Moving on.

That's the theme of the week, of course. Moving on. Eyes out of the rear-view mirror, lest you mention "4th and 2" one more bleeping time.

Of course, in order to move on, we first need acceptance, a motion that an increasing amount of fans have accomplished. The rest – those we now call the sinful doubters – wallow in what could have been at Indy were it not for Belichick's boneheaded decision to go for it.

But, move on we must. For only the bitter among Patriots fans still think the move is up for debate. No, the "real" Patriots fans have admitted a knee-jerk reaction Sunday night, some of which will cost hundreds of dollars to replace those LCD's that now have a beer bottle neck protruding out of the upper-left corner. But the past five days have allowed them to see the light. Tedy Bruschi is now the enemy. Merrill Hoge is now an ally.

Only now do they understand the true genius of the play – giving the ball to Peyton Manning just outside the red zone with two minutes to play. The statisticians have taught them that 29 yards is more difficult to score from than 80 yards. Or, something like that.

Fans and bloggers attacked the media for criticizing the play. Media members attacked fans, bloggers, and other media members for supporting it. Nobody thought it was a good play Sunday night. If you still think that now, you're apparently in the minority.

In Bill we trust. Of course. The comforting glow returns.

Who they're picking

Our roundup of picks for this week's Jets-Patriots game:

It's apparently not a prank.

Beverly's Endicott College – 26.9 miles from Yawkey Way - will celebrate the Yankees' recent World Series victory on Monday with a ceremony on campus, including the painting of a school fire hydrant with Yankee pinstripes. I guess Connecticut-based enrollments are down.

This, of course, has local students, fans, and common sense all up in arms. Although all fire hydrants on campus are already painted, this will be the first to bear the colors and pinstripes of the Yankees. According to WHDH, the reason behind the celebration is that Endicott's president, Dick Wylie, a Yankees fan (nice background check, Endicott), won a bet made with student activities director Kim Peckham, a Sox fan, prior to the 2009 season. Jeez, I hope there isn't a Colts fan running any of our fine academic institutions.

"We thought it was a prank, a school this close to Boston with this many Red Sox fans you wouldn't think they would support the Yankees," student Marc Spinella told WBZ. "A lot of students are really upset about this."

Maybe there's some genius behind it all. After all, North Shore dog owners have to be pretty excited about the opportunity to have their pets frequent the design. Still, can't the Beverly fire department step in with some de-facing fire prevention equipment excuse before it's too late?

I crunched the numbers.

When Mary Swanson told Lloyd Christmas that he had one in a million odds of getting down with her, the floppy dummy was right in concluding that he had a chance. In fact, if we apply the math, Lloyd's formula for a success rate would look something like this:

(1 x .0000000001) – reality = chance.

Look, I enjoy the fact that football can be broken down analytically as much as the next guy. But I've felt like Han Solo about to plunge into an asteroid field these past 24 hours; a pestering protocol droid blabbering incessant data in my now-bleeding ears.

"Never tell me the odds."

Yet, here we are two days after Bill Belichick's now-infamous fourth-and-two decision, with stat geeks lining up in defense of the Patriots coach. Belichick's gaffe wasn't the overwhelming reason the Patriots lost in Indianapolis (Laurence Maroney's goal line fumble, poor clock management, the lame pass interference call on Darius Butler, etc.). But it was arguably the most glaring reason why they didn't win.

Jason Whitlock has a point when he calls Brady vs. Manning "inorganic, a ratings-producing TV creation."

"It's not Bird vs. Magic or Chamberlain vs. Russell. Football, with all its variables — three platoons, offense, defense and special teams — does not lend itself to individual rivalries, particularly of men who never take the field at the same time," he writes.

That's true. But for better of worse, we're a society of this or thats, debates, and Top Tens, where there always has to be an ultimate in every field. We're never content just to have a handful of greats. There always has to be a top dog.

