tuesday. There were three names on it. Any guesses?
-- If the Red Sox end up giving anything more than one year to Ryan Dempster, it will only make me wonder why they were not more aggressive with either Dan Haren or Hiroki Kuroda.
-- Paying Zack Greinke $24.5 million a year is a little like paying Carl Crawford more than $20 million per. And now the Los Angeles Dodgers are doing both.
So if I'm Clayton Kershaw, I look at the Greinke deal and accept not a penny less than $25 million per year.
The line between the Red Sox and Yankees is not nearly as wide as many would like to believe. The point? Kevin Youkilis is going to do just fine in New York. And Yankees fans are going to love the way he plays.
Whether Youkilis can produce is another matter entirely.
-- Think the Bruins have considered asking Tim Thomas if he might want to play now?
-- With regard to the Mike Napoli issue, it hardly seems a coincidence that the Red Sox keep saying they are leaving the door open for, among others, Nick Swisher. Napoli is earmarked for first base. Swisher can obviously play first. Dangling Swisher out there might give the Sox some leverage in negotiating with Napoli concerning injury protection, something that has come to light in the wake of Ken Rosenthal's report that Napoli's physical raised red flags.
The point? Napoli is a non-compensation free agent. Swisher would require the forfeiture of a second-round pick. If the Sox really wanted Swisher first, they could have signed him over Napoli or Shane Victorino. They didn't.
All of that suggests that Swisher is still just a bluff.
Unless, of course, any concerns over Napoli are fairly serious.
Exam week for the Patriots
The road to the Super Bowl just opened a little wider, though the Patriots hardly needed any more incentive to play this Monday night. From the very start of this NFL season, Weeks 14 and 15 were the gauntlet that could validate these Patriots. And now they are here.
Finally, it's Game Day.
As it turns out, the Patriots have even more at stake than originally anticipated, the Washington Redskins having graciously delivered to New England what every team covets: its own fate. The Patriots woke up on Sunday morning needing help to secure a bye in the AFC playoff structure. They awoke on Monday with complete independence. Thanks to Washington's victory over the fading Baltimore Ravens, a New England victory over the Houston Texans in Week 14 would make the Patriots the No. 2 seed in the AFC playoff structure with only three weeks remaining in the regular season.
The only team ahead of the Patriots? The Texans, who soon may similarly feel New England's breath on its shoulders.
This game did not need any additional meaning, of course, at least not to the Patriots. The Texans are 11-1. The Patriots are 9-3. And yet, the won-lost records have arguably less to do with the importance of this game than the psychological (it)implications(end), perhaps for both teams.
Simply put, many are expecting the Texans and Patriots to meet again in the postseason, perhaps in the AFC Championship Game. Maybe that is why Houston wide receiver Andre Johnson recently suggested that Monday night's meeting was the biggest game in the history of the Houston franchise. (A stretch, but noteworthy nonetheless.) The Patriots, as much as we dissect them, remain the consummate NFL measuring stick for those teams who want to go where Bill Belichick and Tom Brady have gone, who want to be what the Patriots have been.
And yet, for the Patriots, the game holds similar value. For all that Belichick and Brady have accomplished in their time together, The Patriots are 6-6 in their last 12 playoff games after opening 10-0 during the Brady-Belichick Era, dropping three of the four championship games in which they have played (the 2006 AFC title game, the 2007 and 2011 Super Bowls).
The Patriots have been very, very good in the last five or six seasons.
They just haven't been quite good enough.
And so now here come the Texans, who have been the best team in the AFC this season from the very start of the year. Houston opened the year 5-0, lost, won six straight since. They are perhaps the most balanced team in the AFC. The Texans rank third in the AFC in rushing yards, third in passer rating, third in total defense and fourth in points allowed. They are a team that will require the Patriots to excel in all areas, which brings us to the most obvious checkpoint of the night.
The Patriots defense.
Since the acquisition of cornerback Aqib Talib, the New England defense has looked like an improved group. Against Indianapolis and Miami, the Patriots held the opponent to a quarterback rating under 70. Against the New York Jets in the first half - by which point the Patriots had built a 35-3 lead - the Patriots held Mark Sanchez to a rating below 60. All the while, Belichick has become more creative and aggressive with blitzes and coverages, the Patriots looking far more like the team we have grown accustomed to seeing over the last 12 years.
We know the Patriots can play with the Texans, so that is hardly the point. What we do not know is if the Patriots can beat the Texans, particularly when New England's early-season difficulties revealed an inability to make clutch plays at critical times. The final drive of the Miami game suggested some improvement in this area, but the Dolphins are a 5-8 football team, not an 8-5 one.
Offensively, too, the Patriots have some things to prove in this game, and not solely in the final minutes of the fourth quarter. In recent years, the vaunted New England offense has struggled some against the more physical and effective defenses - and the Texans qualify. (Another such test, against the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday, awaits.) The Patriots just don't win the lower-scoring games quite like they used to, a fact that reflects on the inability of the new England offense to deliver at critical times just as surely as it does on the defense's inability to get off the field.
All of that brings us back to this week, to the Texans and then the Niners, two teams whom many picked this season to represent their respective conferences in the Super Bowl. Since the NFL schedule was released earlier this year, these two games have stood out on the New England schedule as an obvious highlight. With last week's win at Miami, the Patriots are now an astonishing 46-7 in December/January regular season games since the start of the 2001 season, asn NFL-best record that suggests New England is playing its best football at that time of year when it matters most.
Starting on Monday night, over the next seven days, we find out if that is also true in 2012.
Bettman, Fehr piloting sinking ship of fools in NHL dispute
Without picking sides, without talking about maximum length contracts and revenue-sharing, without getting into Gary Bettman and Jeremy Jacobs and the Fehr siblings -- The Brothers Grim? -- let's just join hands and collectively pull the plug on a league that clearly does not recognize a good thing when it has one.
If you feel that way this morning, you certainly have the right.
Because that is the response NHL owners and players are evoking across North America, particularly in Boston, where we should be in the midst of yet another quest for the Stanley Cup during the Renaissance Era of Bruins hockey.
