Sorry I haven't updated this blog in almost a week. The holiday turned into a bender that would rival anything Ray Miland did in the film Lost Weekend. It started off well enough, with Tony Romo, LJ, TO, Jason Witten and Ronnie Brown netting 78.2 points for my fantasy team on Thursday. Of course, I should have realized that there were ominous signs out there too.

For instance, I benched Lawrence Tynes in favor of Joe Nedney thinking that the 49ers in the Dome would be more likely to pick up points than the Chiefs against Denver outdoors. Tynes kicked four field goals. I also sat the KC defense, in favor of Jacksonville. And the Chiefs let up 10 points and won. The Jags let up more than 10 points in the process of losing to Buffalo. Of course I also psyched myself into benching the Jags D vs the Giants thinking the Chiefs would generate more points against Oakland.

Of course, BC lost to Miami in the Orange Bowl even though it was 22 years to the day that Doug Flutie threw the miracle pass that brought BC ever so close to being the major college program their fans believe them to be. To put into perspective just how bad Miami has been this season, there were 22,000 fans at the Orange Bowl. It's not just that this season cost Larry Coker his job, but the stadium was 1/3 full to face a ranked conference opponent with a mathematical chance at a BCS bowl berth. A fitting stage for the Eagles to fold.

Things were looking pretty good, up until Saturday night, of course. I think we all know what horrors transpired that night. USC played a very good game. Notre Dame played a very bad game. A lot of that had to do with USC having more speed. Who knows what might have happened if Rhema McKnight held the ball for what could have been 2 very important, drive prolonging first downs? Or what if Charlie Weis had played the percentages and not taken the risk to go for it on fourth down twice? Alas, for the would have/could have/should haves.

Notre Dame will probably still end up in a BCS bowl. Yes, they have two bad losses, but they came against two of the top three teams in the nation. The Irish, for all the talk of their weak schedule, will be the only team that can make that claim, until Ohio State plays USC (barring an epic, earth shattering upset by UCLA). For all the ink spilled over the mighty SEC, there is still the blot on their record in the form of USC's mauling of the Razorbacks, who just might end up as a BCS team this year. I am not sold on Houston Nutt, as I may have mentioned a time or two.

I am also not entirely convinced that a 1-loss Florida team will emerge from the SEC championship game. I don't know about Urban Meyer in the big game situation. I don't think he's the wartime consigliere that can push the Tebow/Leak mess past the high pressure atmosphere that will reign in the Georgia Dome. Of course any one who reads that ought to run out and bet the ranch on Florida with my track record as a prognosticator (legally, of course, I can't condone any illicit activities).

Boise State will be a BCS team. Rutgers has a decent shot, provided they can beat West Virginia. Oklahoma and Nebraska will fight for a berth in the big money games. Wake Forest or Georgia Tech will represent the ACC. And in all of that, there isn't room for Notre Dame. Their bad loss at USC was slightly better than Arkansas' bad loss vs. USC. There is the seamy economic side of the game which makes Notre Dame an attractive choice because Irish fans travel like crazy.

It's not like it's hypocritical to criticize the BCS for bringing in the Irish for economic reasons. After all, the BCS isn't set up to thwart a playoff which might distribute revenue more equitably among the schools which competed than the current system which overwhelmingly favors the major conferences. The whole system is a mess, and it's unfair. But why should Notre Dame have less of a chance than another two loss team that lost to lesser schools than Notre Dame did?

Then there was Sunday's debacle in Foxboro. I was there. I can't believe Rex Grossman and Ron Turner were able to get as far as they did in this life being so dumb. For the love of everything good and sane in the world, you'd think they would have stopped throwing the same deep pattern after Assante Samuel proved he could cover it twice. At least certainly not on first down with time enough to try some shorter routes to work the ball down the field. But that's what happened. And it made me look ever so slightly dumber than I had up to this point.

I suppose I ought to come up with the lyrics to the Night Chicago Died, as I said I would. That will have to wait at least a day, since it's late and I'm tired. Before I sign off, I do want to provide my tools for the week. I know there's supposed to be only one, but I found two in the same source that deserve mention. Actually, this could very nearly be a four for with the tools that are present.

The source is the most recent mailbag from Bill Simmons. The first noteworthy tool is the guy who writes in to complain that he was next to a table where a guy ordered a sirloin and then drank it with Bud Light. Last time I checked, this was a free country. If you want to order a steak and drink it with moderately priced domestic lager, that is your right as an American. Also, kudos to the guy because he can't rest comfortably in his own opinion without validation from the Sports Guy. And I thought I had no life.

Honorable mention goes to DeVito who wrote in to ask if some sort of Trading Places between Dane Cook and Dave Chappelle had taken place. I don't really understand all this anti-Dane Cook backlash. I know people who love him and people who hate him. I have no opinion on him one way or the other, which is shocking for me as I have very strong opinions on almost everything under the sun. Maybe this Slate piece helped Dane Cook in my eyes more than his "talents."

That was the problem all along. Dane Cook hasn't been threatening enough to the establishment, man. That's why Vladimir Lenin slipped through the cracks. He wasn't cracking jokes at the St. Petersburg Chuckle Hut, so the Tsarist secret police overlooked him. The first to man the barricades are always the stand ups. Dane Cook does what he does and people like him. What's the problem there? I think the real problem is that Dane Cook has hoodwinked the people through cheap pandering, whereas the true comedic genius of the author of Slate's Middlebrow column has gone unrecognized because its essence is a riddle wrapped in the enigma of subtle humor.

As for Chappelle, I don't know how talented he was actually. Yeah, there may never be another "Is Wayne Brady gonna have to choke a bitch?" But if you watch Inside the Actors Studio with him, you'll see that the funny parts might have been the exception rather than the rule in his career. Maybe if he hadn't been so busy crying about what happened to Half Baked, he might have come out and admitted that he played a substantial role in Robin Hood Men in Tights.

