This has been a pretty good weekend in the wide world at large. The Patriots limp into free agency coming off one of the most spectacular Super Bowl chokes of all time. To be fair, they did resign Teddy Bruschi who will only get better in his next twelve seasons with the team. That said, both Asante Samuel and Randall Gay left town.

Obviously, the Eagles overpaid for Asante Samuel. The scope of this contract was so ludicrous that it defies description. Six years and $55 million for a guy who doesn't like to tackle and got 25% of his career interceptions from Rex Grossman (exaggeration) is a bit steep. That said, I think TO will call a press conference tomorrow to announce he's going to retire before he has to face Samuel twice next season.

I don't think any one is thinking Randall Gay is a future Hall of Famer, barring some sort of minor miracle. But that leaves the Patriots entering next season with a huge target on their backs from Spygate, from this season's blowouts, from choking away the Super Bowl and from the last seven years of douchery. And they're going to war with Ellis Hobbs, Brandon Merriweather and spare parts. I must say, I like the way that looks on paper. Short of teaching Matt Light how to play tackle, I can't see the Patriots coming vaguely close to the level of success they almost enjoyed this season going forward.

In other matters, I get a chance to do something I never anticipated doing in this space - complimenting a member of the Rolling Stones. I do like the Stones, but I was less than thrilled with their recent album entitled Neocons. Regardless of my personal feelings for neocons, I think it advisable for musicians and celebreties to stay out of politics, especially when they aren't Americans. And I regret the days of General Andrew Jackson, when an Englishman with funny notions on how Americans ought to be doing things would find himself limping back to London, are long gone.

That said, I liked the fact that Keith Richards took a shot at Led Zeppelin, saying that he wasn't even aware they had a reunion. Obviously, since these old rockstars are all buddies, I'm betting he was joking. But that said, what was the big deal about their reunion. I'm sure there are other bands that are more overrated, but there can't be many and I can't think of one at the moment.

If American middle school and high school school dance administrators had had to courage to get together and say enough Stairway to Heaven, then the great unwashed wouldn't nuture the soft spot for this band that they harbor at the moment. Perhaps they were the Godfathers of Heavy Metal, good for them. Let's face it. For the most part, heavy metal sucks. The root of their appeal rests in the memories of people who hear Stairway and recall slow dancing awkwardly with their pizza-faced first love and hoping to steal a kiss before the wood panelled station wagon came to whisk them away. I don't see how people can look back at things like that fondly, but then again people are morons and ought to be locked up for the good of society.

And let's not forget that they made a Lord of the Rings reference in Ramble On, which wasn't a good song to begin with and got worse. When they dropped Gollum and Mordor in, that was kind of risky, since the beat Peter Jackson movies hadn't been made and LOTR was not to be referred to in open conversation unless you were a LARPer. And maybe it takes a certain courage to admit that Gollum stole your woman. But it's still beat. To be fair, though, I do like You Don't Have To Go and a couple of their other songs, but I could do without Led Zeppelin.

So good work Keith. And good work telling kids to stay off drugs. Has there ever been a more shining example of do as I say, not as I do in action? Denis Leary was all over him for making similar cracks 15 years ago. But he had a point. Keith Richards did so many drugs he just might still be high, for the love of God.

So, Congress finally got around to asking the Justice Department to look into whether or not Roger Clemens committed perjury. It seemed fairly obvious that this was going to be the end result of that he said-he said fest into which the hearings of two weeks ago degenerated in short order. The only surprise was the delay between the hearings and the request.

Personally, I think it had something to do with the fact that Congress was desperately searching for some other charge to file against Clemens. Alas, interrupting a legendary orator like Henry Waxman in the midst of a contralto harangue full of sound and fury but signifying nothing is merely a violation of Robert's Rules for Order. Even though Robert's Rules are the tools which do little more than protect the elected officials from the electorate, an ordinary citizen can't be punished for breaching them.

This case should be fairly interesting in so far as what the result will be. But I am sure that the process by which said result will be obtained won't be tremendously interesting. Yes, no side in this sad little mess has any reasonable claim to credibility. But I don't think I'll be flying to my set to see if Andy Pettitte's story on his own HGH usage habits changes for the third time since his name was included in the Mitchell Report. I would like to see whether the NYPD service record for Brian McNamee sees the light of day any time soon, but I'm not big on hoping for miracles.

Of far greater importance and interest to me at the moment is a nugget in Peter King's Monday NFL column this week. Generally, I avoid Peter King like the plague because he's a New Jersey d-bag and one of the less than shining lights of NBC's dismal NFL Sunday Night studio show. But the guy I go to for my Red Sox info told me that there was an interesting little tidbit about the Dom Capers hire.

I am unhappy with myself for missing the Capers hire on the tickers when it was announced. To me, this is a great sign. It's a panic move on the part of the Patriots. It looks superficially like an insurance policy, a possibility which Peter King is quick to dismiss, in case Belichick should be forced to step down or face suspension for his role in the ongoing signal taping soap opera.

On that level, it would make some sense, since the Patriots had no one on staff with head coaching experience and McDaniel would have caused the knuckle-dragging troglodytes who root for the Patriots to mutiny had he inherited this team. Dean Pees may or may not have potential, it's hard to say as the presence of Belichick overshadows any fair understanding of what he's brought to the table as defensive coordinator. And who knows when this situation will resolve itself?

One thing is sure, it didn't make very much sense for the Patriots to enter the official NFL league year 2008 (starting with free agency and the draft process) without a viable candidate in house. Even if Capers isn't on any one's short list for a quick fix or permanent replacement, his presence means they won't have to make a panic move should Belichick have to leave town for a while.

The reason I like this move is that it shows the Patriots organization is scared at some level. Whether they are afraid of the end result of Arlen Specter's half-assed witch hunt or afraid that it's "Katy bar the door" time for the dynasty is another matter. Hiring a defensive assistant with experience with another branch of the 3-4 tree to serve under a less experienced defensive coordinator cannot bode well for the current coordinator's confidence.

The defense isn't getting any younger in the front seven. Assante Samuel is out the door, and some Pats fans aren't too upset considering he didn't intercept Eli Manning when he could have salted the game away. But that leaves you with fearsome shutdown corners in Ellis Hobbs and Randall Gay (who might be leaving town himself). Yes, in the piece I mentioned, Peter King proved with the case of the 49ers this past season that cornerbacks aren't a great investment compared to a solid pass rush.

When you think that Richard Seymour has quietly become the Manny Ramirez of the Pats defense and that Vrabel is getting older and much more likely to submit a season like he did in 2006 than another like he did in 2007, things all of a sudden look a little bleak in Foxboro. Of course, Adalius Thomas is still around and maybe he can get his statistical production mojo back if the Pats are forced to use him more like the Ravens did.

In another Pater King related comment, I want to address another column he wrote recently, predicting that Matt Ryan will be a better pro than JaMarcus Russell. I find that particularly amusing. One of the rationales for King's claim is that Ryan played and produced his impressive stats with a supporting cast that will not play pro football while Russell played with some of the best players in the nation and several future stars. That is a weighty argument.

However, doesn't it produce it's own weighty counterargument? Even if Matt Ryan played with players that won't make it to the NFL, should he not be expected to play at a high level any way, given the nature of his competition? For the last few years, as much as I hate to admit it, the SEC has been, top to bottom, the best and most competitive conference in college football. The ACC has been in a down cycle.

And on top of that, while both teams play cupcakes in the nonconference schedule, LSU plays Championship Subdivion powers and BC plays teams from the notoriously weak Northeast. And let's not forget, Russell torched an ND team in the Sugar Bowl that managed to send several players on to the NFL (Ndukwe and Landri among them). Matt Ryan struggled to lead BC to a win over a very depleted ND team this year, even though he threw outlet passes to his tailback that reminded people of a very old Joe Montana (the one in those terrible NFL Network diner ads, not even the one who played for the Chiefs).

If I were to give you ten things I think, items one through eight right now would be that Peter King is a d-bag. Item nine would be that anyone who actively reads Peter King to gain insight into the seamy underworld of the coffee nerd should be disenfranchised. And last but not least, item ten would be: "I hoped you enjoyed the dynasty, Pats fans" because it's over.

Here's some Roy Orbison music to help cushion the blow.


The song is called The Comedians. I particularly like the line: "It's always something cruel that laughter drowns." In this instance, the cruel thing will be the decline and fall of the Patriot empire and the laughter drowning it will come from me and the overwhelming majority of NFL fans who have grown tired of the Pats and their fans.

And in one last note, we need to join forces with Sports Guy Nation in a new crusade. Bill Simmons is launching a mock-campaign to replace the GM of the Milwaukee Bucks. I'm not taking the side of the trade that says a guy has to come from an NBA background to run an NBA team. I'm taking the side of the trade that this loudmouth who has never slid into second base in his natural life (not including that rich, full life he leads in his own mind a la Walter Mitty) ought to put his money where his mouth is just one time before he dies.