Instead, we get the childish banter of Agent 86 commissioner Bettman and the bitter-beer face of Donald Fehr, the current director of the NHL Players Association and the former head of the baseball players union who is halfway to the work stoppage Grand Slam.
You fools.
You complete and utter fools.
For those of you who have not been keeping abreast of such things, let's give you an admittedly simplistic overview of the current dilemma. Coming off a season in which the league generated a record $3.3 billion in revenue, NHL owners sought to cut the players' share of revenue upon the expiration of the last bargaining agreement. Citing losses for several teams, the teams proposed to cut the player revenue from 57 percent to -- get this -- 43 percent. For the players, that represented a pay reduction of roughly 25 percent, which seems like a rather illogical amount for a business that was, relatively speaking, booming.
Of course, the NHL made no mention of the fact that, according to people like former NHLPA director Paul Kelly, the Toronto Maple Leafs turned an annual profit of somewhere near $125 million. (The Bruins, according to a recent Globe story, made $14.1 million.) Further, the NHL has done little to publicize the fact that, according to the Globe, league owners share only an estimated 11 percent of revenue as compared to roughly 30 percent in the NBA.
Understand? The successful NHL teams are making plenty and the failing ones are losing. And rather than increasing revenue sharing to the levels of the most similar league -- that is to say, tripling it -- NHL owners opened negotiations by putting almost the entire burden on the players, sending a message from the very start that has set the tone for these entire negotiations.
Let's fight.
Hockey players being hockey players -- and the Fehr Brothers being the Fehrs -- the boys dropped their gloves and engaged, which has done what it often does: load the proverbial penalty box with players who should instead be on the ice.
Did the owners start this mess? You bet they did. But Donald Fehr, in particular, has since engaged in public gamesmanship and posturing, proving once again (as he did with baseball in 1994) that his ego often gets the best of him. Few could ever forget the site of Fehr obstinately resisting Congress -- Congress! -- during baseball's steroids era, and one can't help but get the feeling that he reacts to every slight personally, that he looks at Bettman, especially, with the disdain of Col. Nathan R. Jessup.
You messed with the wrong Marine.
Whatever, dude.
Put your gun back in the holster. Your job is to get a deal done. Not prevent one.
Here in Boston, the passions may be running especially hot for a very obvious reason: The Bruins are back. Or at least they should be. The last time the NHL had a work stoppage, Jacobs and his management team so badly botched the process that Bruins ended up in the Stone Age. Jacobs and his team needed years to recover, their fortunes turning during the 2010-11 season. In one year, the Bruins secured the No. 2 overall pick in the draft (Tyler Seguin) and won the Stanley Cup, and they assembled a roster that was built for the long haul.
Seguin. Patrice Bergeron. David Krejci. Tuuka Rask. Milan Lucic. Nathan Horton. Brad Marchand. Dougie Hamilton. The list goes on and on. Add in a cast of solid veterans that includes Zdeno Chara, Dennis Seidenberg and Andrew Ferrence, among others, and what you had was a team built to contend for championships for a succession of years.
But once again, Jacobs can't seem to get out of his own way.
Indeed, according to some reports, Jacobs was prepared to get up and leave the negotiating table on Wednesday night, at which point other voices intervened and cooler heads prevailed. At least for a succession of hours. Ultimately, of course, NHL owners and players pushed apart on Thursday night, unable to agree even on what they had agreed upon in an avalanche of words and finger pointing.
In the process, they unknowingly joined forces.
And they spit directly in your face.
Are Red Sox doing best they can?
Do the best you can.
And so for those who are lamenting the relatively modest and high-priced moves the Red Sox have made thus far this offseason, here's a question: exactly what were you expecting? Josh Hamilton? Zack Greinke? The Red Sox just got out from under the cargo bins that were Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford and Josh Beckett. Unless the return is great, they have an obvious need to protect their best young prospects. From the very beginning, the goal was to get back to some level of respectability in the short term without tying up resources in the long.
The Sox went 69-93 last season, folks. On the way back to 93-69, let's first see if they can get back to 81-81. As the saying goes, you have to walk before you can run.
And so, with regard to the moves the Red Sox have made this offseason, let's go through them, blow-by-blow. David Ross? Fine. Jonny Gomes? Meh. Mike Napoli? Fine. Shane Victorino? Risky, to be sure. The biggest complaint you should have thus far is that the Red Sox missed out on pitchers like Hiroki Kuroda (one year, $16 million) and Dan Haren (one year, $13 million), and where those players ended up might be far more revealing than how much they signed for.
Kuroda went back to the New York Yankees. Haren went to the Washington Nationals. Assuming those players were re-signed to one-year deals no matter where they ended up, couldn't it be that they chose to play in places where they had a chance to, you know, win? If the Sox really wanted Haren, they could have negotiated a trade for him and picked up his option. Once he hit the market, he wasn't going to pick Boston over a playoff team, particularly one with Stephen Strasburg.
News flash: the Red Sox stunk last year, people. They might be the fifth-best team in their own division. Your beloved Fenway Park simply doesn't have the appeal it did as recently as two years ago, when guys like Gonzalez and Crawford oozed at the idea of playing here.
The Red Sox have been dealt their dose of humility.
Have you accepted yours?
With regard to Ben Cherington's maneuverings over the last few days, let's start with the good news. At the moment, the Sox have a lineup that looks halfway decent, at least offensively. With the additions of Ross, Gomes, Napoli, and Victorino, the Red Sox currently have a batting order that projects to be something like this:
CF Jacoby Ellsbury (L)
RF Shane Victorino (S)
2B Dustin Pedroia (R)
DH David Ortiz (L)
3B Will Middlebrooks (R)
1B Mike Napoli (R)
LF Jonny Gomes (R) or Ryan Kalish (L)
C David Ross (R) or Jarrod Saltalamacchia (S)
SS Jose Iglesias (R)
Is that a world championship lineup? No. It's a little on the old side. The defense up the middle is pretty good and the defense on the corners (with the exception of right field) could be a train wreck. Add it all up and you have a team that looks feisty and relatively mediocre, which, for the Red Sox at the moment, is a step in the right direction.
