Explosive responses
When we asked our readers to guess how many times Bill Belichick used the word "explosive" this season, we were expecting maybe a few funny comments and a lot of random numbers. The results were actually quite the contrary, so before we name yesterday's winner, let's highlight some of the more humorous responses.
Chris from Woonsocket set the tone with a simple "Once...in every sentence." And it was all downhill from there. Steve from Brighton said Belichick paved the way from Boston to Houston by saying "explosive" 1,850 times, once for every mile (which we confirmed on Mapquest.com).
Always the prognosticator, Bob from Waltham said, "All of those times that Bill Belichick has used the word explosive are in the past. This is not about past uses of explosive, it's about how many times he can use explosive in the next week and a half. He'll have to work hard and stay focused, but he's confident he can use the word a significant number of times."
Before we go on, let's get a quick definition of the word "explosive," thanks to Jack in East Freetown. From Belichick's Unabridged Dictionary, 2003 Ed: Main Entry: exáploásive Pronunciation: ik-'splO-siv, -ziv Function: adjective Date: Ever since Bill's been a head coach here 1a: relating to or characterized by any team that the Patriots have, will, or may play, in any season, ever, but most especially that week's opponent 1b: resulting from or due to an extreme tendency to play up the other team's capabilities and downplay their weaknesses in the hopes of 1) not giving them anything to get fired up about and 2) continuing to deny the local media any worthwhile quotes.
"The way he uses the word, his paperboy's delivery of the paper to his front porch is explosive," chimed in Jim from Medford.
Beantown C from Boston put forth an explosive effort in giving us his best Belichick impersonation. "Bill's use of explosive is rather explosive, so explosive that his explosive tendencies explode into the explosive reactions of the explosive players, causing an explosive reaction among his explosive offense and defense. To put it simply, it's rather explosive."
Jeremy from Becket saw a recent FBI report sent to Homeland Security Secretary, Tom Ridge, listing Bill Belichick as one of the top 5 users of "explosives" in the nation.
All of these responses and more were quite humorous and made judging this contest enjoyable. We were, however looking for the far simpler, cut and dried answer of 18: One for each regular season and playoff game so far. Congratulations to the straightforward Tom from North Attleboro and Donya from Brighton, who simply gave us the number - 18, enough to win the contest.