As a bonus, here's a tools of note feature. I inadvertently typed in Roger's Rules instead of Robert's Rules when I googled the parliamentary procedure portion of what I wanted to talk about tonight. I guess I had Clemens on the brain and I was still chuckling from the Simmons piece. But I happened to stumble across this goldmine of sayings that are too obvious and banal to be considered cliches.

This fellow, Roger J. Wendell, has a website defending 3.8 billion years of organic evolution. And on this website, Roger J. Wendell has his own quaint rules for order. After reading them, it's just too easy to make fun of him. So all I have to say about them is this: if he's the last line of defense for 3.8 billion years of organic evolution, then 3.8 billion years of organic evolution is in for a world of pain.

Bill Simmons just might be the greatest basketball mind in the world today. I doubt it, but I am obliged, as a Catholic, to believe in miracles. But here's the thing, let's say a team were to give him a shot, since he boasts that he has at least some of the answers to fix each and every team in the league at the moment. What happens when he picks up the phone or approaches a GM from another team at league meetings? Are they really going to forget his arrogant columns? Are they going to be impressed by his soprano twittering? Are they going to be intimidated by J Bug and D Bag and Joe House and the rest of his insane clown posse? I doubt it, and I hope I get to see him fail.

It's been a while since I've had a Festivus post, by which I mean since I've aired several grievances without benefit of a common theme. But so much has been going on lately that I want to say a little bit about. For instance, I find myself amused by the memory of the voice of Boston sports, even though he lives in LA.

Bill Simmons in yet another mailbag column answered a reader from NY who wrote in to ask:

Can you clarify something for us New Yorkers? The cocky attitude that New England fans carried about the perfect Patriots was suddenly turned into classy responses of "you beat us fair and square," with very few comments like "I hope New York burns in hell." I expected more of the latter. Was your "classiness" just a facade, and have Boston fans exposed themselves as thin once things go south? Or is this more of an Eddie Murphy in "Trading Places" thing where you are a KARATE MAN and get bruised on the inside and don't show your weaknesses? What gives?

Simmons' response reads:

You have to remember, Patriots fans were constantly bristling during the 2001, 2003 and 2004 seasons when opposing players and fans played the "they had no business winning that game," and "maybe they were the winning team, but they weren't the best team" cards. Hence, the "nobody respects us!" angle that was pushed ad nauseum by Patriots players and fans alike. As crazy as this sounds, we believed that 60-minute football games should be used to determine who had the best team, not what "could" have happened or what "should" have happened. (Sorry, everyone from Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Indy.) So when the Giants outplayed the Patriots in Super Bowl XLII, we admitted as much -- we've seen good defense and good coaching topple too many "talented" teams to call that game a fluke.

Also, it's easy to forget this after what happened from 2002 to 2007, but Boston fans are REALLY good at losing heart-wrenching games. We've had tons of practice. It was like Madonna dropping the British accent and the classy mom routine and turning into a slut again. You fall right back into it.

I find that tremendously funny. It seems to me that the Patriots were a seven point favorite when they played Carolina. It also seems to me that the only reason the Panthers managed to play their way to the point where the mighty Pats needed a Vinatieri field goal to win the game was an absolutely awful second half performance by Tom Brady. Even though it is very nearly a Federal offense to question Tom on any aspect of his performance, I still remember him turning the ball over a few times when it could have killed that team.

And then there is the game against the Eagles. The Patriots were also seven point favorites in that game. And they squeaked by on another Vinatieri field goal in part because Donovan McNabb couldn't keep his lunch down for the two minute drill at the end of the game. But as for no one expecting the Pats to win that game, I seem to remember the team had a 19 game win streak stretching from 2003-2004. I don't think they were sneaking up on teams at any point in that run.

But far be it for me to suggest that a man can't remember things in his own fashion in what still passes for a free country. Some Boston fans reacted with a stunning display of class because the epic upset in Arizona was so shocking, it even stopped the instinct to bully that resides at the core of the average Boston fan. And the facility to remember things in a way that never really happened is also one of the key attributes of the citizens of Red Sox and Patriots Nation.

Let's not forget that Red Sox fans have made a life of claiming their fathers, grandfathers and ancestors of remoter degrees were loyal, devoted Red Sox fans to the death. And yet the stadium was less than one-third full when Ted Williams played his final game. And I'm sure 2/3 of that generation of Red Sox fans would gladly have shivved the Splendid Splinter with a sharpened toothbrush to steal his medals and the fillings from his teeth.

I also want to talk a little about the tragedy at Northern Illinois this week. This is another symptom of a fundamental problem with our society. And it's not the fact that guns can be purchased in stores. It's a much deeper problem. After all, guns have been available to Americans since the first settlers landed here from Europe. Twenty years ago, just as many guns were available to just as many people and there wasn't even a waiting period or a Brady Bill.

But this isn't a defense of the gun lobby. It wouldn't bother me terribly if the nation made guns illegal. What I do fear, however, is the knee jerk reaction and a government that overreacts to specific events without addressing their underlying causes. This cat went into an auditorium and killed five people because he was a d-bag with serious emotional problems. So why don't we address the system that creates d-bags with serious emotional problems?

For the last 20 years, some geniuses decided that we had to tell every child that he or she or it is special. Every one who participated in any activity had to be given an award whether they earned it or not. The idea behind this is that self-esteem, self-respect, self-worth or whatever you call it can be instilled, inculcated or imposed from on high. That's not the case, it has to be earned. It's a painful process, and one filled with risks with very little reward. But unless a person experiences it, they have nothing.

No one ever seemed to ask a very simple question - what happens to these kids who never had to develop their own sense of self worth when they leave the relatively safe haven of elementary school and enter the real world? The real world, from middle school on is a harsh place. The real world doesn't give a damn how special you think you are or have been told you are. The real world is an awful, heartless, cold place. And we ought to raise and educate children that can deal with it.

Things just get worse, too. For thousands and thousands of years, the human being evolved into an animal that needs a community. And in the last 15 years, it's become easier, thanks to computers and social networking sites, to make friends in Berlin than it is to have friends in your hometown. I exchanged more words so far today with my college roommate over facebook than I did with my own roommate in my apartment. And people wonder why our society has so many inexplicable problems.

And since this latest tragedy is almost sure to bring Michael Moore out of hiding, I want to throw him in as a random thing I hate. I hate Michael Moore, not because I don't share his politics. God knows, I don't, but I have a lot of close personal friends whose politics I do not share. I hate him because he's a whining, carping fraud.

For instance, in his recent film about the state of health care in this country, Michael Moore spent how much money to whine about the fact that the Federal government doesn't spend enough money to provide universal health care to every American? It seems to me that he could have put that money to better effect paying for health insurance for needy families. Not only that, but he could have done more good and earned himself better PR with normal Americans (as opposed to people like me who would hate him anyway, or the people whose hearts and minds he's already won). But that's just me.

Eighteen and one. It looks even better spelled out. I didn't post last night because I had to do some serious celebrating. And I didn't post earlier today because I was suffering from a hangover. I was wondering, too, what quote I would use to lament the Patriots fall from glory at the finish line. Over the course of this season, I have been making frequent references to Gerald Ford's first speech to the American people after taking the oath of office, telling every one that the long national nightmare was over. Instead, I think we'll go with Jackie Gleason: "How sweet it is!"

I still don't like the Giants, and I don't think I ever will. But this was just an unbelievable moment. After all the records, all the attention, all the hype and all the disgustingly classless behavior on the part of the coach, the players and the fans, it's all come to nothing.

Brady has the regular season records that Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw didn't get. And now he's added one more mark that the two of them can never touch. He's no longer perfect in the Super Bowl. Sure, the offensive line let him down but Bradshaw took his fair share of hits and still managed to make the plays that had to be made. Montana took the field needing to drive his team 92 yards in the two minute offense down by four, and he did it. Brady just wasn't good enough yesterday.

I just can't say enough about Matt Light's performance. My friend from Maine called him the most overrated lineman in football. I don't think that's fair, I would only put him in the top five. I think Marcus McNeil from San Diego is more overrated, for example. But his performance conjured many happy memories of Max Lane being abused by Reggie White. Too bad Strahan was on the other side of the formation, otherwise the symmetry would have been perfect with the 92 jersey number and the shellshocked Pats o-lineman.

The best part, however, of this Super Bowl is that it presents tantalizing signs of not being the end of the beginning to steal a phrase from Churchill, but the beginning of the end. I know I've said this more than a few times to this point, but age has to catch up to these Patriots soon. Vrabel did come back in a big way this season, but he can't have much gas left in the tank at his age. Bruschi and Seau aren't getting any younger or quicker. Harrison might have to get back on the HGH.

Yeah, they have San Francisco's first round pick. But they aren't going to be in the same position as far as the salary cap economics are concerned. Moss is a free agent, and they have to answer some tough questions. He's coming off a great season, but without the contract year incentive to perform, will he be as hungry next year or will some of the character issues reappear? Stallworth is also a free agent, and will he be as eager to return to a team where he was overshadowed by Moss and Wes Welker?