As for the contracts, the most outrageous deal signed by the Red Sox might very well be the two-year, $10 million contract they planted on Gomes, who has never played on more than a one-year deal and eared $1 million last season. At least Victorino made almost $10 million last year. Giving Victorino a third year is a huge roll of the dice, but it's not the kind of commitment that should prevent the Sox from making acquisitions in the short term or the long.
Last year, remember, the Red Sox had a payroll approaching $190 million, which appears to be their ceiling. (By the way, all teams are guaranteed roughly another $25 million in revenue beginning in 2014 thanks to the new national television contracts.) At the moment, factoring in arbitration cases, the Sox are somewhere between $115-$120 million based on the luxury tax payroll. They have plenty of room to add - and let's hope they do.
One other thing: Ross, Gomes, Napoli and Victorino are all non-compensation free agents, which means the Red Sox have forfeited zero draft picks thus far. There are those of us (ahem) who would have eagerly sacrificed a second-rounder for Nick Swisher to replace Victorino, but at least the Sox have their reasons. Jon Lester, Dustin Pedroia, Justin Masterson and Alex Wilson were all second-round picks in recent years, so make of that what you will.
Now the negatives:
The Sox have done nothing to improve their starting pitching and they are overplaying the strength of their bullpen, the latter of which should be sounding alarms. If, in fact, the Sox are seriously exploring the idea of moving Ellsbury - and they should be - dealing him only makes sense if the Sox can get a front-end starter in return. Ellsbury, after all, will garner the Sox roughly a top 40 pick (roughly equivalent to the current second-rounder the team is carefully protecting) and his departure would mean that someone like Kalish would become a full-time starter.
Again, this team is hardly championship-caliber. Trading someone like Ellsbury would hardly be devastating, no matter the return. But what's the point in making this year's team worse if the future isn't appreciably better?
Defense, meanwhile, is admittedly down on the list of Red Sox priorities at the moment, as it should be. (After the All-Star break, the Sox ranked 11th in runs scored and 14th in ERA. Nice combo, eh?) But the Sox could be positively wretched on the corners, particularly in left field and first base. At third, Middlebrooks is likely to continue making mistakes, at least in the shorter term.
As for Victorino, the Sox seemingly had other appealing options - and they have nothing to do with the money. For years now, the Sox have been positioning themselves for the ascension of Kalish, an above average defensive player. Why not give him the chance now and augment Gomes in left field with someone like Ryan Sweeney? The Victorino of two years ago was a pretty good player. But there is growing concern in baseball that his skills are diminishing.
In the bullpen, finally, the Sox still have questions. For all of the talk about the strength of the Boston bullpen last year, the Sox finished 11th in the league in relief ERA and tied for fourth in bullpen losses. New manager John Farrell spoke of the bullpen as a strength from the moment he took the job, but there are lots of question marks. Do the Sox really know what they're going to get from Mark Melancon? Andrew Bailey? Daniel Bard? Andrew Miller? Alfredo Aceves is mercurial. Junichi Tazawa, as much as we all like the stuff, is still a relative kid.
If the Red Sox are smart in coming days, they'll put as much emphasis on the bullpen as they do the starting rotation. And the mantra should not change.
Do the best you can.
Red Sox should take short-term hit for long-term gain
Temper your expectations, Red Sox followers.
The holidays might be a little tough this year.
Baseball's annual winter meetings begin in earnest on Monday in Nashville, and so long as we're all on the same page, there really should be no surprises. Team president Larry Lucchino has made it clear in recent days that the Red Sox essentially have no intention of giving out contracts longer than five years, though the Sox should extend that concept further. Anything over three years should be viewed as a major turnoff, particularly for a team that should be focused on 2014 and beyond.
In Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, and Josh Beckett, after all, the Sox just got out of some bad marriages. What they need to do now is baseball's equivalent of speed dating, which should mean nothing more than a three-year commitment -- at the very most -- on a free-agent market rife with B- and C-level talent.
Translation: Mike Napoli, Nick Swisher, and Adam LaRoche are not the kind of make-or-break talents than can alter the direction of a franchise. If the Sox lose out on one or all of those players, so be it. As much as the Sox might want to sell tickets in 2013, they should take the short-term hit for the long-term gain, which means operating this winter with a level of self-restraint.
If we're having this same discussion a year from now, however, then something went wrong.
A word about the winter meetings, particularly at a place like Opryland, a sprawling facility so expansive that it feels like its own self-contained world. (Think "Truman Show" and you begin to get the idea. There are nearly 3,000 rooms and more than 600,000 square feet of meeting space, and there are, quite literally, waterways than run through the facility. Guests can be virtually impossible find, which is just the way many major league officials prefer it.
Rest assured that these meetings, like all others, will develop at a certain pace. In the past, rumors of trades and free-agent signings begin to boil on Tuesday and Wednesday, teams feeling one another out with what is essentially a game of liar's poker.
What you hear and what is actually happening are two entirely different things, and there is almost always a lag between the time any news actually takes place and the time it reaches the public.
Confused? You should be. There is a lot of nonsense that goes on at these things. You'll just have to take our word on that.
So be patient.
By now, we all know what the Red Sox' needs are, though it is far easier to identify those positions where the Sox have stability. At the moment, the Sox are set at second base (Dustin Pedroia), third base (Will Middlebrooks), designated hitter (David Ortiz) and catcher (Dvavid Ross and either Jarrod Saltalamacchia or Ryan Lavarnway). They just signed Jonny Gomes. Jon Lester, Clay Buchholz, and John Lackey are regarded as the first three starters in the rotation, with Felix Doubront presumably in the mix for the fourth spot.
Beyond that, would it surprise you if anyone else from the big league roster was traded? Jacoby Ellsbury is available. So is just about anybody in the bullpen in the right deal. That may sound like a lot to trade, but what the Red Sox have to move is quantity, not necessarily, quality, unless they intend to include some of their highly regarded prospects, from Xander Bogaerts to Bryce Brentz to Matt Barnes to Jackie Bradley.
Based on recent developments -- namely, a 69-93 record -- and all the signs coming from Yawkey Way, there is relatively little chance of that happening. And that's the way it should be.