But the real tool of the week is the last contributor. Not only did he introduce himself to our consciousness by referring to Simmons as Billy Boy, but it seemed like he derived entirely too much pleasure envisioning Bill Simmons dancing in makeup and a Colts jersey. Plus he was from Providence, which is another strike against him. I have nothing to say about the cat with the Lori Loughlin fixation, he already threw himself under the bus. What more can you say about that?

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So we meet again. After last week's flurry of activity, I imagine I spoiled my "legion" of readers. I probably shouldn't have posted so many times in such a short span, but I was bored and had nothing better to do. But that's life. And kind of a lot has happened since my last post.

First of all, Rutgers was not merely beaten but killed by Cincinnati last weekend. Should Rutgers beat West Virginia, they should earn the Big East championship and the concommitant trip to a BCS bowl. Unfortunately, the Scarlet Knights would need some Division 1-AA teams to lose to get back into the national title picture. So I face the Thanksgiving holiday with egg on my face on several accounts.

After watching a fair bit of football this fall, I've learned more about football than I did in four years of playing the sport in high school and a lifetime of watching the sport with the respectful detachment of the intelligent observer. The main thing I've come to realize is that the SEC champ deserves to play Ohio St. if the pollsters deem Michigan unworthy of a rematch. Shoud USC beat Notre Dame this week, the Trojans will put such a hurting on Ohio State that the entire unversity will lose its accreditation and the current players wll forsake football as a career. There is the possibility that USC coluld lose to ND or UCLA, but we ought to discount that, since Pete Carroll woud have coached his team up to the point where they could defeat Caesar's legions.

I must say I regret my pronuncement that we would be spelling BCS without BC again this season. I never imagined Wake Forest and Maryland choking to bring BC back into the picture. Of course if I were coaching Maryland, I would not have called another option after the first one produced a defensive TD. But then everybody but me knows that Alumni Stadium is the best homefield in any kind of football (including high school, college and international). There are pro teams who can't win in Alumni Stadium.

The real question in the BCS comes down to this: should an SEC champ have a greater role in the BCS than the winner of the SC-ND game. Obviously the lowest SEC team should have a better bowl appearance than Notre Dame. For instance, should ND and Arkansas finish with one loss, Arkansas would go to a BCS bowl and ND would be donated to oran thieves. The record against common opponents would dictate it. After all, a one loss Notre Dame tea would have beaten USC while Arkansas lost to USC by 36.

If only Charlie Weis had the good sense of a great coach like Houston Nutt, perhaps he would have the presence of mind to shine Pete Carroll's shoes with his face. Also, in response to the article which gave rest to Charlie Weis the legend against Ty Willingham the coach, note that Charlie Weis has a shot to beat USC whereas Ty Willingham never managed to do that.

Recently, I made a huge mistake. I bet a person I know that the Bears would beat the Patriots. Of course, I did not realize that Lovie Smith would spend this past week hiding and cowering because Bill Belichick outcoached Smith in this game three years before this game was even scheduled. Not only that, but the Bears defensive line is, at the moment, refusing to take the field this Sunday. I must say that I think Grossman might play the worst game an NF fan coul conceive from an NFL QB and the bears can still beat the Pats but we'll see (especially those tools who won't admit the dynasty is dead).

If I had an appeciation for the dramatic, I would keep this fact quiet until the Bears remove the "pride" from the Patriots and their fans. Since I have been so wrong about so much for so long, Pats fans who might read this might forgive me. I wasn't the first to point out the connection between Bill Belicheck and Flowers forAlgernon. Kevin Mannix spotted it, or at least mentioned it in 2002 (by my admission, two years too early).

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A number of things have surprised me this fall. Among the things that I never would have believed:

1. 30 Rock would be better than Studio 60.
2. Studio 60 would be the worst Aaron Sorkin episode ever.
3. 30 Rock would be watchable.
4. At this point in the season Tony Romo would be my fantasy football QB, and I'd be happy with that.
5. I would miss the most obvious explanation for the sudden demise of the New England Patriots.

Somewhere in the back of the Patriots training facility, a quiet, somber ceremony marking the burial of a laboratory mouse named Algernon. The pieces all fit so nicely now. Bill Belichick went from a catastrophic failure in Cleveland to a surprise champion to a fully fledged genius to the man steering the Titanic into the ice field while trying to set a trans-Atlantic speed record in the span of five years. The reason for this seems obvious: Bob Kraft and his team of scientists subjected Belichick to some sort of experimental surgery which turned him from chump to champ, but now it's all falling apart.

For those of you who might not have noticed the oh so subtle allusion in the preceding paragraph, it's Flowers for Algernon, the classic Daniel Keys novellette which then became a classic novel and then classic film. It's the story of a mentally handicapped man who underwent an experimental surgical procedure and for a time became a genius. He developed an affection for a mouse named Algernon who had also been a subject of the experiment. When he realized that his old friends had mocked him and now resented him, he became depressed. Then he discovered that the effect was only temporary, the mouse died, he reverted to his former state and became more depressed.

While my application of this story to Bill Belichick's as yet unexplained loss of mojo is a bit cruel and certainly insensitive, I think it's the only plausible explanation for the decline and fall of his Patriot empire. I can't believe I didn't see it before. It seems much more likely than a defensive coordinator passed over for the immortal Ray Handley and a catastrophic failure in Cleveland suddenly turning it all around only to lose it all so quickly without outside interference.

For Patriots fans who might read this, the somewhat obscure reference of the day is from the novel Flowers for Algernon. For those who aren't Patriots fans, I figured I'd repeat myself so that the Patriots fans might get it. While I did a quick google search to make sure that I wasn't ripping some one off by accident (I got no results that came to the same conclusion I did, they might still be out there, so I apologize), I came across this dude's myspace page. His page has inspired me to add a tool of the week segment to this blog. Hell, he might win the award for the next several weeks. Yikes. I hope you'll all join me in praying this genetic code does not infiltrate the next generation.

