Well, it's been a while since I last posted...for obvious reasons. There hasn't been a lot to talk about with the Sox winning it all and the Pats rolling along the way they are. What could I say, for instance, to make fun of Papelbon. Yeah, he looked like a total tool with his silly dancing? So what if he looked like a douche with the Bud Light box on his head?

Do you care that I know of a Sox fan who let his kid rock a Bud Light box on his head as a Halloween costume? Is that a sign of the decline of American civilization or the end of the world as we know it? Probably not. It's also not going to be the one irreversible step that leads to the most heinous of societal ills...underage drinking. It's probably not boding well for the kid's chances of becoming a well adjusted adult at some point, but how many of us are actually well adjusted adults?

I don't have a whole lot to say about Navy beating ND. Sooner or later, it had to happen. I know I ripped Tommy Tuberville for playing for the tie earlier this season against South Florida, and I should rip Weis for not trying a field goal with less than a minute to go in a tie game. But he didn't play for the tie, he went for it on fourth and eight. Not a very good idea, but aggressive. It blew up when the play resulted in a sack and a loss of eight yards (a double negative play when a missed FG would have ended in a turnover on downs at a spot seven yards from the original line of scrimmage). So what can I say, is this loss somehow worse than any of the other terrible losses this season? I'm out of things to say.

The worst thing about losing to Navy is that it still gives BC fans a little something to smile at, even though this FSU loss stuck a dagger in their national title game dreams. For as much as this season delights BC fans, and as much as Notre Dame has fallen off the face of the Earth for a year, it's not all glory in Chestnut Hill. If they lose another game this year, they will not got to a BCS bowl. So there's that to look forward to, small consolation to be sure, but a little bright spot.

And the Patriots survived a game that they could have lost. At the end of the day, all that matters is the final result, but this game presented quite a scare to the Patriots. Some of the calls were questionable, particularly the pass interference on Ellis Hobbs, but that's part of the game. There were too many penalties. The pass protection left a little to be desired. If Indy played a bit more aggressively, who knows whether they could have hled the lead. But as they say, if grasshoppers were armed to the teeth, perhaps they'd have less difficulty with birds eating them.

I have a friend who has a theory that winning this game might not be the best thing for the Pats. They clearly didn't play their best game today, but they still won. It might be a positive because they have so many different ways to beat teams. But it might be a negative, since this might lend even more confidence which might blow up in their face.

If you take LSU as an example, the Bayou Bengals are so far ahead of the teams they play talent wise that they have fallen into the habit of coasting till the fourth quarter till they spring the big comeback on their opponent. Unfortunately, they couldn't quite comeback far enough to beat Kentucky, who won that wild game in Lexington in triple OT. If BC hadn't lost, that might have ended up costing the Tigers a shot at the BCS title game.

The thing about this is that these are conditions and hypotheticals. I hate admitting it, but based on the games to this point in the season, the Patriots are the best team in the NFL. When the dust clears and all the games are played, that might not be the case, but that's too far down the road to see as of today. I think the Pats are vulnerable but that might be true or it might be my own prejudice against the team leading me into a conclusion that isn't accurate.

With their massive offensive output (at least prior to the game today), the Pats have been compared a lot lately to the St Louis Rams. Perhaps this could present a glimmer of hope. Those high powered Rams played the Patriots twice in 2001. We all remember the stunning victory in the Super Bowl, but how many recall the beating the Pats took in the regular season? Obviously the Super Bowl is the much bigger game, and that's why we remember it, but maybe one of these teams the Pats have beaten could sneak up on the juggernaut should they meat again? It doesn't seem likely, but it's not impossible.

It's getting late now, and I'll have more to say as this week goes on about the rest of the NFL games, and some other things that have been neglected over the course of the postseason baseball nightmare.