If that sounds like an attempt to write off the 2013 season, that is only partly true. Any success the Red Sox have next year will be predicated on getting Lester, Buchholz, and maybe even Lackey to pitch like the front-end starters they have been in the past. (If that doesn't happen, the Sox are hopeless, anyway.) As unlikeable as the Red Sox have been for quite some time now, they had more talent than a true 69-win team. With just better leadership, a better attitude, and moderately better starting pitching, the Sox should be somewhere around .500, give or take.
What happened in 2012 was an indictment on Bobby Valentine and the Red Sox culture more than it was the raw talent.
So if the Sox don't get Swisher or Napoli or LaRoche ... so what? By the middle of next season, the idea is that Barnes, Brentz, Bradley, and Bogaerts will be knocking on the door, anyway. So what we're really talking about here is the first half of next season, which is why the Red Sox need to approach these winter meetings with some level of trepidation.
Yes, the Red Sox have some money to spend, but the Red Sox already have told us how they intend to spend it. Gomes, for one, earned $1 million last season and has never played on anything more than a one-year contract. So what did the Red Sox do? They gave him $10 million over two years. Overpaying a guy like Jonny Gomes simply isn't going to sabotage this team the way that overpaying someone like Crawl Crawford did.
And so, as these winter meetings progress, be sure to approach everything with some level of scrutiny. Don't ask yourself what you want. Ask yourself what the Red Sox want. Boston officials will never come out and say so, but what they are likely trying to do this winter is bridge the gap back to respectability, something entirely within reason.
If they do that, come next year's winter meetings, we'll be having entirely different discussions.
Red Sox should take short-term hit for long-term gain
Patriots must be wary of trap game
Bill Parcells left New England more than 15 years ago, but his presence is still being felt. Parcells brought credibility to football in New England, changed the Patriots forever, taught us grocery shopping and that you are what your record says you are. Parcells also taught us that there were no easy games in the NFL, a belief that helped produce a term we still use today.
Trap game.
All the ingredients are there.
And rest assured that Bill Belichick knows it.
"Right now, I don’t really care too much about some other year or some other week or some other week later on this year," Belichick told reporters this week when asked to reflect on his accomplishments as a coach. "Those are pretty insignificant right now. I think we need to try to take care of the business at hand and that’s the Dolphins. So, all the rest of it, there’s a time and place for that some other time."
We've heard that before, of course. Over and over and over again. During the course of his extraordinary career as coach of the Patriots, Belichick has done an exceptional job at slowing things down, preaching focus, keeping his concentration. That has been especially true during the final month of the season, the Patriots posting a preposterous 45-7 regular-season record (easily the best in the NFL) in December and January since the start of the 2001 campaign.
But Belichick is not whom you should be concerned about.
His players, however, are another matter entirely.
Lest we forget, this is the youngest team of Belichick's tenure in New England, something Globe football writer Greg Bedard noted at the beginning of this season. As such, there have been the requisite growing pains. On more than one occasion this season, Belichick has expressed some concern about his team's rate of improvement, which is to say that the Patriots weren't learning quickly enough. In the secondary, that deficiency prompted to trade for Aqib Talib, who joined the Patriots against Indianapolis in Week 11.
All has been rather rosy in Foxboro since that time, the Patriots posting a 59-24 win over the Colts and, just four days later, a 49-19 victory over the Jets on Thanksgiving. The lopsided nature of those games have led many on the national scene to hike the Patriots in their power rankings, which seems a little silly given an enduring truth.
Of the teams the Patriots have played this season, only two - the Denver Broncos and Seattle Seahawks - rank in the top 10 in the league in passing efficiency. The latter club defeated the Patriots in Week 6, which just happens to be the last time the Patriots have tasted defeat.
We all think the Patriots' pass defense has improved in recent weeks. But do we know? And even if rookie Dolphins quarterback Ryan Tannehill hardly qualifies as above average, there seem additional reasons to wonder at least a little about the Patriots entering this game.
For example: after opening the season with a seemingly impressive win at Tennessee, the Patriots returned home for Week 2 and got blindsided by the Arizona Cardinals, now the owners of a seven-game losing streak. Once the Patriots got back over .500 with a win over Denver, they suffered the loss at Seattle. And while the Patriots have since won five straight, there have nonetheless been lapses worthy of consideration.
After the Seattle loss, the Patriots returned home for what should have been a relatively easy win against the Jets; they barely squeaked by. The Pats then traveled to London and throttled the Rams, taking a 5-3 record into a bye week that felt like a chance to refuel, heal up, get focused.
Know what happened next? The Patriots came out of the bye and turned in perhaps their worst defensive performance of the season in a 37-31 win over Buffalo that required a last-second brain cramp from Bills quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick. The Patriots didn't do well with the extra time and continued a pattern of inconsistency that has existed for much of the season.
Whether the Patriots are beyond their heretofore schizophrenic tendencies is open to debate, but this week should give us a far better indication. The Dolphins are a team the Patriots should beat, in Miami or otherwise, in December or September. Even with a win, how the Patriots play in this game might be a good indication of just how far this young team has come this season, particularly with Houston and San Francisco waiting.
In those games, we may very well find out just how good the Patriots are.
This week, we may find out just how much they've grown up.
Patriots' suspensions no surprise
Adderall, Bill? Please. We are dumb, to be sure, but we're not that dumb. Brandon Bolden is an undrafted rookie who opened eyes during training camp and is built like a two-legged mailbox. Jermaine Cunningham blew up like a Puffer Fish. If Adderall can do that to a human body, there are college kids everywhere cramming for exams and looking like LaRon Landry.
So the Patriots have had a couple of guys popped for PEDs. Three if you count Aqib Talib, who was in the midst of a four-game substance (allegedly for, you guessed it, Adderall) when the Patriots acquired him from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for a fourth-round pick.
If this all comes as some type of surprise to you, you are either in a state of denial or have not been paying attention. The list of Patriots players involved in some sort of drug or PED issue in recent years now includes Rodney Harrison (HGH), Nick Kaczur (oxycodone), and Brandon Spikes, not to mention Bolden, Cunningham, and Talib. Several years ago, Tom Brady's name surfaced in an investigation of Greg Anderson, the Bay Area trainer who worked with Barry Bonds and who was exposed in the infamous BALCO case. Over the summer, during our sun-splashed clambakes on the Cape, we still do not talk about that.
