London calling

The nerve of the NFL to fine Belichick 500,000 and Kraft 250,000, take away their first round pick and drag their name through the dirt and then ask the team to represent them to promote the game in London.

The flight to London from Boston is comparable in length to the flight to Southern California. The Pats are, in fact, the NFL's ideal choice for this game.

The Bucs are the ones screwed here - their flight is much longer and they lose a home game. But Malcolm Glazer probably doesn't care.

RickD, I completely agree. Flying back from Europe you actually end up flying over the northeast to go south so the Pats lose essentially 3 hours on this trip if I'm not mistaken.

Even as a Pats fan I just think it's unfair that the Bucs, or any team, should lose a home game to travel to London. However, that does sound like one trip I would consider!

Forget the UK this season is over. Even if the Pats win the last games their chances of making the playoffs stink...look at the numbers.. when will they ever learn? When the pats lost to the Colts with terrible receivers they fixed the problem the right way...with money. With the worst seconday in the NFL they stood pat... How many red zone stops? How manny sacks? How many 3rd and outs? How many fumble recoverys. Can't win with them can't coach them can't play with them. A sad obit for a once proud franchise!

Carl Reiner, can't break the bank on corners. A sucessful team has to identify where it's going to spend it's money and stick with the plan. For the Patriots it's d-linemen and QB's. Anyone who understands football understands that if you have a good front seven it will make your secondary pretty good as well. As far as the game, it was a pretty good trip for the Giants. I'm hoping it well end up being something akin to what the Celtics had in Rome last year, a real chance to build real team comraderie.

I thought the NFL was going to 18 regular season games, and the two "extra" games would be oversea's games. That would be a better plan. With only 8 home games a season, no NFL team wants to lose a home game. But as RickD pointed out, it's the Bucs who will pay for the game.

Thanks I have to agree with you but the corners have still preformed poorly, I also hope London is a hidden gem.

"Build camaraderie"? In the middle of an NFL season with a majority of the same guys on the team for multiple years?
The entirely new look 2008 Celts went to Rome in pre-season - an entirely different circumstance there, Rich.
To Pats players/coaches/staff, a London is an inconvenient novelty at best, but they'll suck it up and publicly adopt the usual BB-speak featuring:
- we're focused on beating a very good Tampa team
- the venue doesn't matter, its nothing that we can control
- players like Izzo (if still on the team) will unite players, Pats and NFL management around the opportunity to perform in person for Euro-stationed US military personnel.
We'll also hear some "honor to be selected" and the upside for their apparently considerable Pats Euro fan base.

Agree, RickD - the Bucs are the real losers in this scenario.

The NFL should own or lease a stadium in Europe and/or China and for an entire season feature a game with different teams playing each week. This would help build a football fan base outside the US.