I know I'm going to hell for this post. That's one of the reasons why this blog has been updated six days in a row. I'm also taking a very large risk in posting this content at this time. I am getting on a plane on Sunday, flying for my holiday getaway. So I have this bad karma going for me, which is not nice. It won't work well with a fear of flying, and a fear of dying with 150 tools. I assume there will be at least that many tools on the flight, as the American tool is one of the world's great wonders. It is the great cross-cultural leveler, and one of our only renewable resources. Wish me luck. Flying is very hard for a misanthrope with aviphobia, but it beats driving, the bus or a train.

I have bad news for you, sports fans of America. The powers that be in Major League Baseball are currently debating whether the next 15 or so seasons should be played. There is no point in risking injury playing games when the end result for the foreseeable future is no longer in doubt. All records as we know them are obsolete. The whole game as we know it will shut down and retool its format to offset the single biggest development since Abner Doubleday added base to ball and created the sport we know and love in the 1840s.

The Red Sox acquired the exclusive right to negotiate with the greatest pitcher the world will ever know, Daisuke Matsuzaka of the Sebu Lions in Japan. Matsuzaka has yet to win 20 games in a season in Japan, even with his famous gyroball. He was the MVP of the World Baseball Classic, for what that is worth. The price for the right to negotiate with Matsuzaka is $51.1 million dollars, a princely sum indeed. There is a chance that this negotiation might not end with Matsuzaka signing a contract to pitch for the Sox, but I doubt it.

The good news is that the Red Sox cannot be penalized in luxury taxes for that chunk of money. The bad news is that five teams went into the season which just concluded with payrolls that did not exceed the sum the Red Sox spent to secure the right to negotiate with Matsuzaka. Only one team paid its players less than the Yankees reported 33 million dollar bid for the negotiating rights. It kind of makes me wonder if the Evil Empire resides in the Bronx these days.

I am not the only one to wonder that, either. Writing for Fox Sports, Michael Rosenberg takes the organization to task for its hypocrisy. He has no problem with the Red Sox spending freely, squeezing every nickel out of their revenue streams and dealing in illicit substances (OK, I made the last bit up), as long as they aren't hypocrites about it. I don't mind the Red Sox spending money, so long as they do it foolishly.

I do have a problem with the Red Sox efforts to increase their revenue streams, or at least some of the methods they choose to employ in that quest. Just because people are dumb enough to pay $9.95 for the privilege of being and official citizen of Red Sox Nation and $12 dollars to take a guided tour through empty relic of a stadium doesn't make it right to take advantage of them. God knows, if I came up with a pyramid scheme like Red Sox Nation, I would go to jail, but Lucchino and his boys get away with fleecing the ignorant.

Sean McAdam of the Providence Journal also has problems with the Red Sox crying poor mouth in this post from ESPN's website. He points out that the Red Sox will likely join the Yankees above the luxury tax threshold if they sign Matsuzaka and fill the remaining holes in their bullpen and outfield. McAdam also points out that the Red Sox will spend far more to bring Matsuzaka to the US than the Yankees spent to import Hideki Matsui. All fair points.

Then there is the gyroball. No one seems to be clear on exactly what it is, how it's thrown and if it's legal. There is also no guarantee that Matsuzaka will be all he's reported to be. There is the pressure of pitching in front of fans and media people who can turn into Shark Week in a blink of an eye should an athlete fall short of lofty expectations. There is the vast amount of money major league teams spend to analyze every little weakness of their opposition. Perhaps the gyroball will be less impressive the fourth time around a lineup.

More encouraging, at least for me, is the recent track record of Japanese players in the major leagues. Pitchers like Hideki Irabu and Hideo Nomo have not fulfilled their initial promise. Irabu was a huge disappointment (on multiple levels). Nomo has had flashes, but overall has not delivered on the promise he showed as a rookie. Outside of Ichiro, have any Japanese players become what we were led to believe? Even Hideki Matsui has fallen short of lofty promise. While he has been very good for the Yankees, he has hardly been "Godzilla."

One of the ancillary arguments to Matsuzaka's potential has been that it will enable Red Sox Nation to plant the proverbial flag in the Asian market. That is true, or at least it will be if the team and the player work well together and success follows. If Matsuzaka does not perform as he has been billed, or the team just isn't good enough to win the division, will the Asian market embrace the Red Sox? I think not.

In the end, there is one reason the Red Sox made this move (for those Red Sox fans scoring this at home, you know deep down in places you don't talk about at parties that this is a Duquette move, not a Theo move). Panic. Pure, unadulterated panic. With the second highest payroll in the league, one might feel compelled to do something to distract an impressionable fan base from the fact that the team finished in third place in its own division. With the highest ticket prices in baseball, one might feel some pressure to make a big splash in the offseason push to sign free agents. Simply put, the Red Sox front office needed to do something spectacular to put a season in which they were swept in five games by a Yankees team that was humiliated in the first round of the playoffs behind them.

Perhaps the fans might not notice that they have no closer if there is a big interesting story right before the holidays. After all, people will be dulled by tryptophan next week. Then there is the mad rush to celebrate the December gift giving holidays. Of course 90% of Red Sox fans will be thoroughly intoxicated on New Years Eve, and hung over on New Years Day. Then comes the BCS and the NFL playoffs. Then a few days later, pitchers and catchers report.

In all of that bustle, one doesn't have to be all that cynical to imagine the Red Sox brass hoping the fans won't ask difficult questions like are we sure Papelbon is ready to pitch 200 innings? God forbid any one have the temerity to think Papelbon's fantastic stuff might lose a little something in translation when opposing batters see him four times a game rather than four times a series. Did the team fix its offensive problems? If the team stood still long enough to let people ask these questions, then maybe the fans would have no cause for optimism going into another season.