And you know why? Because many of us really do not care. Because we want to be entertained. And because we long ago accepted that drugs are now as much a part of sports as FieldTurf, a platform on which the games are played.
The Patriots aren't necessarily dirty, folks. They're just not any cleaner than anybody else. Let's all make sure we understand the difference. Here in New England, we like to pride ourselves on a traditional value system that places the emphasis on all the right things. Education over sport. Family over business. The group before the individual. But we have our share of issues, too, and what really makes us different is that we acknowledge them.
In their defense, the Patriots are not alone in this regard. And we're not talking solely about the NFL. The 2004 Red Sox are regarded as heroes in these parts - and for obvious reasons. But the fact remains that the Nos. 3 and 4 hitters on that Red Sox team, David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez, have both since been identified as having failed tests for performance-enhancing substances. Ortiz was the Most Valuable Player of the 2004 American League Championship Series. Ramirez was the MVP of the World Series.
Football is something altogether different, of course, something Belichick certainly knows, even if he would not necessarily say it. Many human beings just cannot put their bodies through what the average NFL player endures without at least a little bit of help. In a place like the NFL, the drugs are part of the deal. Without them, you don't get the bone-jarring hits, the acrobatic catches, the breathtaking runs and extraordinary, jaw-dropping fearlessness.
Think about it: since when does Belichick engage in discussion - or simply answer a question - about anything that even brushes up against something remotely controversial? When the Patriots traded for Talib, Belichick dismissed any questions about the player, chalking it up as league matter. Then a second Patriots player gets suspended for failing the league's policy against performance enhancers, and Belichick hints that the transgressions were minor and that "neither one of them had to happen."
Sounds like spin control to me. The last time Belichick was so forthcoming, he was apologizing for grabbing the arm of an official in the wake of the Baltimore loss, undoubtedly concerned that he would face disciplinary action well beyond a fine.
The point: Bill talks when it serves Bill to talk. After the Baltimore game, he wanted everyone to know he was sorry. Now he wants everyone to know that the Patriots are making foolish and unnecessary decisions based on Adderall, not Winstrol.
Maybe you buy that, maybe you don't. Like Bruce Willis in "The Sixth Sense," we all generally see what we want to see and believe what we want to believe. If you choose to think that the Patriots run an entirely clean operation that has just recently had a couple of missteps related to Adderall, you certainly have the right. Then you must say the same about the Seattle Seahawks, who just had two defensive backs flagged, or the New Orleans Saints.
The rest of us, meanwhile, will continue to see the NFL - and professional sports - as what they are: a huge moneymaking operation that puts absurd physical demands on the laborers who are, in this case, the players. A few years ago, lest anyone forget, the Washington Capitals were linked to a steroids dealer in Florida. The Bruins undoubtedly have their users. So do the Celtics. So did the American cycling team.
In this day and age, with regard to performance enhancing substances, following professional sports is akin to being married to the mob. Don't ask. Don't tell. But when someone gets popped for failing a drug test, don't defend him or blame him, describe it as "unnecessary" or pin it on Adderall.
As a fan, after all, you bought in a long time ago.
For the Patriots, league is there for the taking
Devin McCourty (left) and Steve Gregory are part of an improved Patriots secondary (Globe Staff Photo/Jim Davis)
While you were eating, the ever-changing NFL continued to turn on its ear. Colin Kaepernick is in. Matt Forte is out. And what has passed is nothing more than prelude to what has become one of the more unpredictable NFL seasons in recent memory.
And the Patriots, as usual, are right in the thick of it, having undergone their own metamorphosis as we creep into the all-important month of December.
In fact, the AFC may again be theirs for the taking.
The NFL has no dominant teams this year, folks, and therein rests the beauty of fascinating final month to this season, in New England an everywhere else. With Thursday's 49-19 undressing of the New York Jets on national television, the Patriots continued to show signs of improvement, particularly in a secondary bolstered by the acquisition of Aqib Talib. Meanwhile, the Houston Texans have escaped with consecutive victories over (gasp) Jacksonville and Detroit, all while the battered Pittsburgh Steelers, minus Ben Roethlisberger, turned the ball over eight times in a loss at Cleveland.
The difference between Baltimore and New England? A conversion on fourth-and 29. And don't look now, but Andrew Luck and the Indianapolis Colts could face Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos in the first round of the playoffs.
Get the picture? The conference - for that matter, the league - is in a state of competitive anarchy. And if Bill Belichick and the Patriots are as smart as we all think they are, they will survey the landscape and reinforce a mentality that has existed in Foxboro for the better part of the last dozen years.
Why not us?
The Patriots, as we all know, have their flaws. many of you still rightfully question the New England defense, especially, the secondary, and you have your reasons. Based on defensive passer rating - that metric by which the football dorks swear - New England still has the seventh worst pass defense in the NFL, a number that is hardly inconsequential.
And yet, we all know that trends rule the NFL, and the last two weeks have revealed, if nothing else, an improved New England secondary. Luck had a 67.2 rating against New England in Week 11, the lowest of any quarterback against the Patriots this year. And in Thursday's laugher, New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez posted a first-half number of 59.1, by which point the Patriots had built a 35-3 lead.
For sure, the competition has been getting worse. But we can also say that the Patriots are getting better.
Earlier this season, following a dicey Week 7 win against Jets, Patriots head coach Bill Belichick was asked why his team had not improved on defense. Belichick's answer? That the Patriots had gotten better. Belichick then clarified that every team has improved since the start of the season, and what the Patriots should be concerned with was their rate of improvement.
Simply put, the defense wasn't getting it. At least not quickly enough. Then came the blowout win over St. Louis in London and the subsequent Talib trade.
Where the Patriots are now feels light years from where they were three weeks ago, and rest assured that every NFL coach now understands the urgency. Especially in a parity-driven league like the NFL, December is the season equivalent of the fourth quarter. This is when winners and losers are determined. The New Orleans Saints may have lost to the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday, but the New Orleans defense, like the Patriots, is playing better than it has at any other point this season. Meanwhile, San Francisco is worried enough about its offense that head coach Jim Harbaugh effectively has benched starter Alex Smith - no matter what excuse Harbaugh gives - for a second-year player with little experience.