Still, it's fair to note that the one season Peyton Manning got past Tom Brady and the Patriots en route to the Super Bowl, Reche Caldwell was Brady's top receiver.

Of course, Brady has the rings, but Manning has the numbers, which Brady also has.

Both have lost their last playoff start; Manning in last year's wild card playoff against San Diego, Brady in the…you know.

Brady hasn't won a Super Bowl in almost five years. Manning hasn't won one in almost three.

Manning has the second-highest passing rating (95.3) in NFL history, but he's first among dome quarterbacks. Brady happens to be fourth on the list, 1.9 points behind Manning, but of course he gets to play in cold, windy, snowy New England. He also had Reche Caldwell one season.

Imagine that the two quarterbacks played for opposite teams, and dream what the results might be. Does Manning lead the Patriots down the field in the final moments of Super Bowl XXXVI? Does Brady look lost in the Foxborough snow for the Colts in the AFC title game? You also have to consider the monumental factor that Bill Belichick has had on Brady's career. Is Brady the Brady we know with Tony Dungy as his head coach? Is he even drafted?

It's a useless debate, sort of like dedicating a TV show to imagining Grady left Pedro in the game. Now that was "inorganic, a ratings-producing TV creation."

Sunday night is just a damned good football game with the two best quarterbacks of the decade, and it just so happens to be on TV. Nothing inert about that.

Who they're picking

Our roundup of picks for this week's Patriots-Colts game:

Just a few NFL notes hurtling toward the weekend.

• NFL MVP? Drew Brees in a slam-dunk, right? Maybe. ESPN's Mike Sando breaks down the candidates, and both Peyton Manning and Ben Roethlisberger have really good arguments for the award this season. But who are we kidding? If Brett Favre doesn't perform his annual choke, the MVP will be handed to him. Even if he does, he'll still be a candidate up to the very end.

  Wait, I thought for a moment baseball writers were voting. Never mind, it's Brees.

The mind games are underway.

Not content just pumping in fake noise these days, it appears the Indianapolis Colts have turned to a new strategy for throwing the New England Patriots off their game: mouse poop.

Indianapolis' WXIN broke the story leading its 10 p.m. newscast last night, when a worker for Centerplace Catering decided to blow the whistle on Lucas Oil Stadium's dirty, little secret.

This is just the latest citation of wrongdoing at the Colts' home though. The report cites:

Centerplate Catering and Lucas Oil Stadium have been cited for food safety violations dating back to 2008. In January 2009, health investigators found dead rodents hadn't been removed from food service areas. In March, investigators found mice feces by coffee urns. In April, a report showed mice running through a Stadium Kitchen. In September, there were violations for improperly storing toxic materials and for "unsafe food" that wasn't being kept cold or hot enough at Lucas Oil.

Is this all part of another diabolical, master plan by Colts president Bill Polian leading up to Sunday's showdown against the Patriots? Well, of course not. Still, I'd eat at the hotel.

Now that that's out of the way…

No disrespect to the Miami Dolphins, who are about as good a 3-5 team as you'll find anywhere east of San Francisco, but this is the date Patriots fans have had circled on their pocket calendar for some time now, the text barely legible at this point from tracing over it repeatedly in recent weeks.

What the Patriots have on their plate two of the next three weeks is a chance to de-rail both the Colts (Sunday night) and potentially, the Saints (Nov. 30), denying both teams' bid for the perfect season.

But let's face it; a win over the Colts would taste sweeter than a victory over the Saints.

See, here I thought Jesus recently announced his return in the morning dew on the driver's side window of an Isuzu pickup truck in Jonesborough, Tenn. Turns out, it was actually in the form of Ted Ginn Jr.

Miami Dolphins offensive coordinator Dan Henning – also former Boston College overseer of all place bets – compared the underperforming wide receiver to a higher power after returning two kickoffs for touchdowns last week against the Jets. He also said there was no better human story last week. Hey, who can argue?