That's all I can say right now, so I'll leave you with this video, letting Roy Orbison speak for me.

So, since everybody knows that 19-0 is inevitable, the Patriots and the city of Boston have scheduled the victory parade. As the people involved are mental giants of the first order, they have scheduled this parade for the Tuesday following the Super Bowl. That day just happens coincide with Super Tuesday, when Massachusetts voters are supposed to turn out for their presidential primaries.

After all, any Patriots fan who comes out of the inevitable festivities too intoxicated or otherwise impaired to do their civic duty is probably doing the Republic, if not the world, a favor. God knows, enough morons vote, what's twenty or thirty thousand nitwits when 20 or 20 million will vote on Super Tuesday? Who knows, maybe a lower than normal turnout in Massachusetts will finish off Mitt Romney. At this point, with the way he's come back from being written off in this election season, I'd believe it if Mitt ended up starring in a cheesy horror film (to paraphrase the Johnathan Winters character from It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World)

I am not one of those people who will complain that the victory parade shouldn't conflict with the electoral process. After all, Tuesday is the only day it could possibly happen. It's just too short a turn around to expect the players to undergo a strenuous public appearance on Monday after the game is played Sunday evening in Arizona. Imagine the jet lag.

As for Wednesday, or a date thereafter... it simply can't work because eight Patriots have to go to the Pro Bowl which is to be played in Hawaii the Sunday after the Super Bowl. Now most people don't think Pro Bowl practices are critical, what with the fact that defenses are restricted in the sorts of schemes they can run and are forbidden to blitz. So there really shouldn't be much game planning, right?

Unfortunately, when you deal with vast intellects like the ones exhibited when Brady, Light, Vrabel et al. take center stage, even a Pro Bowl game plan starts to look like nuclear physics. And for my part, I'd hate to think that these Patriots might miss even one public appearance in Hawaii for the sake of a public appearance in Boston. Imagine what the harsh New England winter weather could do to Gisele's hair. The horror, the horror...as Kurtz would say.

This impending victory parade could be the first local appearance for Brady and Gisele after their engagement. Rumor has it, Brady has promised to spring for an engagement ring for Gisele if (when) the Patriots win the Super Bowl. Granted, the rumor originated in the National Enquirer so we have to take it with a grain of salt.

But my question is, what happens in the extremely unlikely the event of a miraculous upset? If the Giants win, what does Gisele get? A promise ring? A tennis braclet? One of those diamond heart pendants from Zales that will be advertised to death before Valentine's Day? Or does Tom have the backbone to give her nothing after this season is over. To tell the truth, I'd finally have some respect for him if he pulled that move.

Everything is lining up for the Patriots to beat the Giants severely, a perfect storm, as Bill Simmons put it. The layoff before the Super Bowl tends to favor the favorite. They've already beaten the Giants in the Meadowlands in December, so it should be a cake walk in Arizona.

Even better, this 19-0 season will have been achieved at a negligible cost. After all, it's only the collective soul of the New England Patriots that purchased this historic season. In the article linked above, Simmons referenced the book Blueprint, which documented the process in which Belichick, Kraft and Paoli built the three time champions. If the author of that book wants to chronicle this team, perhaps he could title the work: How to Go From David to Goliath in Seven Years.

Simmons compared a potential Green Bay vs. New England Super Bowl to the 1980 Olympic hockey game between the US and the USSR, in the sense that the entire country would be behind Favre in the same way that the Miracle on Ice game galvanized the nation back in the day. It is an interesting analogy, but I think this Giants team is better suited to the part.

Nobody went into the Lake Placid games thinking Team USA could beat the Russians, except Team USA. The game wasn't even on live TV. It was only as the game got going that people realized they were watching something historic, memorable and pretty damn amazing. It's only with 20-20 hindsight that people think that the Miracle on Ice game grasped American hearts and minds and it became a big deal. And deservedly so, it was an epic win for an underdog.

In the movie Patton, right as the German tanks are starting to make their breakthroughs in the Ardennes in the winter of 1944, the general says something very memorable. Patton says: There's absolutely no reason for us to assume. . .that the Germans are mounting a major offensive. The weather is awful and their supplies are low. The Germans haven't mounted a winter attack since Frederick the Great. Therefore I believe that's exactly what they're going to do.

Now I'm not saying the Giants can win. I'm not saying they're going to win. I'm not saying that even if they were allowed to play 14 on 11, any team could stop the Patriots from fulfilling destiny and going 19-0 or even 38-0. It's just one more thing that I want to have out there, along with what I wrote Tuesday last, on the off chance that in this historic season the one mark Tom Brady fails to achieve is that of becoming the first absolute douche to quarterback a team to four Super Bowl wins.

Speaking of QBs who won four Super Bowls, not too long ago, I caught Failure to Launch on cable. And it wasn't very good, even for that dismal genre. But I watched the whole damn thing because Terry Bradshaw stole the show. He was great. I really believe that he should have won an Oscar for that. Too bad the Oscars have to go to whatever films "challenge the intellect" or justify the politics of the populist view when there isn't a clear cut great movie like The Godfather or Gladiator out there.

It's not very often I find myself changing my mind on any given issue. Some say I'm stubborn, some say I'm a contrarian, some say I'm any one of a number of unpleasant and unprintable things. Sadly, I've been thinking they might be right. But what can one do?

Today, I think I just might have to change my mind on the whole Roger Clemens saga. With the 60 Minutes piece and that creepy, Richard Nixon-esque press conference where he played that taped phone conversation, I stuck by him. I think, in part, because I couldn't put a human face on those who were hurt by Clemens' alleged cheating. Now I have that human face.

Bill Simmons provided that human face in his most recent contribution to ESPN the Magazine. Roger Clemens and the other cheaters must be punished not because of what they've done to make a mockery out of the baseball record books, but because they have hurt Bill Simmons' feelings. He used to treasure memories of some of Clemens' great days in Boston, but now he doesn't know how to feel about them any more.

I can't help but wonder if Dr. Phil is racing over to Simmons' house to help talk him through this grave emotional crisis. I realize that this is a sad, selfish and oftentimes stupid country in which we live. But the thing is, no matter what he did or what he didn't do, Roger Clemens doesn't owe any fan of any team a damn thing. Nor has he been proven to have done anything.

And what happens if he clears his name before Congress and in a court of law? Will Simmons, Shaughnessy and the rest apologize? Or will they still whine about what damage these allegations have done to Clemens' legacy and to the pure sport of baseball? I'm betting on the latter. Especially since they won't have to admit that they did as much damage in the rush to judgement on Clemens as he did in being accused.

In other news, the Patriots had their send-off as they left for Arizona in Foxboro. At the risk of sounding old and bitter, am I the only one who remembers a time when a team went to the Super Bowl without a rally? Are we really that bored and hard-up for ideas on how to spend our time that we now have to go out and say good bye to our team as it departs for the Super Bowl? I know 19-0 is historic, but it's not like they landed on the Moon or discovered a new continent.

So we have a tool of note for today, or more accurately, 15,000 tools of note. That's how many people showed up to listen to Tom Brady speak and watch the team get on busses. In January. In New England. In the snow. And honorable mention goes to Junior Seau for wearing that ridiculous hat.

The sports world just keeps getting more depressing, doesn't it? The Patriots are now 18-0 and only Eli Manning, Tom Coughlin and a very inconsistent Giants team stand in the way of perfection. And so, barring some sort of unforeseen catastrophe, it seems like 19-0 is more real than it was even as recently as the third quarter of the NFC Championship Game this Sunday.

I don't see the Giants being deeper, appreciably healthier or much better than they were in Week 17. Yeah, Sam Madison and Sean O'Hara are back, but Aaron Ross has a bad shoulder and who knows exactly how healthy Rich Seubert will be coming off his knee injury against Green Bay. In Week 17, they may have played the Pats very well for three and a half quarters, but that was in Giants Stadium. In Arizona, weather won't be much of a factor, unless, of course, Al Gore's global warming triggers that ice age between now and the Super Bowl. But if that happens we'll probably have bigger problems than whether or not the Patriots go undefeated.

On last Sunday's game with the Chargers, I have to commend the San Diego secondary for playing much better than I thought they could. Fat lot of good it did them, however, when the offense stalled out inside the ten three times and had to settle for field goals. With LaDanian Tomlinson unable to play, I thought the Chargers could have done a little more damage to the Patriots running the ball, so I suppose I owe some sort of apology to the Geritol set currently playing linebacker in New England.

That said, I noticed a disturbing trend in Sunday's game. Whenever I saw Mike Vrabel taking a shot at Philip Rivers, he never seemed to be hitting him above the waist. I had never really thought of him as a particularly dirty player, but I guess I just never noticed what with Harrison playing in the vicinity and outshining all other cheap shot artists.