In the NFL, December is the time to make final adjustments and implementations, because everyone knows what is at stake. A few weeks ago, Atlanta and Houston looked to be on a collision course for New Orleans. Now, both clubs look far more vulnerable.
From the start, in some ways, Weeks 14 and 15 have hung over this Patriots season like a final exam worth 75 percent of the grade. They still do. Following Sunday's upcoming game at Miami - another affair on which the Patriots must not sleep - New England will face, in a seven-day span, the arguable class of each conference. The Texans are 10-1. The Niners are 8-2-1. And short of the Denver Broncos, now tied with Patriots at 8-3, New England has not beaten a team this season deemed to be a legitimate Super Bowl threat.
Of course, in the NFL, those wins wouldn't mean anything at the moment, anyway.
Because in this league, even during the regular season, how you finish is far, far more important than how you begin.
Patriots demolish Jets, New York's season in ruins
Boy, do the Jets stink or what?
And so with all due respect to the Patriots, who breezed in and out of MetLife Stadium on Thanksgiving as if it were a drive-thru window, we all know what happened here. Sometimes you deserve to win. Sometimes you deserve to lose. And sometimes all you have to do is show up because your opponents throw up on themselves like college freshmen during orientation week.
The final score: Patriots 49, New York Jets 19.
And the game never felt even remotely that close.
For the Patriots, the questions this morning are simple and clear: how much of this was the Jets? And is New England sufficiently improving, particularly on defense, to make us wonder whether the Patriots' early-season issues are permanently a thing of their past?
Let's start with the obvious. What the Jets did to themselves was one of the most extraordinary examples of self-destruction in the history of the sport. Watching an abandoned Mark Sanchez plant his face squarely between the cheeks of right guard Brandon Moore will go down as one of the great NFL bloopers of all-time, a Pisarcik-like moment that somehow evoked memories of, incredibly, Shaquille O'Neal.
How's my [butt] taste?
Wow. Talk about a humiliating, embarrassing play that will live in infamy. And for the Jets, that was only Step Two of a three-touchdown avalanche that continued just seconds later, when kickoff returner Joe McKnight spit up as if Devin McCourty had performed the Heimlich maneuver on him, the football popping out of of McKnight's grasp (and into the hands of a serendipitous Julian Edelman) as if it were a piece of popcorn chicken.
Just like that, the Jets went from potentially driving for a game tying score with a fourth-and-1 on the Patriots' 31-yard line to a 28-0 deficit, the kind of spontaneous combustion that left Jets coach Rex Ryan with a predictable, profanity-laced reaction.
Un-[expletive]-believable.
Indeed it was. Two series and a few minutes later, after Tom Brady effortlessly dropped a 56-yard touchdown pass into the hands of Edelman as if he were tossing an apple core into a dumpster, the Patriots had a 35-0 lead and everyone from Plymouth Rock to Alcatraz was ridiculing the Jets.
Game over.
Garbage time.
Now, if you're looking for reasons to feel better about the Patriots, particularly on the defensive side of the ball, there were still a few in the earlier parts of the game, before the onslaught. Yes, the Patriots gave up some yardage. Yes, they continued to be surprisingly vulnerable on the ground. But there were still a handful of developments that suggested progress, both in terms of philosophy and execution.
On Jets' very first offensive play of the game, for instance, the Patriots blitzed linebacker Dont'a Hightower and sacked Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez for a six-yard loss. That alone was a marked contrast from the Week 7 affair in which the Patriots blitzed Sanchez just five times on 45 dropbacks - and a further sign of Patriots aggressiveness following a Week 11 game in which the Patriots blitzed Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck a season-high 17 times.
In the second quarter, in fact, the Patriots recorded their only other sack of the game on another linebacker blitz - this one by Jerod Mayo. Yes, the score was 28-0. But the Jets had moved from their 18-yard line to the 43 when the Patriots sent Mayo on a third-and-6, resulting in a nine-yard loss that forced the Jets to punt. Four plays later, Brady threw the apple to Edelman, and it was time to send in the clowns.
Beyond that, the Patriots had a pair of key stops - yes, actual (it)stops(end) - that should continue to build the defense's confidence. Of course, there was the fourth-down stop of Shonn Greene on the New England 31-yard line early in the second quarter, perhaps the biggest play of the game, at least in retrospect. But prior to that, with the game still scoreless roughly midway through the first quarter, the Jets had a second-and-6 at the New England 23-yard-line when safety Steve Gregory picked off Sanchez, a play far more revealing than we might otherwise give it credit for.
Two weeks ago, after all, the Buffalo Bills faced a fourth-down play in which receiver Stevie Johnson lined up against cornerback Alfonzo Dennard. As Globe football columnist Greg Bedard noted, Dennard bit on a fake to the inside despite the fact that he safety help there, ultimately leaving Johnson wide open on the outside for a simple conversion.
So what happened on Thursday night? As NBC color analyst Cris Collinsworth noted, nickel back Kyle Arrington angled receiver Jeremy Kerley to the inside of the field. Safety Gregory than made a read from the opposite side of the field and aggressively jumped Kerley's route, resulting in an interception that deprived the Jets of any points.
Of course, this is Sanchez we're talking about, and no quarterback in the league kills his own team's scoring drives quite like the QB of the NYJ. Still, the Patriots held Sanchez to just a 59.1 rating in the first half (which is all that mattered) and limited the Jets to just a combined 4-for-13 on third- and fourth-down conversions, both of which reflect a significant improvement over the same opponent in Week 7.
Savor those pearls, Patriots fans.
Because, unfortunately, you won't see the Jets again until 2013.
Patriots must put pedal to metal to keep hopes of playoff bye alive
If the Patriots are smart, they will act desperate, too.
A mere three days removed from their 59-24 dismantling of the Indianapolis Colts at Gillette Stadium on Sunday, the Patriots will take to the field against the Jets on Thanksgiving night with a four-game winning streak. New England is 7-3. New York is 4-6. Perhaps most importantly, Baltimore is 8-2 entering a season-ending stretch that could open the door for the Patriots to still secure a first-round bye.