Of course, the one upside to this shake the rattle in front of the baby school of management is that it is the only thing that might stave off the inevitable run of we are descended from Puritans therefore we are pessimistic sports fans stories from the CHB. So maybe I should stifle myself. Sorry.

In honor of Coach Belichick's amazing contributions to this blog in the last 24 hours, I have decided to spell his name correctly from here on. It was announced that the team will convert Gillette Stadium from natural grass to field turf before the next home game. And then a couple of hours ago, I got a call informing me that the team went out and pulled out the free agent coup of the millennium. Who would have thought that Vinny Testaverde would still be available at this late date? Well, he was and the Pats are going to have him as an insurance policy.

First, the field. Why convert the field at this point in the season? Yeah, the grass was a mess and the mud a bit of a problem, but it seemed like a problem that would impact both teams equally. More importantly, is this legal? I've heard of fields being resodded (as the Gillette Stadium turf was resodded earlier this season), but never a complete conversion like this. Where is the precedent?

One could argue that it serves the team right for sharing a stadium with a soccer team. Not to mention using the facility ot host the Rolling Stones and Kenny Chesney. A more cynical person than I might suspect that this a bush league ploy to psyche out the Bears. Or a ploy to boost the home team's sagging morale after their first losing streak since 2002. Of course, I would not believe that for a minute. It's not like Belichick resorts to silly little mind games like fooling around with the team's injury report, after all. Oh wait...

And as for the man, the myth, the legend Vinny Testaverde, surely another person in the wide world must be better qualified to serve as the emergency quarterback for the New England Patriots. Let us not forget that the Jets dragged Testaverde from his quiet retirement last season after Chad Pennington and Jay Fiedler were knocked out for the season.

In the course of his season with the Jets, Testaverde started four games. He threw one touchdown, which made him the first player in NFL history to throw a TD in 19 consecutive years. Set that impressive accomplishment against six interceptions, and the accomplishment is suddenly less impressive. Testaverde was eventually replaced by Brooks Bollinger. Bollinger is now backing up Brad Johnson in Minnesota, in case you care.

If you'd read the ESPN article above, you'll know that the team is coming off of consecutive losses for the first time since 2002. You'll also know that Tom Brady hasn't been his best against Indianapolis and the Jets. A lot of that is not Tom's fault. His teammates, in particular Kevin Faulk, have not been much help. But the team is now faced with a situation. If Brady is hurt, or ineffective, the only quarterback left on the roster is Matt Castle.

Castle has very little game experience since he left high school. At USC he backed up Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart. Obviously those were two great college quarterbacks who have succeeded at the NFL level (or at the very least, in Leinart's case, shown great promise). If Castle is not a capable backup, someone must be blamed. I guess Patriots fans might as well blame me.

I have never worked for the team in any capacity. I have certainly never made any personnel decisions for them, but Bill Belichick can't be wrong. Not in this case, not for this reason. Not in any case, for any reason. He is a genius According to the media (who know all things), he is the embodiment of all the qualities that made Vince Lombardi and George Halas coaching legends and then some.

The NFL is very much a what have you done for me lately league. For everybody except Bill Belichick. Yes, he won three Super Bowls, and proud we are of all of them (apologies to Maude Lebowski). But since 2004, things have changed. Belichick and Paoli built the Patriot empire, and apparently they've earned the right to preside over its decline and fall. Make no mistake about it, that's what we're seeing. The Patriots simply aren't good enough to compete with the Broncos and the Colts.

Yes, the played the Colts somewhat close 10 days ago. But they relied on two missed field goals from the greatest clutch kicker in the history of professional football to keep it within one touchdown as the game came to an end. How often will something like that happen again? The old Patriots won those games when fortune smiled on them. The older Patriots just aren't good enough to beat a better team, even when luck is on their side.

Letting Vinatieri go, chasing Deion Branch out of town and pissing off Richard Seymour all fall under the prerogatives of the genius. Maybe they will pay dividends in the long run, but I doubt it. In the meantime, enjoy facing the Bears on the new field turf with old Vinny Testaverde waiting to throw into coverage should something happen to Tom Brady. But no one in the media with the minerals to ask Belichick why his team found itself in a position with no experienced backup at the most important position in sports.

No one has dared ask what happens if Brady is hurt? It was good scouting and good fortune that Tom Brady was there when Bledsoe went down (yes, the Pats were smart enough to recognize what they had, but a lot of teams had a few shots at him before that, and Lloyd Carr should have played him more at Michigan). What are the odds that Matt Castle is another Tom Brady? Not very good, I am afraid. What could last season's Monsters of the Midway have been with a better backup than the legend in Skip Bayless' mind, Kyle Orton? But why should Belichick have planned for that eventuality?

I've watched these Bears play a few times this season. They looked bad against Arizona and Miami, but they have a killer instinct that comes out against good teams. They murdered the Seahawks (without knocking a certain bald QB out of the game, like Minnesota did) and the Giants. If they smell blood, no new turf or ancient backup will stop them. I think they will devastate the Patriots. This is a very important game for the Pats, if they should pull of the upset the old days might return for a little while. If they get blown out, it's Crowded House time in Foxboro. They might make the playoffs (the Jets just aren't ready for prime time), but they won't win. And the dynasty is gone.

The New England Revolution lost the MLS championship game, and I am heartbroken. Not because I like the Revolution, or the MLS in general, but because I had hoped that league was a fad stemming from the nation hosting the World Cup in 1994. I was wrong. It's here to stay, but I (and the silent soccer hating majority) can hope.