Over the last two days, I have spent a few minutes here and there trying to imagine scenarios in which the Giants could pull off the unthinkable. It's very tempting, given how close they were in Week 17 and how well they've played in the playoffs, beating Dallas and Green Bay on the road, both of whom had defeated the Giants soundly in the regular season. However, sooner or later, all good things come to an end. And this time, it's almost assuredly the Giants impressive run to end the season and make it to Phoenix.

Having to root for the Giants is going to be a bit problematic for me. It's not quite so difficult to root for the Yankees, since they are the direct rival of the Red Sox and with the historic tradition of excellence and class, they stand head and shoulders over the Sox. There is no link like that between the Giants and the Patriots. Just because Giants fans are a small margin above Jets and Patriots fans with respect to comporting themselves like reasonable facsimiles of human beings, doesn't mean the Giants are worthy of much respect.

I suppose it comes down to one thing which will make it easier for me to root for the Giants. Every minute of this playoff run must be a mortal agony for Tiki Barber. Funny how we haven't heard much from him lately (although maybe we have, I don't watch the Today Show because it's too early and a waste of air time) since Eli Manning and Tom Coughlin are apparently proving themselves under pressure for the first time.

Interesting, isn't it? That Tiki Barber retires prematurely (in what seemed like his one shot at the Hall of Fame, retiring with some sort of mystique to offset his perceived fumbling problem), bashes Tom Coughlin and Eli Manning in his silly little memoir and on the air, and after an up and down season the Giants pull it all together and beat three teams on the road (two of whom were more talented than the G-men on paper). Would that I were the sort of person to believe in a coincidence. It's also kind of funny that the Giants knocked Tiki's twin out of the playoffs in the process. Don't look know, but it's a good thing someone woke Bill Simmons up to get him to milk the Ewing Theory for one more column.

Before I wrap this post up, I have a couple of things that I want to have out there if the Giants pull off the second biggest upset in Super Bowl history. The 1983 Washington Redskins broke the single season team scoring mark (granted, they didn't have the individual records Brady and Moss set this season). They smashed their way through the NFC playoffs en route to a rematch with the LA Raiders, whom they beat in Week 5, on the road by two points. The Raiders won that Super Bowl in a rout.

And way back in 2001, an unheralded team with a quarterback who hadn't proved himself yet (remember Bledsoe led the Pats on as many TD drives as Brady did in that playoff run) came into the Super Bowl as a massive underdog to a team that had beaten them in the regular season. The 2001 Rams not only beat the Pats in the regular season, but they had beaten them in Foxboro. So they had all the more confidence going into the Superdome for that memorable clash. Coincidentally, that was probably the last really memorable upset in the NFL playoffs, except maybe Tampa beating Philly in the NFC championship game the next year.

In case you're wondering, here's what I watched to cheer up after this disastrous football weekend. I watched Grizzly Man on Animal Planet. It's just as funny as it's always been, but here's a youtube clip of Timothy Treadwell whining and swearing at a fox who stole his hat. Good times. By the way, it's probably not safe for work, so earmuffs.

So, we're counting down to kickoff, and the inevitability of 18-0. It's not an inevitability that I particularly enjoy, but one that I have come to accept. I am tired of convincing myself that there are any one of a number of vulnerabilities on this Patriot team that any one of a number of opponents could exploit in any one of a number of ways.

It doesn't matter how slow and decrepit the Patriot linebacking unit is. It doesn't matter how dirty Rodney Harrison plays this week. It doesn't even matter that I don't think Laurence Maroney is a legitimate big time tailback in today's NFL. All that really matters is that Quentin Jammer, Antonio Cromartie, Marlon McCree, Clinton Hart and Eric Weddle have a better chance of being elected Pope than they do of containing Moss and Welker this week. And even if they could contain those two, what of Ben Watson, Stallworth and Kevin Faulk (who has been coming up big in situations where I didn't want him to come up big since he was at LSU under Gerry DiNardo's reign of terror)?

Yes, the Chargers managed to lead the NFL in takeaways this season. They also managed to beat Indianapolis twice this season, even winning in the RCA Dome last week. But they also suffered humiliating losses to the Patriots and the very, very, very average Minnesota Vikings this season. Playing on the road and in the cold in New England against the undefeated team that every one loves to hate, it's just not happening. I only hope LaDanian Tomlinson manages to be as entertaining with this year's round of postgame whining as he was last year.

Since this blog is supposed to be about the Red Sox, I would be remiss if I didn't pass along Mike Lowell's statesman-like response to potential testing for HGH in baseball. Mike Lowell is willing to take the test, provided that it's 100% accurate, but he's out if the test is only 99% accurate. I can't help but wonder if there's any room for negotiation there, since it seems very unlikely that any test for any substance will ever be 100% accurate.

Lowell also brought up the double standard issue. Baseball players, writers, coaches and so forth have been quick to point out the fact that Shawne Merriman was suspended for four games and still went to the Pro Bowl last year, and Rodney Harrison missed the first four games of this season for being implicated in an HGH scandal. But it is baseball that is in the cross hairs.

It's simple, as Lowell himself conceded in that article. Baseball looked the other way for a long time, refusing any kind of testing. The NFL, on the other hand, has had a ban on steroids for years. It might not be perfect, but at least football players have been suspended for violating the NFL ban on performance enhancers for years.

Mark McGwire admitted he took andro in 1998, when it was not banned according to the rules of Major League Baseball. It was, however, a banned substance in the NFL at the time. Roger Clemens is alleged to have taken steroids in years when none of the substances Brian McNamee and George Mitchell accuse him of taking were even banned in baseball. Baseball didn't even start testing or developing any kind of comprehensive policy until Congress got on their case.

I don't think there is a double standard here. Rodney Harrison and Shawne Merriman lost a quarter of the season and four game checks. Four games doesn't seem like much at first, but when you do the math it is the equivalent of 40 and a half baseball games. Considering the NFL developed and implemented this policy on their own, long before baseball got religion thanks to a Congressional hearing, I think it's more than reasonable.

I do think Merriman shouldn't have gone to the Pro Bowl, but I wasn't one of the people who voted for him. I think out of common decency, he should have declined the invite, but that's his business. It is, or at least it was, a free country. If people are dumb enough to vote to send a cheater to the Pro Bowl, that's their misfortune.

In other news, in my ongoing effort to make this blog more interactive, here's another gem of a comment from an anonymous reader. In a recent post I happened to bid the Seattle Seahawks a less than fond farewell from the 2007 season. As a part of it, I ripped Seahawk fans for ripping off traditions from Texas A & M and suggested they should play a song to commemorate every early exit from the playoffs the way A & M plays Taps across campus when an alumnus (or alumna) dies in the line of duty serving in the Armed Services.

I suggested "Follow the Yellow Brick Road" as Seattle stole the nickname Emerald City from the Wizard of Oz (Not very funny, but then I just might have overindulged with respect to beer at the time). Reader KobraKommander (in one of his rare instances of bringing things to the table) improved the suggestion with one of his own, offering "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road," which is pretty funny.

To make a very long, and pretty unnecessary story short, the anonymous commenter suggested "I'm an @#$hole" by Denis Leary. I bring it up because this is a bit ambiguous. I assume the commenter meant that I, the blogger, am the @#$hole. But it is open to the suggestion that the commenter himself could be the @#$hole. Or any Seahawk fans who might play that to bid their team adieu from the playoffs could be the @#$hole. And let's face it, the odds are that if you live in Seattle or root for the Seahawks, you probably are an @#$hole.

I received an interesting comment on last night's post:

Alan has left a new comment on your post "The other day, I got a snide little email from a f...":

If Derek Lee had teared up after the Cubs got swept this year, I would have never heard the end of it. Never. But of course, when it happens to TO, it's barely worth a mention.

First, and foremost, there is no fair barometer to compare a team that lost an NFL playoff game by four points to a baseball team which was bounced from the playoffs as quickly, brutally and unceremoniously as this year's Cubs were. Don't get me wrong, I don't tend to like picking on Cubs fans (unless they happen to be close friends of mine because I am a horrible person). But the Cubs were outscored 16-6 in their three game travesty against the Diamondbacks.

As for Derrek Lee, yeah he managed to hit .333 for the series against the Diamondbacks, so he has that going for him, which is nice. Too bad for the Cubs fans, all of his four hits were singles and not one of them drove in a run. And on top of that, he struck out four times. Better still, if you look at his postseason stats for his career, Derrek Lee has one more career postseason homer and four more RBI against the Cubs than for the Cubs.

TO didn't have his best statistical game by a long shot, but at least he managed to get his team on the board in Dallas' loss to the Giants. Not only that, but a wide receiver in football is much more bound to his quarterback's performance, offensive line play and his coaching staff's follies than is a first baseman in baseball. Lee got 12 official at bats against the Diamondbacks, but the Cowboys didn't exploit the mismatches available in the Giant secondary the way they should have in the second half.