Of course, it may all still come down to the one word that has caused the Patriots and their fans so much consternation this season: defense.
First, the facts: thanks to Baltimore's 31-30 victory over the Patriots in Week 3, the Ravens will win most tiebreakers between the teams at season's end. For the Pats to gain the No. 2 seed in the AFC, the best way is for New England to finish a game ahead of Baltimore in the standings (they could also get the second seed via best conference record if there's a three-way tie). As such, the Patriots must make up two games on the Ravens with six weeks to play, which seems like a rather daunting task.
But take a good look at the Ravens' schedule, beginning this week: at San Diego, Pittsburgh, at Washington, Denver, the New York Giants, at Cincinnati. As good as the Ravens have been at home in recent years - the Ravens are 5-0 in Baltimore this year and 33-5 at home in regular and postseason play since the start of 2008, both best in the NFL - the Ravens also have stubbed their toe on the road on more than one occasion.
Let's say the Ravens lose twice in the final six games (anything more seems fantastical). The Patriots would need to go 6-0 in their final six games - including wins against Houston (at home) and San Francisco (also in Foxborough) in Weeks 14 and 15 - to qualify for one of the two byes in the AFC. The other possibility would be for the Texas to lose one additional game other than their trip to Gillette Stadium, something that almost happened on Sunday. The Texans were nearly stunned by the wretched Jacksonville Jaguars before prevailing in overtime.
But for the Pats to even have a chance, they simply cannot slip up in games like the holiday affair with the Jets or, for that matter, the Dec. 2 affair in Miami.
With all due respect to Gronkowski, who has been nothing short of a force since coming into the league in 2010, the Patriots should need him on Thanksgiving and they shouldn't need him in Miami. During the offseason, in fact, head coach Bill Belichick prepared for this very possibility by stockpiling tight ends, from Michael Hoomanawanui and Daniel Fells to Visanthe Shiancoe. Are any of them Gronkowski? No. But Gronkowski's injury against Baltimore in last year's AFC title game clearly taught Belichick something, particularly after the Giants identified an ineffective Gronkowski as a "decoy" in the Super Bowl.
By all accounts, Aaron Hernandez should be back on Thursday. Quarterback Tom Brady still has Wes Welker, Julian Edelman and Brandon Lloyd, too. In the Patriots offense, Danny Woodhead is a legitimate receiving threat.
They shouldn't miss Gronk too much.
At least for a couple of weeks.
Beyond that, if the Patriots are to make another legitimate run at a Super Bowl, we all know where the secret rests: on the defensive side of the ball. With or without Aqib Talib, it should surprise no one that the Patriots turned in an encouraging effort against the Indianapolis Colts. New England's three best defensive games this season have come against Indianapolis, St. Louis and Arizona, who rank 21st, 28th and 30th in the league in points scored. (If you want to include the opener against the Tennessee Titans, they rank 18th.) The next two opponents, the Jets (23d) and the Dolphins (26th), also rank among the most inept offenses in the league, giving Belichick another two weeks to get his house in order before the schedule comes to a head with the back-to-back meetings against Houston and San Francisco.
By then, maybe Baltimore will have dropped a game. Maybe the Pats will get lucky and the Texans will have slipped up, too. But for any of it to matter, for New England to again have the chance at hosting just one playoff game before an appearance in the AFC Championship, the Patriots must take care of business against the Jets and Dolphins, two of their perennial punching bags in the AFC East, particularly as we creep into December.
In the NFL, when the ground begins to freeze, that is the time to avoid any and all missteps.
Patriots secondary passes a test
And that has nothing to do with No. 11, Julian Edelman, who ran, caught and returned his way to 222 yards and two touchdowns.
Rather, it is the number of passes defended by the Patriots, a season high.
Sounds crazy, right? But on a day when opposing quarterback Andrew Luck passed for 334 yards and two touchdowns, let the record show that the Patriots much-maligned pass defense was, if nothing else, improved. Following an indisputable and disheartening pass interference call against Kyle Arrington on the game's first possession, the Patriots actually turned in arguably their best performance of the season.
All in all, Luck completed only 54 percent of his throws, the lowest number posted by any quarterback against the Patriots this season. Luck's quarterback rating of 63.3 also was the lowest against the Patriots this year. And all numbers aside, anyone who watched saw passing lanes and windows that were considerably tighter and smaller than they have been for much of the year.
"I thought our guys on defense did a good job," Patriots coach Bill Belichick told reporters. "We got our hands on a lot of balls – we dropped a few, we caught some. I thought we were able to put some pressure on [Luck]. He’s active in the pocket and can avoid some pressure in there, but I thought we did a good job of getting on him.
"Their receivers made some really good catches. There were five or six times where I thought we were kind of draped all over them - and it didn’t seem there was much space at all to get the ball in - and he got it in and they caught it. ... They have a good group of skill players. They made some good throws and tough catches in there. I thought we had them covered pretty well but they still were able to execute it."
Nonetheless, so were the Patriots.
With regard to the New England pass defense, of course, everything is a matter of perspective. Against Buffalo in Week 10, the holes in the New England secondary were so porous that the Patriots made Bills quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick look like Peyton Manning. Fitzpatrick completed 67.5 percent of his throws and posted a quarterback rating of 99.7 - and that was true despite his sloppy interception to Devin McCourty in the final seconds.
Undoubtedly, much will be made of interception returns made by Aqib Talib (59 yards for a touchdown) and Alfonzo Dennard (87 yards for a TD), but both interceptions required little or no effort on the part of the defender. On the first, Luck overthrew his receiver and hit Talib in the midsection. On the second, Luck threw perhaps his worst pass of the day and put the ball on a platter for Dennard, who merely caught it and scampered down the sideline.