As the countdown to the most anticipated and therefore biggest college football game of the season goes on, I see more and more talk about what teams should play for the BCS championship. Obviously, the winner of the Ohio State-Michigan game will be there. Since the universe and the fates have conspired to deny Boston College the opportunity to play for the title they so richly deserve (based on their impressive schedule, a down year for the ACC as a conference and the fact that they have only lost twice to this point), some undeserving team will meet the Big 10 champion.

Of the undeserving teams, there are a few possibilities. Right now, it looks like either the winner of the Notre Dame vs. USC game or a one loss SEC champion will make the big game. If you've read this blog over the last 3 months, you probably will have noticed that I am a big Notre Dame fan. I would love to see this team compete in the national championship if they deserved it. That huge loss to Michigan at home should be enough to eliminate the Irish from consideration.

I don't think USC should get in either. Yeah, they beat Arkansas who has been a big surprise this season. But this really hasn't been that great a year for the Pac 10. UCLA played tough against Notre Dame in South Bend, but they haven't been that amazing the rest of the season. Who knows about Cal? Maybe they got caught overlooking Arizona going into the big game against the Trojans. But they still lost to an inferior team. Losing to a terrible Oregon State team has to hurt them.

As for the one loss SEC champion, should there be one, I think they will get more consideration than they might deserve. If Florida wins out and wins the SEC title game, they will almost certainly get into the BCS championship game as I see it. But Florida hasn't been very impressive throughout this season. They had a very good chance to beat Auburn, which would have given them an undefeated season to this point. The Gators had a chance to break the game open and couldn't do it. The Gators should have routed South Carolina at home on Saturday, but they let the Old Ball Coach and his team hang around and nearly beat them. South Carolina would have pulled that game out, but for the blocked kick in the final seconds. I don't see Florida matching up well with the Michigan or Ohio State defense.

If Saturday's game turns into an epic battle, the BCS championship should be a rematch between Ohio State and Michigan. This has to happen if Michigan should come out of Columbus with a win, since Ohio State was at the top of the rankings for the entire season. One late loss should not hurt a team like the Buckeyes more than USC loss to Oregon State, unless Michigan blows out Ohio State. USC did get the shaft when Oklahoma lost the Big 12 championship but still made the title game three years ago, but Oklahoma fell victim to a big underdog not the number 2 team in the nation.

I think that if the Michigan-Ohio State game is decided by double digits and Rutgers beats West Virginia, the Scarlet Knights should play in the BCS championship. I never would have imagined typing that sentence before this season. But that's how I feel. Rutgers will have beaten two top 10 teams. They will be playing well at the right time. They look more consistent and impressive than Florida. Obviously they won't have an embarrassing loss on their resume like Notre Dame and USC, since they would be undefeated.

There is a perception that the Big East had its heart ripped out when its two best teams and BC defected to beef up the ACC in 2003. Considering that Rutgers, Louisville and West Virginia have all risen in the national consciousness since the conference realignment, there is some truth to that sentiment. However, take a look at the ACC now. No ACC teams are in the top ten. Wake Forest controls its own destiny to win a berth in the conference championship.

Wake Forest. They used to be the conference doormat. Imagine if none of the teams defected from the Big East. Is there any guarantee that Miami Virginia Tech or BC could compete with the speed of West Virginia, the Louisville passing attack or Rutgers defensive speed? To paraphrase Norman Dale, you should evaluate the Big East for the conference that it is, not the conference that it isn't. So if Rutgers goes undefeated, I hope you will join me in a "Let them play" campaign as though we were the fans in the Huston Astrodome and the Scarlet Knights were the Bad News Bears in the second installment of their film series.

I think we all wait with baited breath for the press conference Justin Verlander is due to hold at any minute to demand that Jonathan Papelbon receive the AL Rookie of the Year trophy which the voters mysteriously awarded to the Tigers hurler instead of the single best pitcher of every conceivable era. No word yet on a target date for the Cy Young Award being renamed the Jonathan Papelbon Award, but it has to be within 2-3 years. In case you didn't hear, Hanley Ramirez won the NL Rookie of the Year award. As Bob Lobel would say: "Why can't we get guys like that?"

The Celtics lost their third consecutive game tonight, dropping their record to an anemic 1-6. Doc Rivers' days might be numbered. And yet Danny Ainge will be with us forever, it seems. Vlad Tepes, better know to history as the Impaler and to literature and film as Dracula, did more for the people of Wallachia than Ainge has done for the Celtics. Actually, the historical record shows that Vlad was not the monster that Bram Stoker described and he is a national hero in Romania today, but either way Ainge must go.

After tonight's Bears-Giants game, it looks like the bandwagon is back in business. Good thing I stayed with it, even though it took a little while for the sprains, cuts and abrasions some of us suffered during the pileup last week to heal. Unfortunately, the performance of Thomas Jones proved to be a double-edged sword. While he killed the Giants, he also undid the excellent contributions my fantasy football team received from Terrell Owens and Tony Romo.

One thing that bothered me came up in the postgame show. Tiki Barber came up to Thomas Jones with a big smile and hugged him. I can appreciate a certain level of sportsmanship, congratulating a winner. I also realize that both guys played for the University of Virginia so there is a bond between them. I don't think a guy should be smiling and hugging his opponents after the game, especially after a loss.

That game could be devastating to the Giants. Each game in the NFL is huge. One NFL game has the same impact as 11 baseball games on the final standings and winning percentage. Now the Giants are only one game ahead of the Eagles and Cowboys (both of whom the Giants have beaten already this season) in their division and two games behind Chicago for home field throughout the NFC playoffs.

I think that one scene, Tiki smiling and hugging Thomas Jones might explain his lack of success in the playoffs. I don't mean statistics, necessarily, as much as winning the ultimate prize. He seems like a really nice guy, but he doesn't seem like a winner. I wonder what Vince Lombardi would say seeing one of his players hug an opponent after a big loss with a smile on his face. There is more to life than football, but if you can do something like that at the highest level and make a great living doing it, I think you should have more passion for it. So I won't be sorry to see him retire prematurely.