From the Miami Sun-Sentinel:

"Wasn’t that marvelous. Wasn’t that marvelous?," Henning said. "You know, in the Bible, on Palm Sunday they threw flowers and garlands at the Good Lord and then on Friday, they picked him up, beat the s--- out of him, crucified him, and in this league they give us seven days – only gave him five.

"So we go back three or four weeks ago and Teddy was a hero after the first Jet game, he was a goat after New Orleans and now he’s a hero again. I can’t wait to see the next chapter of this and who decides that….

"We’re going to try and see if we can get him to be a killer of other teams, as he was against Buffalo last year, like he was against Seattle last year. … If we go back in time we’re going to find all those things but we only want to focus on what happened on Good Friday, not what happened on Palm Sunday …

"To me, there can be no better human story than what happened last week around here and what Teddy was able to come up with. You can take anything that happened in that game, that was the best feeling for me to see him come out of that. He had to be lower than whale defecation, and that’s at the bottom of the ocean. You know what I mean? For him to be able to come out and do that, it’s a great story."

Take that, billions of other people. Ted Ginn Jr. is the greatest human alive. Bow to him on Sunday, will you?

Where the heck is Mercury Morris?

I thought for sure someone (ahem, ESPN) would have dug up the former Dolphins running back by now so that he could announce to the world why neither the 7-0 Colts nor Saints pose a threat to his 1972 team's perfect 16-0 record.

Yet, nothing, not even after Ted Ginn Jr.'s 101-yard kickoff return against the Jets last weekend, second only in team history to Morris' 105-yarder in 1969. Not even to celebrate today's 28-year-anniversary of his 20-year sentencing for drug trafficking. Not even as the Dolphins prepare to take on his favorite team to hate, the Patriots, this weekend in Foxborough.

Nada.

Instead, we've had to settle solely for Joey Porter, who, frankly, we realized was still playing only just this week. Porter hates the Patriots, hates Bill Belichick, hates Tom Brady, hates the New England throwback uniforms, hates Route One traffic, and hates the menu at the Foxborough Davio's.

"I have a natural hate for them -- period," Porter said. "And that's just going to be with me forever. That's not ever going to change."

Yawn. Lame. Bring us back to the good, old times, Mr. Morris.

Who they're picking

Our roundup of picks for this week's Dolphins-Patriots game:

I was living in New York the last time the Yankees won the World Series. Yankee fans celebrated that title by crowding the local speakeasies and carousing with flapper girls, dancing the night away to the controversial lyrics of Rogers and Hammerstein.

It wasn't easy making things work back in 2000. You kids may not realize this, but back then if we wanted to browse the World Wide Web, we had to sit down at a desk instead of picking up our mobile phones. The St. Louis Rams were the premier team in an NFL that had yet to fight off the threat of the XFL. "The Simpsons" were relevant, Christina Aguilera, today the ripe, old age of 29, won a Grammy for Best New Artist, and Tiger Woods was at the top of his game.

New York Magazine crunched the numbers. It had been 2,992 days since the New York Yankees could call themselves world champs. Think about that for a moment. That means 8-year-olds living in New York had never had the opportunity to celebrate a World Series title. God bless these Yankees indeed.

I don't really know where to begin with the New York Post's front page this morning. The tabloid's lame Photoshop job of Pedro Martinez in diapers is parts hysterical, parts disturbing. Here's hoping there's an opportunity to get Joe Girardi's mug on a goat come tomorrow.

I suppose some piece of my heart should have felt badly for A.J. Burnett when Fox cameras showed the despondent Yankees starter staring into space last night, his dreary eyes searching for answers about what could have been had he been even the least bit effective.

It didn't.

Truthfully, it had nothing to do with wanting to see the Yankees go down to the Phillies, though I never was a really good liar, so take that statement for what it is worth. But Burnett's failure gives us the opportunity of catching not only a World Series Game 6 (the first time since 2003 we've seen one of those), but the pleasure of watching the theater that is Pedro Martinez perhaps, but probably not (ahem, Theo), for the final time.