But several other times through the course of the day, the Patriots batted down passes and generally closed up passing lanes, giving Luck relatively small windows. In the second quarter, on a second-and-10 play, Donta Hightower dropped into coverage and reached out to bat down a pass intended for Reggie Wayne. On the next play, Vince Wilfork batted down a Luck pass at the line. A short time later, with the Patriots holding a 21-14 lead, Colts wide receiver LaVon Brazill beat Talib down the right sideline, but Devin McCourty came over from his safety position and knocked the ball free for an incompletion, preventing a potential 25-yard gain that would have placed the ball inside the New England 5-yard line.
Instead of being in position for a touchdown, the Colts had to settle for a field goal to make it 21-17. They never got that close again.
Overall, was this game perfect? Of course not. But it was a major improvement over Week 10 and an improvement overall, particularly against a Colts offense that threw more passes against the Patriots than any other team this season. Luck took his shots down the field and completed some. But overall, the Patriots secondary held its own and made its share of plays.
Given the strength of the New England offense, this is all anybody could ask for in this day and age of the aerial attack, where the average NFL team completes 61.8 percent of its passes and throws for better than 250 yards a game. There is really no stopping the air game anymore. There is only the hope of containing it.
The impact of Talib on Sunday's developments certainly will be debated, though he was torched badly by T.Y. Hilton for a touchdown (and called for a penalty, no less) on a 43-yard strike that made it 45-24. Still, once Dennard replaced Arrington (after the first-quarter pass interference call), the Patriots pass defense had a more stable look than it has possessed all year, which is, admittedly, praise by default.
Whether this was the start of anything significant obviously remains to be seen, though the Patriots will get another chance to show improvement on Thursday against the New York Jets, who successfully threw against them in Week 7. After that, the Pats will face the vertically challenged Miami Dolphins on Dec. 2 before the highly anticipated back-to-back affairs with the Houston Texans and San Francisco 49ers, both regarded as contenders for the Super Bowl.
If the pass defense is as good or better then, then we may really have something to talk about.
Miguel Cabrera clearly the right call for MVP
"I was a little concerned. I thought the new thing about computer stuff, I thought Trout's going to win because they put his numbers over me." -- Miguel Cabrera
To the young or old, more cerebral or more physical, the Most Valuable Player Award is indisputably a matter of semantics. It is also a matter of priorities. Speed over power? Offense over defense? Whom you support depends on what you believe.
But this much we should all be able to agree on:
A strong finish.
And so with all due respect to Los Angeles Angels center fielder Mike Trout, a pillar of the game's future and perhaps the most well-rounded player in baseball in 2012, he batted .257 in September. There is just no way around that. The voting members of the Baseball Writers Association got it right on Thursday when they gave the 2012 American League MVP to Miguel Cabrera, the game's first Triple Crown winner in 45 years and a throwback in an age of computer stuff.
Here's what else Cabrera was in 2012: an absolute beast in August, September, and early October, when his team was fighting for a playoff spot. Beginning on Aug. 1, Cabrera batted .344 with a 1.081 OPS, 19 home runs, and 54 RBI in 57 games. He closed the way Carl Yastrzemski did in 1967, which just happens to have been the last time someone led either league in home runs, RBI, and batting average.
Not a believer in the Triple Crown because it uses outdated metrics? Fine. Go try and find how many players ever have led their league in batting average and home runs in the same season. And while you're at it, if you're defending Trout, find the list of MVPs who had relatively poor Septembers while their teams fell short of the playoffs.
In 2012, after all, National league MVP winner Buster Posey batted .371 in August, .364 from September 1 and beyond. Last year, the NL MVP winner checked in at a respective .369 and .330. A year ago in the AL, Detroit Tigers ace Justin Verlander went 9-0 in his final 10 starts, all in August and September, giving the Tigers the kind of performance Pedro Martinez gave the Red Sox in 1999.
And as any Red Sox fan might remember, Nomar Garciaparra all but had the AL MVP won on Sept. 1, 2003, when he showed up for work batting .323 with a .915 OPS to go along with 105 runs scored, 35 doubles, 13 triples, 23 home runs, 90 RBI and 15 stolen bases. Then Garciaparra hit .170 for the rest of the regular season.
Instead of winning the MVP, he finished seventh.
In defense of Trout, those leaning towards more modern statistical methods are likely to point out that batting average is relatively meaningless statistic and that Trout's on-base percentage in September was .380. (Cabrera, who batted .306, interestingly, checked in with an OBP of .378.) This argument obviously assumes that a walk is as good as a hit, which is utterly preposterous.
Tell me exactly what the hit is, folks. Is it a double? A triple? A homer? At best, if it comes with the bases loaded, a walk can push home one run. It is hardly uncommon for even a single to score two.
Here it a detailed breakdown of how Trout and Cabrera performed in September:
Pretty interesting, right? Trout actually had a slight edge in on-base percentage because he drew walks. Meanwhile, Cabrera swung the bat -- with authority -- and produced runs. And yet, there are still people out there who try to tell us that batting average doesn't mean anything, that it is an archaic statistic.
What are these people smoking?
If all of this comes off as an indictment on Trout, it isn't. Quite the contrary. Trout was worthy of the MVP -- as was Cabrera -- and his advantages over Cabrera in baserunning and defense are not debatable. Anyone who voted Trout first hardly qualifies as dumb, and Trout might very well have been the most complete, well-rounded, multi-talented player in the game this year.
Unfortunately, the MVP is not a Player of the Year award. That was true in 1978, when Jim Rice beat out Ron Guidry in a controversial vote, and it was true in 1986, when Roger Clemens edged out Don Mattingly. It remains true now. On the ballot, voters are instructed to choose the player they deem to be most valuable to his team, which introduces an array of biases and subjectivities.
Stats, too, are biased, and the modern seamheads would be wise to note that their metrics can be as flawed as any other. According to some data, after all, Chicago Cubs outfielder Alfonso Soriano was the second-best left fielder in the game in 2012, and yet any new mother would be foolish to hand Soriano her bundle of joy. The man is a butcher in the outfield and he always has been.
And so, if you were building a team today, would you take Trout over Cabrera? Quite possibly. If both were 20, Trout still plays in the center of the diamond and has a most diverse skill set. But that's not the question. The question is which player's contributions mattered more to his team this season, and you just can't do that without putting more emphasis on the games at the end.
As either Barack Obama or Mitt Romney will tell you, momentum means everything at election time.
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