The question on the table about Tiki Barber is will he be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. I don't think so. I don't think he deserves it. He has good numbers, but was he really ever dominant? Did he ever really seem like he was truly awesome? I have to say that I don't think Curtis Martin and Jerome Bettis belong in the Hall of Fame either. They'll probably get there, or at least Martin will. But I'm not sure they deserve it.

There might be an impulse to vote Tiki in because one could argue that he had a lot of potential when he retired. Those who take that line will likely point to Gayle Sayers who got into the Hall as much for what might have been had he not suffered devastating knee injuries as for his on the field brilliance. There might be something to say for that, but Tiki Barber never had that sort of brilliance. If you watch highlights of Sayers, he jumps out at you the way only Barry Sanders did. Tiki Barber has been good, but never really jaw dropping.

Plus he hasn't won a ring. OJ, Barry Sanders and others made it into the Hall of Fame without winning a Super Bowl or, in the case of people from before 1966, a league championship. But Tiki Barber doesn't have the football accomplishments that some of the backs achieved. When you think about Tiki Barber what comes to mind? For my part, I'll always remember him as a fumbler. Yes, since Tom Coughlin came to the Giants, Barber has changed his running style to better protect the football. He fumbles a lot less now than he used to, but that's what I'll remember his for, fumbling.

Rex Grossman looked pretty good tonight, for a change. It would be great to see him play this well on a more consistent basis. I am not too comfortable on the Bears Bandwagon with Rex keeping the keys. Things could get really ugly really quickly. After the near miss in Arizona and the disaster in Soldier Field last week, I have my seatbelt fastened and I'm bracing for an impact that could come at any minute.

The Patriots might not be the formidable obstacle to the Bears' season we were led to believe. After all, they lost consecutive games for the first time in over 3 seasons today. And the Jets are not a very good football team. I understand that Mangini knows the Pats very well, having coached on the New England staff for as long as he did. It also did not help that Bellicheck caused some controversy with his comments (or lack thereof) in the press this week. But the Patriots should have beaten the Jets.

For those who don't read Slate, Charles P. Pierce and Stefan Fatsis have been conducting a running exchange on the state of the NFL. It's amazing that a guy who wrote a Tom Brady biography and a guy who tried out for the Broncos could miss the point so much in such a short space. Football is one of life's simple pleasures. It shouldn't be analyzed to death. Also, the NFL is doing something right. Of all America's professional sports leagues, the NFL is by far the healthiest. One good way to end that is to let Stefan Fatsis and Charles P. Pierce get in and start running amok with the league's operations.

In other news, the Yankees traded Jared Wright to the Orioles. I'll have more to say about that move later on this week.

Sometimes, you tune in to Celebrity Jeopardy and see a panel of actors from the seventeen different Law and Order shows accidentally restaging one of the SNL sketches with Will Farrell as Alex Trebek. Other times, you tune and see Curt Schilling looking like a jackass and getting entirely too giggly with the mother from Malcolm in the Middle.

I must say, Big Schill looked a little better in his brief stint on Jeopardy than he did on the mound this season. Yeah, he finished with $0, but his charities still got some money. He certainly looked better than he did after the big home run Giambi hit off him in April. That is, he did until the final Jeopardy answer left him and Lois from Malcolm in the Middle (it's way too hard to spell her name) with the same stupid question and a creepy semisexual tension.

More importantly, it provides us with a convenient jumping off point to return to the purpose of this blog as stated in the title. Outside of a brief aside on the team picking up Wakefield's option, I really haven't had a lot to say about the Red Sox since August. With the team falling apart the way they did, you'd think I would have more to say, but the health scares for David Ortiz and Jon Lester, I felt a little guilty about rubbing salt into wounds. Plus I watch a lot of My Name is Earl, so while I don't necessarily believe in karma, I'm not taking any chances. With a thousand mile flight in my immediate future, I'm not tempting fate.

Now the story has come out that the Red Sox are the leading bidder in the Daisuke Matsuzaka sweepstakes. I don't really know what I think about this. Yeah, he pitched really well in the World Baseball Classic, for what that's worth. Allegedly, he dominated against the best MLB has to offer. I'm not sure I believe that. The WBC wasn't that good. All the teams we expected to be great (the US and the Dominican Republic among them) were much better on paper than on the field.

Then there is the question which must be asked. How will he handle a shift in environment and culture from Japanese baseball to America? There is a huge culture shock in store for him if he comes to Boston. What is the over/under on the first booing in Fenway Park should he sign with the Red Sox and pitch more like Tom Tucker from Family Guy than Tom Seaver? How will he handle the gently insightful and earnestly perceptive media in the Boston market should his performance fail to equal the promise? Maybe we ought to think about these things before we get all kinds of crazy picturing him in a Boston uniform.

Of course, it is just possible that this is a rumor spread by Scott Boras, the agent for Daisuke Matsuzaka, to induce the Yankees to come into this bidding process like Colonel Kilgore in the Ride of the Valkeyries scene from Apocalypse Now. I'm not sure I beleive that, not because Boras isn't a snake in the grass, a low profile Drew Rosenhaus of sorts, but because the Red Sox need to make a big splash in this free agent market to show fans that they're doing something to justify the highest (and getting higher by the day) ticket prices in the league. I know that sentence runs on just a bit, but who has the time to fix things like that?

Another reason to discount the misinformation theory is the source from which I heard it. I was talking to a Red Sox fan I know (the name withheld to protect the guilty) who said that Boras played Buster Olney. Of course all free Americans know that you have to get up very early in the late mid-afternoon to put one over on the likes of a Buster Olney. That aside, the Red Sox fan in question has appeared in this space as the guy who assured me in mid-April that he would be satisfied with a 12-7 spilt against the Yankees in 2006 in favor of the Sox. I think we know how that one worked out. The Unknown Sox Fan might be right about this rumor, but I have to discount his Sox stories since he comes out with WEEI info as though it were fact.