Two of the missed connections between Owens and Romo in that second half, the long pass down the left sideline where a Giant d-back (I believe it was Corey Webster, but I might be wrong) tipped it away at the last moment and the pass inside the ten where the ball was behind Owens likely would have been TDs. The Cowboys should have gone back to those plays, or at the very least wasted a lot less time in their two minute drill. Can you really say that any of the GDPs Derrek Lee threw at us in the playoffs would have been run scoring plays?

To make a long story short, with the way he played and his team played, Derrek Lee forfeited the right to have any kind of emotional response to the Diamondbacks sweep this fall. TO produced one of his team's two TDs, so he earned the right to be a little frustrated with the Cowboy's failure. And be grateful I chose to overlook the fact that you misspelled your hero's name when you brought that foolishness up in here. I am the only one allowed to misspell words here.

In the giving the devil his due category, Bill Simmons came up with a fairly interesting and surprisingly well thought out comparison of the 1986 Celtics and this present Patriots squad. As far as comparing apples and oranges can be done, it was reasonably successful.

I do think that he is looking a little to hard at the present at the expense of the past, but then I've never been a Patriots fan while I was a Celtics fan before Danny Ainge came back to town. I think the Cs win going away in this comparison, since they neither sold their soul nor (perhaps, given that Moss is both a character problem waiting to happen and in a contract year) mortgaged the future for their epic run at history.

And I think Simmons also fails because he is even slightly afraid of jinxing these Patriots. Maybe Green Bay can catch lightning in a bottle, but I fear that this season is already over.

The other day, I got a snide little email from a friend of mine who just happens to be a big Patriots fan. At the best of times, it can be particularly difficult to be friendly with Patriots fans but being from New England, and all, it's also very difficult to find normal friends who watch sports and aren't fans of the local teams to befriend. This year, however, it has been particularly difficult.

My friend wondered how I felt when I saw TO crying at the end of the Dallas debacle this weekend. I told my friend the truth, I said I generally have no problem with a person expressing their genuine, honest emotional response to a given situation provided, of course, that I happen to like the person in question.

I didn't mind TO crying at the end of the game. It had to be incredibly frustrating to see Dallas waste an entire season by playing a second half without any semblance of urgency. Even in the two minute offense, it seemed like they either counted the game-winning TD they never actually scored as already on the board or they just assumed the Giants would realize that Dallas was much better and would simply forfeit.

I thought Dallas didn't make a concerted effort to get TO the ball in the second half. I thought Dallas seemed to assume that the Giants wouldn't make any adjustments in their pass rush and coverages. I thought Dallas assumed they could simply run the same plays that worked in the first half because the Giants couldn't or wouldn't change their game plan. And with Tom Coughlin on the other side, it might have looked like a safe bet. But I got the sense that Dallas didn't approach the second half of the biggest game of the year with a unified vision to win the game. And I don't know whose fault that was, but I doubt that it was TO's.

It could be worse, right? After all, it's not as though TO became embroiled in a strange personal scandal in the week leading up to the biggest game of the year. I don't know what the truth is, in this situation, if there is any truth on any side of this strange story. I am inclined to think that there have to be a few simpler ways of extorting $100,000 from a guy than this restraining order con.

I am upset by this whole stupid little mess. Why did it come out now? What is the point of wasting what might be a perfectly good distraction on a week where the Chargers couldn't beat the Patriots if they got to put 15 of their best "men" on the field against the regulation 11 from the other side? It just sets up so well, to have the team with the revenge angle from the grace and dignity the Patriots displayed beating San Diego on the road last postseason coming to Foxboro to play the team with the unblemished record in all but the moral dimension of the game.

Of course, just about every thing that looks so well scripted is bound to unravel spectacularly in reality. Especially if Philip Rivers can play this week. I'd feel more comfortable with Billy Volek under center. You know Rivers is due for an dismal performance of epic proportions, especially with Eli Manning still playing and the inevitable comparisons between the two of them. Plus, LaDanian Tomlinson is a great player when the breaks aren't beating the Bolts, but who whines better when the breaks go the other way?

And finally, the Chargers deserve to lose. For all they cried about how classless the Patriots were last season, and with some measure of good reason, you'd think they might have emerged from the upset in Indianapolis with some measure of dignity. Alas, that wasn't the case. Not since Emmett Smith walked the Earth in the first half of the 1990s have I seen such a shameless display of helmet removal as I saw when the Chargers defense stopped Indy on fourth and goal in the late fourth quarter.

And it's a damn shame. 17-1 might not sound quite as good as 16-1 would have, but I could have found the strength to live with it.

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.

So, our long national nightmare drags on. The Patriots are still undefeated. The Giants did manage to play surprisingly well. I have never had much faith in either Tom Coughlin or Eli Manning, so I went into the bar to watch last night's game without a lot of hope. And the Giants played just well enough to get me excited, only to pull the rug out from under me when they eventually collapsed.

There are some encouraging signs. Tom Brady set the single season passing TD record. Randy Moss set the single season receiving TD record. The Patriots set the single season scoring record. And they became the first team to go through a sixteen game regular season without losing. And in all of that I can still find some positive aspects.

First, the last two QBs who set the single season passing TD record did so in seasons which did not culminate in championships. Then there's the fact that Jerry Rice set the single season record for TD receptions in a season in which the 49ers didn't win the Super Bowl. And the last two teams that set the single season scoring record (the 1983 Redskins and the 1998 Vikings) failed to win the Super Bowl. Not only that but the suffered embarrassing losses (the Raiders blew the Redskins out in the Super Bowl and mighty Minnesota lost to a terrible Atlanta team at home in OT in the NFC Championship Game).

It is true that this season for the Patriots has been utterly without precedent, from the head coach being mired in the most inexplicable scandal since Watergate (why, by the way, did Nixon even bother breaking into the DNC offices? He went on to win 49 states, were his preliminary polling numbers that out of whack?) to the 16-0 finish. But only one team has finished a regular season undefeated and gone on to win it all since the days of the Decatur Staleys and a ten team league. That was the 1972 Dolphins. There were two Bears teams in the late 30s and early 40s era that went undefeated but lost the NFL Championship Game.

I guess it depends on perspective. One can see history and karma being full square behind this Patriots team, or one can see history and karma setting a massive ambush for this mob of cocky nitwits. And based on the crowd at the bar last night, I get the sense that very few people deserve a comeuppance more than Pats fans. I actually overheard a guy at the bar refer to Mangini as "Mangina." And he seemed to be one of the more enlightened and articulate Pats fans in the place.

Far more vexing at the moment was the crime against aesthetic sensibilities perpetrated by the Dallas Cowboys this afternoon in the nation's capital. What the hell happened there? Did Jerry Jones forget the shipment of Diet Pepsi Max? Did he finally grab the headset from Jason Garrett and take the helm? I know the weather was frightful, but with the way they played you'd think that none of the Cowboys had ever seen rain before in their lives.

Having said that, I am not too nervous about their chances to advance to the Super Bowl. After all, most of the same people who are hyping the dangers of facing the Redskins in the playoffs were sitting there around Thanksgiving time telling us exactly how dangerous the Minnesota Vikings would be in the playoffs. Funny how that ended up working out these last few weeks.

I suppose it is unfair to dismiss the Vikings at this point. After all, they do still have the potential to surprise a few teams this postseason. I imagine they just might be able to rush onto the field in Seattle or Pittsburgh as though it were Wrestlemania. Or they could really impress the other guests at whatever resorts they will visit while the teams that actually made the playoffs are busing playing this January.

I would like to see the Redskins win next week. Even before I earned the ire of a few losers who root for the Seahawks, I didn't much care for the team. I just didn't like the way the team and the fans reacted to the bad calls in the Super Bowl two seasons ago. It's not as though they would have been so interested in the pure technical art of officiating a professional football game had the calls gone in their favor. Plus Matt Hasselbeck is a bald whiner and a proud product of Boston College.

I just don't see it happening. Todd Collins has been a great story so far and they have the sympathetic angle covered because of the tragic death of Sean Taylor. But that sort of thing only takes a team so far in the playoffs. I remember back in 1991 when Mike Utley was paralyzed playing for the Lions and his thumb up gesture as he was carted from the field galvanized the team for its stretch run. They made it all the way to the NFC title game, but it all came to a crashing halt against the Redskins under the first Gibbs administration.

Incidentally, that was also the year that the Falcons latched on to the MC Hammer song To Legit to Quit. Of course, like so many of my digressions, this has no real point. But they rode the momentum of that dreadful song and the pointless human interest story it generated for nearly two months. Fortunately, they rode the momentum right into the divisional round in old RFK Stadium and the Redskins crushed them 56-17. I really don't know why I bring that up, except that it is on my mind right now, and (at least to me) moderately amusing.

What really concerns me about the Redskins going forward is their defensive backfield. This is a trifle indelicate, considering I've already mentioned that their Pro Bowl caliber safety was murdered in the not too distant past. But I just don't see them being able to contain the Seahawks vastly overrated group of wide receivers. Stopping the Cowboys today, with TO on the sidelines and an understrength Terry Glenn trying to get some game action prior to the playoffs in a driving rain storm is one thing. Holding down Bobby Engram and Nate Burleson in front of the even more massively overrated 12th Man is a whole different story.

