So, it seems Vince Wilfork is a better negotiator than we thought. He's certainly playing this correctly. In fact, were I him, I'd do five minutes with the media in every town, saying what a dream come true it would be for him to become a Chief, a Raider, a Packer, a Buc, a Saint, a Bear, or a Lion. OK, maybe not a Lion. Nobody would believe that.

It appears that Wilfork and the Patriots are going to come to a bad end, either this year or next year. The one thing that the Patriots like less than changing radically how they do business is players who suggest, either in word or in deed, that they damned well better change how they do business. And the Three Super Bowls argument is getting a little old. There are better run franchises in the NFL than the Patriots now. Two of them are playing a game next Sunday. The days in which players hungered to come here and to play for the league's signature franchise are long gone, and the signature franchise is in Indianapolis anyway. Also gone are the days in which the Patriots had the luxury of pressing every advantage they have to the wall. Word gets around. Players talk. If this franchise jacks around with someone like Wilfork just because it can, what does that tell everyone else on the team?

So Vince is out there playing spin doctor with the out of town media. Good for him. He doesn't have a lot of cards to play here. (And the NFLPA is going to be condemned to Labor Hell some day for allowing the existence of the franchise tag. In fact, other than the players union in the NHL, which allowed a grifter like Alan Eagleson to be labor and management for a considerable time, it's hard not to make the case that NFL players have been worse served by their union than any other professional athletes.) If he is somehow penalized for playing the ones he has, then somebody in Foxborough has to grow up.