I must say I was disappointed to see Gary Sheffield go to the Tigers this week. I was really hoping that he'd be coming to Boston. What a disaster that would have been. He would not have fit in with the team and its overall concept (which I think is not good, based on last year's results). He also would not have fit in with the fans and the media. Too bad, we might have seen the CHB flee in terror from the Sox facility for the first time since Carl Everett called him the CHB. And how I would have loved it. Alas, that was a Dan Duquette move, not a Theo Epstein move.

If you were reading this blog in the early summer, you might have noticed that I like basketball. I watch the NBA and on occasion, I comment on it. I was a Celtics fan once, and maybe I will again. But Danny Ainge changed all that by trading Antoine Walker. In the post Walker era, the Celtics have made just one playoff appearance (which they earned after reacquiring Employee Number Eight in midseason). Now people expect fans to get excited over a team that cornered the market on players trapped between the 2 and the 4, while not really filling any spot.

According to Bill Simmons and his minions, the problem is Doc Rivers. While I agree Doc is a bad coach, I think he's also a bad coach coaching a fatally flawed team. Say that five times fast. Maybe Don Nelson could turn this nightmare around, but while we're dreaming of that scenario let's not wake up and count the titles Coach Nelson has won just yet. That might result in a "if you die in your dreams, you die in real life" Nightmare on Canal Street for Celtic fans. But in the misdirected (at the time, and at her target target) words of Sinead O'Connor, fight the real enemy.

Maybe I might have missed something here. Unless my nearly photographic memory was out of film that day, Doc Rivers did not take a team of mercenaries into the team offices and seize control of the Celtics like Hans taking over the Nakatomi Building in Die Hard, did he? There is a man out there in whom the power to hire and fire the head basketball coach of the Boston Celtics resides, right? Danny Ainge may not be the devil, but like the devil he has tricked mankind into believing he doesn't exist.

It has not ceased to amaze me that this papier-mache Mephistopheles is still employed by the Celtics. On the off chance that some Celtic executive reads this, or a reader knows a Celtic executive please read this section as many times as it takes to sink in: Danny Ainge took over a team that had made the playoffs both seasons prior to his hire, including making the conference finals in 2001. I know this. I was at the games. Since he returned to the Celtics, they made the playoffs exactly once.

He traded Antoine Walker for a group of players whose NBA career success inspire more comparisons to the squirt gun full of jelly, the train with square wheels and Charlie in the Box rather than Russell, Heinshon, Cowens, Bird and the other ghosts of Celtics past. He married a coach who can't win with his team to a team that can't win with its coach. And he still has a job running a franchise in the NBA. I guess I must point out that terrible executives have roamed the NBA landscape with impunity since the league began. A man did trade the rights to Bill Russell for the Icecapades, and did not face the firing squad.

By the way, I thought part of the reason that Antoine Walker was expendable after his second stint with the Cs was the devlopment of Al Jefferson. And now, if you read the piece in the minions link above, you'll find that Bill Simmons has given up on him. I won't depress you further by telling you exactly how many of the players obtained for Antoine are still wearing the green.

I never thought I'd be so virulent in my criticism of a guy who had won titles for the Cs, but I never thought I'd live to see the day I would have to leave the Celtics behind either. Thank you Danny Ainge.

And now for the postscripts...

I imagine those of you who read this blog might be surprised to see a post like this roll up in the early evening when I usually post in the middle of the night. Today was a special case, with the Fighting Irish of the University of Notre Dame playing their game against Air Force on CSTV. I do not have CSTV on my cable package. Nor do any of my friends. Nor do any of my casual acquaintances from work. I went to great lengths to watch this game, but I elected not to add the channel to my cable service, since it wouldn't be worth it for one afternoon.

TNT decided to throw a terrible movie lineup at Notre Dame fans reeling from their team's bizarre absence from a widely available national network for the first time since I can remember. Gone in Sixty Seconds and Walking Tall. Two movies that never should have been made in the first place, but were remade for some strange reason. A pair of reasons for the CHB to wet himself, after all he said God forbid ND should make the BCS title game on Rome is Burning this week. And that is why I vent on the blog.

And in case you're wondering, in addition to the Apocalypse Now reference, there are Heart of Darkness, Baudelaire and Island of the Misfit Toys from the claymation Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer special references in tonight's post.

You will be relieved to know that I escaped from the wreckage of the Chicago Bears bandwagon with only minor injuries. While somewhat humbled by the devastating defeat the "Monsters" of the Midway suffered at the hands of the underachieving Dolphins, I am not quite ready to abandon the Bears this season. I still think that they can win it all.

The Colts are still undefeated. Some might attribute it to their play, others might say that the game was there to be had for the Patriots. I think it was a bit of both. Maybe if the tipped balls fell harmlessly to the turf, the Patriots win the game. Maybe if the Patriots show a stronger commitment to running the ball with conventional plays (as opposed to the traps and wham blocks they seemed to favor), the Patriots win the game. Alas, that did not happen and the Colts prevailed.

Indianapolis looked very beatable this week, but the Patriots did not look like a team prepared to win that game. Kevin Faulk had his hands on two passes that bounced into a Colt's hands. Things like that had a way of favoring the Patriots in the early stages of this rivalry. The ball seemed to bounce their way, and when it did, they made the Colts pay dearly.