I will, I think, be posting more about the playoff matchups as we get closer to game time next weekend. I also have to collect my thoughts tomorrow to see if I can find a way to talk myself into a plausible scenario which ends in Illinois beating USC in their first bowl game since 2001. It's definitely doable, but I have to consider the ramifications of the SIRSN jinx, which has claimed more victims in the last 18 months than the SI jinx has in its lifetime, I think.

I'm getting kind of tired of prefacing each of my increasingly rare posts with an apology. But it gets kind of old after a while, sitting here in front of the computer trying to invent reasons why a given team has a chance to beat the Patriots. And should I indulge in speculation on what team will give up which prospects and position players to get Johann Santana away from Minnesota? It's just not all that interesting to me at the moment.

I suppose I could take a sort of grim satisfaction from the fact that the Patriots have become everything which they were not supposed to be two years or so ago when every talking head and his brother insisted on holding them up as the model of virtue and excellence in professional sports. But even that gets old after a while.

I must confess, I was disappointed to see the way the Patriots reacted to Anthony Smith's "guarantee." It was disgusting to see Tom Brady go out of his way to get in his face after the first TD pass. Brady is, regrettably, a Hall of Fame quarterback on a record setting pace. Anthony Smith is a second year nobody whom the media exploited to generate more interest in a non-story.

There was a time when Brady was supposed to be a paragon of how to succeed with class and dignity. There is very little that smacks of class and dignity in going out of your way to put down a guy who barely even ran his mouth. Could you see Joe Montana or Terry Bradshaw doing that? Hell, Bradshaw never seemed to go out of his way to talk trash to Hollywood Henderson, who said considerably more insulting things about Bradshaw than any one has ever said about Brady.

Now the Patriots are playing the Jets again. Thankfully the media has an easy angle courtesy of the whole taping signals scandal to justify hours of coverage devoted to a very mediocre game. Conventional wisdom tells us that the Jets have no chance to win this game. Unfortunately, I can see no reason to disagree everybody and his brother for a change.

In other news, George Mitchell has finally delivered his report on steroids in Major League Baseball after 20 months of what surely was a exhaustive and ethically conducted investigation. In a blaze of vindication for those who have dragged Roger Clemens' name through the mud on this issue for the last two years or so, his name is at the top of the list of high-profile players who are named.

If you had told me earlier that losing to an unknown despite running not only as an incumbent but the sitting Senate Majority Leader to boot would end up not being the most embarassing professional failure of George Mitchell's career, I wouldn't have believed it. And then he had to go and release this report.

If sources like discredited and terminated former Yankees strength and conditioning coach Brian McNamee are at all typical of the informers who are expected to provide the Mitchell Report with its substance, then I am willing to bet guys like Clemens, Tejada and Pettitte will have little to fear from these proceedings.

This report which tells us many things we already knew (like MLB dragged its collective feet on the steroids issue) amid its hearsay and innuendo about respected players and choice nuggets about players who have already been caught cheating like Giambi, will likely go down in the annals of justice with hard-hitting and epoch shaping events like the Red Scare, the Army-McCarthy hearings and the Salem Witch Trials.

Curiously, outside of Eric Gagne, no one of consequence from the Boston Red Sox was named in this document. Thankfully, and perhaps conveniently, Brendan Donnelly was not offered a contract today. Interesting....

I apologize for my long silence. I've had a virus problem on my computer, and I'm only about 95% certain that I've solved it. That said, too much has gone on for me not to comment. But I'm still not convinced that I have it solved well enough to spend the time to do a proper post.

However, God is in His Heaven and all is right with the world. The Patriots are looking more and more beatable with each passing game. Fortunately, the only team on their schedule that has a realistic chance to beat them is the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Steelers are a Jekyll and Hyde sort of team. On a good day, they can beat any team going, with a solid offense and a confusing defense that is capable of beating any scheme going. And then there's the bad day when they can't beat a mediocre Arizona team or a horrid Jets team.

I'd love for the Pats to limp through the rest of the season unbeaten and then collapse in the divisional round. It's possible. Their defense has looked eminently mortal these last two weeks. Philly with an average at best second string QB and a line that let up ten million sacks to the Giants threw the ball all over the yard on them. Baltimore with a line that is a ghost of what it was ran the ball very well against the Patriots. True, the Pats came up big in the fourth quarter, but sooner or later they'll face a more complete team and it will cost them. But time will tell.

Even better, another BCS bowl season is upon us, and BC will not be joining the elite teams in the country. The Eagles went in to Saturday's game controlling their own destiny. If they beat Va Tech, all the conspiracy theory excuses that the boys at the Clover Club have advanced to explain year after year of mediocre, second tier bowls would have gone away. Get an automatic bid and no one can say your fans don't travel well or you don't generate enough ratings interest. But that wasn't in the cards for Matt Ryan and the boys.

I'm sure there are those people who might think that BC might have as much a right to a trip to the big time as another three loss team (Illinois) that is going. Of course, perhaps BC should have beaten a number one team on the road. Or maybe they could have played fewer 1-AA or Championship Subdivision teams. Or maybe they could have beaten average teams from Maryland and FSU. But they didn't.

Missouri has a legitimate complaint. Even though they lost to Oklahoma twice, they were still a better pick than Kansas. Kansas got the bid because they are a feel good story. They beat one ranked team, out of two they played all season. Illinois is also a feel good story, winning more games this season than they did in the previous four combined seasons. But they beat Wisconsin and Penn State when both teams were ranked (and PJ Hill was healthy for the Badgers), even though both games were in Champaign. And they beat OSU on the road.

It is true that Illinois did lose to Missouri in the first game of the year. That game came down to the final minute, when Illinois backup QB Eddie McGee threw an INT at the goal line. Missouri has a legitimate complaint that Kansas is going, but Illinois earned their bid. Plus people from Missouri should be used to disappointment, they come from Missouri.

As the big games get closer, I'll have more to say about them. I may even risk making a prediction or two, despite my abysmal track record there. I'm sorry I have to cut this short, but I have to start getting my Fantasy Football team ready for the playoffs. I'm worried that Dallas might rest Romo and Owens at a very inopportune time for me.

I know I haven't been very consistent with my posts lately. It's been a very depressing fall so far for me. The damn Red Sox won it all. The damn Patriots are undefeated. And the damn Celtics are playing entirely too well to date. Things just keep getting worse for Sedition in Red Sox Nation. Now BC is one game away from the first major bowl bid since Harry Truman was an obscure senator from Missouri and FDR was running against Wendell Wilke. Bad times.

In the last year or so, Hollywood has seen fit to release a wave of movies showcasing outnumbered and outmatched forces defending their territory or their interests at all costs. The Spartans stood against the mighty invading army from Persia in 300. Beowulf takes out Grendel and Grendel's mom. And it all ties in nicely with the NFL season to date.

A brave, heroic, disciplined unit met a powerful enemy this past weekend and prevailed in Foxboro. The Pats defended their turf against a very average football team starting its backup quarterback, playing on the road and snatched victory from the jaws of defeat in the final minutes. It was truly an inspiring sight.

I'm not going to get carried away like many of the commentators who have stated that the Eagles have shown the rest of the NFL how to compete with the Patriot juggernaut. Maybe they have, maybe they haven't, but it's not worth getting overly excited about until some team does what the Eagles did, only slightly better or slightly longer, and the Patriots finally lose a game. After all, the Colts came very close to prevailing a few weeks ago, and there was no talk of a road map after that game.

I will say this. A friend of mine sent me an interesting question via email this afternoon. He offered the suggestion that the Patriot defense might be showing its age and tiring as the season nears completion. It's an interesting point to consider.

The Eagles were moving the ball with considerable success throwing deep ins. The Patriots linebackers are a very old group, particularly when Bruschi and/or Junior Seau are forced to play in space in certain zone coverages. The deep ins are run right into the space behind the linebackers and in front of the safeties. It's possible my friend had a point.

Prior to the strange, sloppy game in Pittsburgh tonight, I was intrigued at the prospect of Ricky Williams return to the Dolphins. I remember not feeling tremendously sad when Cedric Benson ran over Junior Seau last season, breaking his arm and looking for all the world like he ended the career of one of the great self-promoting frauds of all time (nevertheless, in the interest of fairness, I must praise Seau for his charitable work in the wake of the Southern California fires this fall).

I was looking forward to seeing a slightly older, slightly slower, slightly weaker Seau take on a well-rested Ricky Williams fresh off his 18 month exile from the NFL due to past marijuana infractions. In general, I try as hard to avoid taking undue amusement from the physical suffering and professional failures of total strangers as the next person. But I hate Seau. Maybe its because of the USC thing, but more likely because I have watched him come up a step slow, a yard short and one or two plays away from succeeding in the biggest moments for the better part of my life now, and still announcers, commentators and reporters rave about him as though he were the reincarnation of Dick Butkus (who is not dead, I realize).