We can assume the layout folks at the Philadelphia Inquirer aren't big baseball fans.

In a Dewey defeats Truman moment, here's the back page of section one today, the day after the Phillies fell down 3-1 in the World Series against the Yankees:

Some magic indeed. According to NBC Philadelphia, this may be the work of a rogue Yankee fan on staff: "Next to the offending ad is an article that should have the headline “Limbaugh, Axelrod Trade Jabs.” Instead, the second blooper on the same page reads: 'Limbaugh, Alexrod Trade Jobs.'"

See what they did there? That's Yankee comedy gold.

According to NBC, the Inquirer has refused to comment.

Via Philly Talk.com

I rooted for the Yankees once.

Michael Wrobel was only 11 years old when he lost his battle with Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma in 1996. His family struggled through the remainder of that summer, searching for meaning, grasping for reason in places that incessantly had few answers. The Wrobels, despite being ardent Yankee fans, have had significant influence on my life, and when the Yankees made the playoffs that year, I was comforted in the fact that baseball could serve as some tiny solace to a family in overwhelming grief.

So, yeah, I rooted for the Yankees that year. I rooted like heck for them.

I left the field that night – you know, THAT night – as the Red Sox continued their celebration amidst a dwindling throng of family, friends, fans, and media. I exited through the right field gate at the old Busch Stadium, where a couple of grounds crew members stood as a light mist began to fall from the increasingly late St. Louis sky.

"Looks like the Babe is crying," one of them said.

Everyone has a favorite story from the night the Red Sox won the World Series for the first time in 86 years. That might be mine. In one perfect moment, the "Curse of the Bambino" was officially laid to rest, following a two-week period of baseball that we will never forget.

Next year, let's give the Browns and the Rams to London.

For good.

Odds are those two aren't coming up too often based on the criteria used on the NFL's odd team-picker site, aimed at giving curious fans in the United Kingdom the chance to choose their rooting interests.

The results are based on three separate paths using questions ("Are you a glutton for punishment?" Yes. "Proceed directly to the Dawg Pound."), a game of accuracy (the worse you are at it, the better your chances of winning a date with JaMarcus Russell), and gut instinct (the NFL isn't going to insult prospective fans by actually suggesting he or she might be a Panthers fan).

Boston.com sports editor Matt Pepin is substituting for Eric Wilbur this week.

One more “London Calling” headline may just push us over the edge, although we’re bracing for a healthy dose of it, as well as that darn song, all weekend long.

Yes, it’s an interesting thing the Patriots are doing this weekend.

No, it’s not much more than a football game. The players treat it like nothing special. Most of England doesn’t know Tom Brady from Marcia Brady.

Experienced business travelers know how the Patriots feel. When you travel somewhere for work, it’s rarely fun. Usually work dominates all your time, and dinners out tend to be about as good as it gets in terms of sightseeing.

So we’ll stick to business too. Here’s a roundup of how national football experts are calling the Patriots-Buccaneers game Sunday at 1 p.m. (EDT) at Wembley Stadium in London.

• ESPN.com: It’s Patriots across the board for the panel of 10 who make selections.

• Cold, Hard Football Facts: Patriots 31, Buccaneers 13. “The Bucs … are winless and have been competitive only with bilge cleaners Washington and Carolina.”

• Peter King, Sports Illustrated: Patriots 38, Buccaneers 10. "As Roger Goodell flies to London this week, one of The Things I Think He Thinks is: Come on, Bill. Puh-leeeze. Don't run the score up this week. Not in this showcase game."

• Pete Prisco, CBS Sports: Patriots 38, Buccaneers 10. "Tom Brady will have a field day here in front of the London crowd, and Josh Johnson won't be able to handle the Patriots defenses."

• CBS Sports staff: Patriots across the board.