Last night, Vinatieri missed two makeable kicks (at least he always seemed to make them in these kinds of games), but the Patriots never really capitalized on it. It's not that they did not parlay the missed kicks into points. What I mean is that if some commentator guaranteed that Vinatieri would miss a kick in the game, almost all of us would think big win for the Pats. Not a blow out, but a signature Bellicheck/Brady win. Well, the greatest clutch kicker in NFL history missed two kicks and the Colts still left Gillette Stadium with the win.

I don't think the Colts will survive another game like this. I think Dallas will present an interesting matchup for the Colts. DeMarcus Ware should be a handful for Tarik Glenn as he challenges Matt Lepsis circa 1997 for the unofficial record for the most uncalled holds in the history of NFL linemen. The Cowboys have been up and down all season, losing games they should have won and beating Carolina on the road when no one thought they would. The Cowboys might be this year's San Diego (if you know your recent NFL history, the Chargers beat Indy in the RCA Dome last year, really derailing the Colts and their title hopes).

As for the Bears, as I said, I'm not ready to abandon them. They looked like Terry Francona in a battle of wits this Sunday against the Dolphins. People are now thinking that Grossman will be on a short leash. Some even think he should have been benched in the second half. They might have something there, although I am not crazy about Brian Griese. Grossman did look bad, but even the great Tom Brady looked more like Joe DaVola than Joe Montana this week.

The Giants vs. the Bears is shaping up to be the most intriguing matchup in the NFC playoff run to date. The Bears looked bad and lost. The Giants looked bad and won. Chicago lost to Miami, who lost to Houston, who beat Miami earlier this season but lost to the New York Giants this week. So that either means the Giants will beat the Bears, or that the NFL season is a long, strange campaign and lost of strange things can happen.

Michael Irvin reminded us tonight that every NFL roster has enough talented athletes to win on any given Sunday. Yes, that is a very old, very tired cliche. But, unfortunately there is a reason that the old, tired cliches linger. And it's not just Chris Berman. There is a strong element of truth to each of them. Strange things happen in football games. It's a game of inches. The season is a marathon not a sprint, and all that. That's why the Bears aren't dead yet.

As for the New York Football (I think we ought to have a moratorium on that term, at least until Chris Berman addresses the "You're with me, Leather" question openly and honestly) Giants, have they really looked all that impressive in any game this season? Yeah, they got after Dallas and brought about the end of the Drew Bledsoe era as we knew it. Yeah, they came back against Philly. But they barely beat Houston, and the Mario Williams flap has become the third biggest story (behind the just shut up and retire already Tiki saga and Jeremy Shockey and Tom Coughlin need to kiss and make up soap opera).

If you didn't hear, there was a serious problem because Mario Williams and David Carr dared mock the lame jumpshot celebration Giant defenders have done to death some 1,500 time over as this season has progressed. The way I see it, it's like colleges teams trying to defend their fifty yard line against a visiting team in a postgame celebration. If you want to defend your field, win the game. If you want to defend your silly little celebration imitating a rap video, keep Eli Manning from getting sacked (I don't go as far as the author of the link does, I don't think it's the bane of high school sportsmanship, just a dumb thing to do). Yes, the Texans lost the game, but the Giants were far from impressive in victory. So they should man up and accept the fact that they gave the Texans life they should not have had.

In my way of thinking, Mario Williams hasn't been a big disappointment. He has more sacks than Reggie Bush has TDs. Perhaps he would be a better pick if a defensive end could be an expensive decoy the way an offensive player can. You don't have to be William Faulkner to realize that Reggie Bush has been sound and fury signifying very little to this point. Yes, the Saints are a much improved team, but they have a new coach, QB and a surprise rookie of the year candidate at WR.

The Texans have Mario Williams, Gary Kubiak and a mess at RB, with the injury to Dominack Davis in training camp. There are no guarantees that Reggie Bush would have fixed that mess. Maybe if they drafted Bush instead of Williams and Davis had stayed healthy, the Texans could have a 1-2 punch with Davis and Bush that would rival the tandem of Bush and McAllister. Maybe I wouldn't have spent all Sunday miserable watching the disasters unfolding in front of me with a massive hangover if I had been more responsible in my alcohol consumption Saturday night.

There's no point in speculating about such things because they are out of the realm of possibility once the initial decision has been made. It is fair to say that the Texans should have drafted Bush instead of Williams, but it is not fair to say that an entire chain of events would have unfolded a certain way had they taken Bush. For all we know, Bush could have taken one look at the Texans' offensive line and practice facility and had some sort of freak out and joined the Hari Krishnas leaving the Texans with nothing. Maybe we ought to wait until the end of the year before we decide for sure who was right on draft day.

For the two of you who read this and might suggest that my alcohol consumption was in my control on Saturday night, I had a lot to celebrate. As strange as it seems on a strictly literal level, this season we'll be spelling BCS without BC. It is not outside the realm of possibility that the Eagles could climb over Wake Forest and Maryland to win their division and earn a spot in the ACC title game. Then, if they made the conference championship they could win the ACC and the automatic berth to a BCS bowl. That is certainly possible, but so unlikely that I risked a premature celebration Saturday night and some premature gloating tonight.

I understand that as a Notre Dame fan, I have no business gloating over BC losing ground in its quest to play in a real bowl game (the blue field bowl in Boise doesn't count). After all, Notre Dame will have played all three service academies when it's all said and done, along with North Carolina and Stanford. Penn State, Purdue and Michigan State weren't exactly burning up the Big 10 competition this year. UCLA came much closer to beating the Irish at home than they should have.

The ND schedule wasn't that impressive, but the schedules are made so far in advance that no one could predict the down seasons for all of the major conference schools listed above. The only way the Notre Dame schedule could have been weaker is if they played in the ACC Atlantic Division, scheduled 3 Division 1AA teams and helped fund their football program through the sale of dangerous narcotic diet substances to shallow, insipid Long Island sorostitutes. Then that would leave BC out of luck, since that was there season in a nutshell (except for the third one, I made that up).