To make a long story short, I think I need to see this phenomenon exploited by the Eagles recur in a game or two before I'll accept that the Patriots are showing their age on defense. I think the problem last night was that the Patriots secondary is overrated. I think they're beatable.

Yes, Samuel picked a pass off and returned it for a TD in the first quarter. That was a very nice play, and quite impressive. His second interception was not at all impressive. I have a four year old niece who could have made that play. Feely threw up a pass that had no business being thrown on a route that had no business being called at that point in the game.

Samuel had been aggressively jumping routes early in the game, like the play that resulted in his first interception and another pass deflection that was very nearly a second TD. That much is true. But the routes he jumped were out cuts. The play the Eagles ran to exploit his aggressiveness was a slant and go. Perhaps a better play to test Samuel's discipline would have been an out and up, if double moves were the order of the day. The Eagles weren't running slants. They weren't completing slants. So why would an experienced player like Assante Samuel take the chance on jumping a slant when he had safety help to his inside? This is football, not rocket science.

If another team can move the ball exploiting a weakness in the Patriots pass coverage, then maybe it is the age factor. Maybe Rodney Harrison and Junior Seau have been at this game too long. Or maybe Harrison might need to get back on the HGH. But if it's not the age thing, maybe it's time to be nervous that James Sanders and Randall Gay might not be ready for prime time. Because prime time is coming, and God knows how I'd hate to see the Pats upset in the divisional round of the playoffs.

In other, unrelated news about which you care very little, my fantasy team is dying. The combination of a team that relies on Mike Shanahan's running backs and an owner that was playing golf at 11AM this Sunday proved disastrous. I left Selvin Young in the lineup, but Shanahan had other ideas. That zero spot killed me.

Cedric Benson getting carted off the field certainly didn't help. And wouldn't you know it was just when he was starting to come on like a house afire. He gained 89 yards on 11 carries against the Seahawks, and only Ron Turner knows why he didn't get that 12th carry or carries 13-20. He was averaging over 5 yards a carry against Denver, and know he's hurt. And I'm not entirely sure how hurt he is. I don't know whether the Bears simply shut him down because they have too many teams ahead of them in the playoff race, or he's really in serious career trouble now.

I do know that I have a team with only two wide receivers now, in Bernard Berrian and TO. I had to cut Santonio Holmes to pick up Adrian Peterson of Chicago, and I couldn't cut Benson because he's locked in the lineup until tomorrow. I now have two Denver backs (Henry and Young), two Kansas City backs (LJ and Kolby Smith) and the two Chicago backs. And I lost two games this year to a woman who watches very little football, studies opera singing and was recently in a recital with a damn harpsichord in the damn 21st century.

There isn't enough depth left at running back for me to fire any of these guys (except Benson) because the bottom of the barrel has been scraped. I know, I scraped it myself. I also have Ricky Williams on my team. I feel like Jack Burton from Big Trouble in Little China. I am a reasonable guy, but I've just experienced some pretty unreasonable things.

And even if I wanted to cut LJ, and I don't since I'm not convinced Herm Edwards is the type of coach to shut him down and pull the plug on the faint hopes of KC making the playoffs, it's a keeper league. The KC o-line might have turned a corner (even though they were dominating the overrated Raiders), and LJ might just return to form next season. I have no idea what Shanahan will do from one week to the next, so I need Young and Henry. And there is no other RB available in my league that will get 1/2 as many touches from game to game as the non-rookie Adrian Peterson will from here on out.

I general managed myself into a corner. So right now, I need to win next week to make the playoffs. And the only realistic shot to win rests on a huge game for Romo, Owens and Nick Folk (the Dallas kicker). So it's kind of funny that I could resent an innocent woman with an interest in baroque music because I picked a terrible team and I forced myself to depend on a notoriously mercurial person who just might be clinically insane because he's my favorite player in the league. I have become everything I have ever hated, at least for fantasy football purposes.

I'm sorry I haven't been more diligent about posting new material lately. What do you want from me? I've been more than a little disappointed by the recent run of success for the Boston teams that I hate. And the more I post to complain about them, the better they seem to do. It's just some sort of terrible nightmare, although admittedly of very minor proportions.

I have decided to take a new tack in dealing with the Celtics. Even though Ainge's panic moves seem, for the moment, to have worked out as well as could be expected, my distaste for the current regime still lingers from the Antoine situation. I also have serious qualms about jumping on a bandwagon, so I'm not rooting for the Cs. I have, after about 14 seconds of intense thought on the matter, decided to root against the Celtics a little less aggressively than I've rooted against the Pats, the Sox and BC.

Either way, it should be win win for me. If I am somehow bringing good karma to the Red Sox, Patriots and other teams/causes I root against, then maybe by taking a low key approach I might somehow reverse that trend. And if the Cs should stay healthy and stay selfless long enough to go deep into the playoffs, at least I won't have a seven month body of work to show how short-sighted and wrong I can be at my worst.

And so it appears that the Patriots are on the verge of another blowout victory. At this point, I have given up on watching the game. It is now to the point of turning my stomach to see them do what they're doing. Running up the score is not tremendously cool to begin with, but to go for it on fourth down inside the ten yard line when you're up by four touchdowns is just a bit too excessive.

I know I quote and refer to Jimmy Johnson's maxim that one ought to get better players if one has a problem with being blown out by one's opponents. And in the main I agree with the saying. The rest of the NFL teams had their chances to acquire the players who now make up this team. They also had their chances to get better players than the ones who can't stand up to the Patriots. So it's their fault that the Pats kick their asses, and kick them hard week in and week out as though they were General Sherman marching through Georgia.

But it's gone on long enough. Bill Belichick, and to a lesser extent his players, are emulating two of the more admired figures in the pantheon of dbags - the petulant child and the bully. Perhaps the NFL overreacted in their sanctions following the scandal in the Meadowlands. Maybe every single other owner, player, front office functionary and concession stand worker in the NFL failed miserably to do their moral duty and come to Bill Belichick's defense. After all, the man is the heart and soul not only of the NFL but of the American Republic as a whole. Just ask him, and if he's not too vexed by the weight of the world on his shoulders, he'll tell you.

Maybe it will be a sublime comeuppance should the Patriots march to 19-0 and net a top three pick in the upcoming NFL draft thanks to the 49ers finding new and different ways to get worse from week to week. Is that really the object of the exercise, or should it be? For five years now, I've had to sit and listen to every talking head even peripherally associated with the industry that is American professional football tell the world that the New England Patriots are the model for the way the game ought to be played. For five years we were told that the Patriots won with class and dignity, with an overall team concept and without the trappings of ego that seem to turn off so many fans.

Now, for the sake of avenging a slight in the form of an official overreaction to what was a moderately dirty deed, the Patriots have essentially taken that notion out back and put a bullet in its brain. There was nothing classy, dignified or admirable about the manner in which the Patriots defeated the Bills. Even worse, it's unsound business, or it will be after a certain point. I am a huge football fan, and I'm not watching the only football game on the air at the moment because it's not that entertaining to see a team be destroyed for 60 minutes of football.

I'm also tired of the whole get-up that Belichick rocks on the sidelines. Yeah, we get the point, it's the whole ironic commentary on the NFL deal with Reebok to provide coaches apparel and the foolish consistencies which are the hobgoblins of little minds. Unfortunately a fifty year old dude doesn't wear the shallow teen-aged rebellion particularly well.

I wonder if and/or when more people will start to feel that the Patriots have ceased doing the right thing for some time now. I know that there are Patriots fans who see this as payback for all those blissful years when the Patriots were so bad for so long and so often on the receiving end of lopsided scores. Maybe they're right. I just know I'm becoming less interested in watching this team play. And I'm a guy that has been known to make time to watch the Senior Bowl practice sessions.

As this season gets closer to the end, I have my own version of the perfect ending to this storybook season. I would like to see the Patriots go 16-0 in the regular season and then lose in the divisional round of the playoffs on the hallowed 13 month old field turf at Gillette Stadium. Perhaps a more conventional ending might have them make it all the way to the Super Bowl before they finally lost, but I like my scenario better. It would hurt Pats fans more, I think, if they lost out of the blue in their house right off that coveted first round bye.

If a few other wrinkles were added to the story line, such as a visiting player grabbing that ridiculous cut-off hoodie and pulling it over Belichick's head as though it were a hockey fight, that would put a smile on my face. I try, for the most part, not to condone violence in this space, but I am an imperfect man in many respects. I think it would be too much to ask to have some concerned citizen hurl a football into his groin to reenact the George C. Scott in Man Being Hit By Football bit from the Simpsons of yesteryear. But that would be damn funny also.

And so, Notre Dame finally won a home game. Yes, it was against Duke which just might be the worst team in the Bowl Subdivision series. But Robert Hughes looked very good. If they could ever sort out the abysmal play of the offensive line and the young backs can build on the strides they've made this season, perhaps James Aldridge and Robert Hughes can form a 1-2 punch in the backfield sort of like Cadillac Williams and Ronnie Brown at Auburn. But that's probably too optimistic an outlook to take.