• Vinnie Iyer, Sporting News: Patriots 31, Bucs 7. "Tom Brady will keep another overmatched defense in the fog."

• Peter Schrager, Fox Sports: Patriots 37, Bucs 14. "Here we are, bringing our nation's favorite game to the Queen's country, and we're going to give them this matchup?"

• USA Today staff: Patriots across the board, with four of the eight panelists making it their lock of the week.

• Yahoo! sports staff: All three writers take New England, and the Yahoo users have the Patriots at 98% chance of winning.

• Greg Cote, Miami Herald: Patriots 42, Bucs 20. "Londoners expecting the best in American football get half of that in New England's Patriots."

• Sam Farmer, Los Angeles Times: Patriots 35, Bucs 14. "It's a mismatch."
  

Our pick: Patriots 42, Bucs 0. We've yet to see someone pick the Bucs, and we're not going there either. The real storylines: Will Adalius Thomas play? Will Patriots backup QB Brian Hoyer get more PT? Will there be a streaker?

Think of London, a small city...

• I had to laugh about Tim McCarver's assessment Saturday night that all those who called Derek Jeter the worst fielding shortstop in baseball over the years were hiding under a rock after his sparkling defensive season. This statement was, of course, made after Mark Teixeira saved a Jeter throw high and wide to the first baseman's left. I kept waiting for Joe Buck to point out what the Gold Glove first baseman has meant to the Yankee infield overall, and it never came. I guess it's just easier to fleece the Jeter legend than it is to actually, you know, find a tangible reason for his lowest error output in 11 years. Mystique always was easier to use than fielding range anyway.

• Great to see that this story has a happy ending for a local craft-brewer. Don't think Monster Energy Drinks are going to be a big seller in Vermont any time soon.

• How badly does Fox want a Yankees-Phillies World Series? So badly they started previewing it earlier this week. During Game 3.

  "It's like aura and mystique have made a comeback," Ken Rosenthal said. "Teams are falling apart at the sight of the Yankees."

  Good Lord, it's going to be a long two weeks. On the bright side, TBS can go back to pretending anyone even knows who Bill Engvall is.

Oh, the psychological damage that the Patriots must have inflicted on the poor Tennessee Titans.

Case in point: In what can either be classified as a stroke of genius or hitting rock bottom, Titans coach Jeff Fisher showed up at a rally at the University in Nashville yesterday, and introduced former Colts coach Tony Dungy to the crowd wearing a Peyton Manning jersey.

"I just wanted to feel like a winner," he said.

Ouch.

Maybe it was Fisher's way of motivating a group of players who quit on him during Sunday's 59-0 trouncing at Gillette Stadium. Or maybe he's intent on going down in flames in Tennessee.

Fisher later apologized for the jersey during his weekly radio show:

“It was for a very, very worthwhile cause, charity,” Fisher said. “I was introducing Tony, just having fun with it and I really apologize if I offended anybody, but if you’re offended over the nature of that type of thing, then I think you need to rethink things.

“This is a very worthwhile and needy benefit and I was honored to be there. … I’m sorry if I offended anybody but if I had to do it again, I would do it again.”

Titans fans don't think the whole thing is very funny. But then again, what is these days?

The secret to Mariano Rivera's cut fastball?

Yeah, probably not.

Still, Angels fans are up in arms over this clip (now in slow motion!), which appears to show the Yankees closer summoning ol' Eddie Harris for inspiration. Today, the question in Angels Nation doesn't seem to be, "Can the Angels rebound to win the ALCS?" but the all-important, "Did the spit land on the ball?"

You decide. Rivera does seem to contemplate his loogy for some time there.

Of course, there probably hasn't been a loogy this talked about in New York since...well, this one:

Five hundred twenty-six saves, 36 postseason saves, four World Series titles. That, my friends, is one magic loogy.

Oh, and speaking of Rivera, guess what happened five years ago today.