While I have been trying to avoid posting in the middle of a bender, tonight it seems as though I have no choice. Our long national nightmare just keeps dragging on as the Patriots refuse to do the right thing and lose. Even as the core of their defense ages in dog years, with Bruschi, Seau, Harrison and Vrabel winding down at the wrong time, they still manage to win week in and week out. And it's a damn shame.

I must confess, I was amazed to see two personal fouls called on Rodney Harrison in one season, let alone one game. He is a great player, and although it hurts me to say this, a sure-fire Hall of Famer. That said, he is now, and has always been a dirty player whose playmaking capacity, strength and toughness grow impressively in inverse proportion to his opponents' abilities to deal damage in return. In that sense, he is the evolutionary Jack Tatum, a kinder, gentler cheap shot artist for the Bill Clinton era in America.

I am coming to the conclusion, to borrow a phrase from an old episode of the Simpsons, that the Patriots suffer from Three Stooges Syndrome. If you remember, a doctor at the Mayo Clinic explained Mr. Burns longevity was a result of that condition, that there were so many diseases and conditions attacking him at once that they cancelled each other out. The Patriots have so many dueling vulnerabilities that they just might be invulnerable. And what a shame that would be for the Republic.

But after a certain point, how can one maintain interest in ripping a functionally illiterate quarterback, a sunshine soldier at lead wide receiver and a decrepit defense? Especially when they seem hell bent on getting stronger and faster and healthier with each swipe I take at them. I know they are a very good team, and I think I'm devoted enough to intellectual honesty to give the Devil his due when I criticize them. It just seems that they are so eminently beatable that this little thing of theirs has to come to a screeching halt at some point. I just wish it had been tonight, 16-1 had such a lovely ring to it.

The real story of today, however, is the savage beating Green Bay applied to Seattle. I have always expected to be a minor villain in the local sports scene, what with the fact that I harbor deep-seeded irrational antipathies to every local team and all. I didn't expect to become a minor villain to a lunatic fringe group of Seahawks fans because I dared provide a rational analysis of their team, their town, their "traditions" and their QB.

Seahawks fans, or at least the few that tripped over this blog in the dark, took umbrage at the fact that I called Matt Hasselbeck the fifth best QB in the NFL. I think the real thorn in their side came out of my assertion that the gap between 1-4 and 5 was bigger than the Grand Canyon. And yet as we sit here tonight and look back on the mauling they received at the hands of the Green Bay Packers, I could very nearly take a small measure of solace from the fact that I was more right than they were. Favre, Romo, Brady and Manning aren't in the same league as Hasselbeck.

I just wish the Packers had had the chance to utterly humiliate Seattle in the Emerald City in the vicinity of the 12th Man. Since they have a proclivity for stealing traditions from Texas A & M, I have a suggestion for Seattle fans. Texas A & M plays Taps across campus when one of its alumni who serves in the military dies in the line of duty. It occurs to me that the Seahawks fans could construct a similar ritual for this time of year when the Seahawks' Super Bowl hopes are crushed.

They shouldn't play Taps, since that would insult the brave men and women of the United States Armed Forces, but they should be able to create a parallel tradition for their own minor tragedies. Yeah, Seattle has loud fans. So do most NFL towns. And most of them didn't boost their nickname from the town in the Wizard of Oz. So maybe Seahawks fans could gather and play Follow the Yellow Brick Road to mourn yet another year of Seahawk failure when the chips are down.

And as for the 12th Man, I haven't the time or the inclination to do the research right now but we all know they ripped of Texas A & M. In point of fact, I have the time, but I am a bit buzzed right now and working real hard on a full-on drunk, so I just won't do it. But I can, through the imperfect medium of my memory, trace Texas A & M 12th Man references back to the 1986 bowl game where the 12th Man selected to cover a kick from the Texas A & M student body tried to steal a towel from Heisman Trophy winner Tim Brown as a souvenir. I can't trace the Seattle 12th Man back past the turn of the century. Case closed.

Before I conclude yet another meandering window into my own tormented mind, I want to say one more thing. In the past, Tom Brady has come under fire in this space for being a balding metrosexual. Perhaps I ought to have been more sensitive, since it must have been difficult to blaze that trail as publicly as Tom Brady has, but sensitivity isn't my strong suit.

That said, Tom Brady seems to have more hair now than he did at this time last year. Now, I wouldn't be much of a Catholic (and Lord knows, I'm not) if I didn't allow for the possibility of miracles, but I don't believe in this particular miracle. Never having set an NFL record myself, I don't know if setting the touchdown mark cures minor physical ailments, but I think old Tom Brady might just be on the Rogaine or at the very least sporting hair plugs. Could this be some sort of under appreciated performance enhancer? Would that I knew enough science to investigate.

Rest assured that my running debate on the Roger Clemens story with the KobraKommander will be resumed in the not too distant future, if for no other reason than this is my blog and I'll be damned if I let him have the last word.