I don't have too much more to say at this point, though I will be posting more material over the next couple of days. I'm going to see Springsteen tomorrow night, so I'm taking it easy tonight. I'll have a lot to say about his show, I'm sure.

There are some occasions when I wish I were a Patriots fan. Not to enjoy this undefeated season in the making, not to jump on the bandwagon and not to find out if, as the old saying goes, ignorance is bliss. But to be able to quip after the Patriots bye this week that the NFL finally found a way to stop the Pats from scoring. I imagine that if I were as dumb as the average Pats fan, I could convince myself that I were clever dropping a line like that.

Thanks to Mike Shanahan's hesitation and a fair-sized hangover, I left Travis Henry in my fantasy lineup this week. So his DNP didn't help, and Manning's epic six interception performance still ending up netting 21 points thanks to a FFL commissioner whose struggles with incompetence should make him the subject of a made-for-TV movie of the week, I came in to tonight's game trailing by 1.5 points. All I needed was one catch for six yards from 49ers TE Vernon Davis to win. That didn't seem like an unreasonable expectation, did it?

Of course, with the brilliant pass protection scheme of the San Francisco offense keeping Davis in for max protection, even though it didn't work at any point in the game, that simple hope was doomed from the start.

This season has forced me to face an unpleasant reality. So much attention has been paid to Tony Romo's new contract, Brett Favre's milestones, Peyton Manning's Super Bowl championship and Tom Brady's illegitimate kid and amazing stats. But there has been a vast, dishonest, corrupt conspiracy to divert attention away from the greatest quarterback in the game - Matt Hasselbeck. With the way he put up numbers against the 49ers in tonight's game, the NFL must waive the whole retirement for five years requirement to induct him into the Hall of Fame immediately.

I've been wondering why Hasselbeck is shunted aside in favor of guys like Manning and Brady. It can't be a question of talent, numbers or overall success. It has to be because he's bald and he has that sad little emasculated voice that distinguishes true he men like Hasselbeck and Bill Simmons. Hell, field generals like Joe Montana and Johnny Unitas wish they could have an epic moment like the overtime playoff game when Hasselbeck announced over the stadium PA when the Seahawks won the coin toss that the Hawks would take the ball and win the game. Alas, Hasselbeck threw an INT which Al Harris returned for the winning TD.

It must be a conspiracy, though. It can't be because Hasselbeck is barely above-average at his position. Nor can it be that he is more prepared to provide an excuse for his failure than to drive his team to success. Nor can it be tied to the fact that he plays in a dick town whose most notable football tradition was shamelessly ripped from Texas A & M. As an aside, why couldn't Seahawks fans have stolen the bonfires which collapse and kill the builders instead of the 12th man.

Unfortunately, the story didn't garner the national attention it deserved, but Hasselbeck and his teammates made sure to remind themselves of Super Bowl XL prior to this season's meeting with the Steelers. They brought motivation from the bad calls which they felt deprived their team of the championship they so richly deserved. Whether it was because he spent too much time reading his playbook out loud to clam his children, because State Farm wasn't there for him, because they dwelt too much in the past or because the Steelers are just that much better, the Seahawks were soundly beaten.

This game against San Francisco is fairly typical of Hasselbeck's career. The Seahawks came in expected to win, even without Deion Branch and Shaun Alexander. San Francisco has been dreadful all season, no matter how much they spent this offseason. And Hasselbeck was throwing the ball all over the place. He's always very good in the games he's expected to win. But when the team plays a better team, he folds.

I said all that because Steve Young appeared in the broadcast booth tonight, complaining that Hasselbeck is ignored because he plays in the Pacific Northwest and toils on a team with very little tradition of excellence, so they don't draw media attention. That isn't the case, necessarily. With so much coverage by ESPN, ESPN2 the NFL Network and FSN, with the interest in fantasy football and with the internet, fans have so much access to so much football information at every minute of every day. If fans aren't focused on a player it's performance based, not regional bias. Maybe Hasselbeck is the fifth best QB playing right now, but the Grand Canyon separates him from 1-4.

In other news, BC lost again this week. It seems like an annual rite of passage, like the swallows returning to Capistrano in California in March. Thanksgiving approaches, BC controls its own destiny for an automatic berth to a BCS bowl and a .500 team upsets them. And all of a sudden, there is no BCS berth. And then the whining about BC missing out on higher profile bowls because of the perception that BC fans don't travel well begins in earnest.

Since I last posted, I've been wondering whether the Steelers are the team to beat the Patriots. On Monday Night Football, provided that you could sit through the forced banter between the three hosts who have no business working with each other and stomach Tony Kornheiser desperately failing to channel Howard Cosel and/or be funny, you'd have seen a team look just about as good as a team can. But it was against the wreckage of the Baltimore Ravens.

The Patriots are slightly better than the Ravens offensively, in the same way that eating Thanksgiving dinner is slightly better than getting kicked in the shins a half dozen times. But the Steelers, more than any of the teams the Pats have played to this point, have all the pieces on defense to give stopping this juggernaut the old college try. Having the pieces and bringing them to the game and having them work the way the coaches drew it up isn't as easy as one could hope, though.

No matter how good they are, the Steelers cornerbacks are all considerably shorter than Randy Moss. And with Moss getting away with offensive pass interference the way no one on this Earth has since Michael Irvin brought his talents to the broadcast booth, he is a disconcerting prospect. And there is the question of whether or not the Steelers can find a way to stop Wes Welker finding every little hole in every zone. If they can't do that a handful of times, they're not going to get the Pats off the field on third down.

Then there is the zone blitz scheme which Dick Lebeau practically invented. It's greatest strength is its capacity to baffle, confuse and frustrate pass protection schemes and force them to break down while closing off the quarterback's outlets. Unfortunately, you can't do that to Tom Brady and his offensive linemen. As a group, the five linemen and their field general do not possess enough intelligence to be baffled, confused or frustrated. And while there are coaching staffs and teams that can come up with plans to outsmart any opponent, is there a plan to outdumb the morons on the Patriots?

On offense, the Steelers can run the ball, even though they didn't do much of that against Baltimore. Even if the size and strength of the Patriots defensive line leads you to believe that Fast Willie Parker will be contained, don't forget that the Steelers can throw Najeh Davenport at the Pats. Even though he's best remembered for being arrested after an ex-girlfriend awoke to discover him befouling her closet in the middle of the night, he still has the potential to run all over the Patriots like Marion Barber did in Dallas.

Pass protection could be a problem, since Mike Vrabel seems to have borrowed Rodney Harrison's fountain of youth. And Big Ben loves to hang on to the ball, even though he moves well in the pocket and shrugs off defenders because of his size and strength, this could hurt the Steelers. If he makes even one mistake when it comes to ball security, that could provide the Patriots with the opportunity to take a lead which no sign seen to date points to them relinquishing.

One thing this secondary for the Pats has yet to face is a deep threat like Santonio Holmes. If the Steelers can protect Big Ben, this could burn the Pats badly. Then again, if any of the ifs I have brought up to this point in the season had amounted to anything more than a small colossal waste of time in this giant colossal waste of time that is this blog, the damn Patriots wouldn't be undefeated and I'd look like less of a tool.

Speaking of tools, it provides an inelegant segue into a group of people who badly need criticism. NBC is saving the environment, whether we like it or not. I was reluctant to blog about this a few days ago, because I expected the Bush Administration to have a change of heart along the lines of Scrooge in A Christmas Carol when Matt Lauer went to Greenland to break the story of global warming, but I was disappointed.

While NBC is making hypocritical gestures like sending a waste of space to Greenland to waste even more time and space than he usually wastes and shutting off a few lights in its studio, a serious question is going unanswered. NBC wants me to be conscious of my carbon footprint (and as a subsidiary of GE, the network is far less a threat to the general environmental health of the planet than a guy who doesn't even own an automobile, right?), but did they really need to send one of their talking heads to Greenland to do it?

I'm going out on a limb here, but I'm assuming that Matt Lauer didn't row himself up to Greenland in a boat. So he must have taken a plane or a boat to Greenland. And since NBC probably didn't buy him and whatever personnel were required to support him and his crew tickets on a Southwest Airlines flight to the middle of nowhere in Greenland, some genius must have chartered a plane or a ship to move those people and their equipment to Greenland, unless of course the natives there have all the necessary equipment for broadcasting "news" across the globe.

So NBC spent how much money, transported how many people and how much equipment to Greenland to get me and a few million other people to think about their impact on fragile ecosystems? It seems like that could have been done more efficiently. What with the fact that these people (unless Matt Lauer can provide heat, shelter, food fresh drinking water and whatever other necessities a film crew in the middle of nowhere Greenland require with the powers of his mind) must have done some damage to the pristine ecosystem they visited, how much do I have to scale back my carbon footprint to offset what they did while they went up there to tell me to scale back my carbon footprint in the first place? Good job NBC.