by Scott Benson
scott@patriotsdaily.com

I’m going for Kige Ramsey-style brevity this morning as a full day (and a maybe-slightly-impatient wife) awaits. Let’s see what’s in the Sunday papers today:

Over at the Globe, Christopher Gasper leads off with a look at Patriots veteran linebacker Junior Seau, who sacked Vince Young on Friday in his first action since breaking his arm against the Bears last November. Gasper follows with the day’s notebook, and the news of the release of secondary swingman Artrell Hawkins.

In Kige-speak: Artrell Hawkins was a solid fill-in for the Pats when their secondary was hurting, and it’s sad to see a good guy go, but that’s life in the NFL. This is Kige Ramsey for YouTube Sports.

Mike Reiss looks at the Franchise tag in the Football Notes, and manages to find a couple of tagged guys that don’t act like Michael Vick has just executed their dog. Reiss also checks in with old friend Christian Fauria (if Nick Cafardo was still writing this, Fauria would have blasted the Pats) and poor Brett Favre, who (you guessed it) is lamenting the lack of suitable ‘weapons’ to compliment his rare talent. If I was a Packer fan, I’d have jumped off a bridge already from listening to this guy.

At the Herald, Karen Gurgeian does the heavy lifting this morning, with more on Seau, who shared a few minutes in the limelight with teammate Rodney Harrison on Friday. Boston’s Other KG also looks at the whole defense, which was the ‘good news’ in the ‘good news/bad news’ equation aganst the Titans. Finally, Gurgeian has the Herald notebook, in which she laments the passing of Hawkins but welcomes back Vinny Testaverde, who re-joined the team yesterday.

Nice work carrying the ball by Karen today, but there was something a little too nurturing about her referring to a disheveled (from a sack) Tom Brady as ‘The Papa-To-Be’. Awwwwwwww, mom!

Elsewhere, John Tomase correctly points out that the Pats offense, for all its on-paper talent, still needs a lot of work. Albert Breer has a few minutes with Titans safety Michael Griffin, a favorite at this 07 draft headquarters and the young man BSMW’s Own Greg Doyle called one of the best players on the field on Friday night.

Down south in Providence, our friends at the ProJo again offer the wonderfully-named Shalise Manza Young (sung to the tune of ‘Feliz Navidad’) with a notebook that touches on yesterday’s player movements, as well as Bill Belichick’s praise for second year defensive lineman LeKevin Smith.

More Kige: LeKevin Smith is a former Nebraska Cornhusker who was a sixth round draft pick by the Patriots in 2006. He’s really coming on as a player in his second training camp. This is Kige Ramsey for YouTube Sports.

David Heuschkel of the Hartford Courant takes a second look at an up and down Friday night for the Pats.

This week will feature the Patriots’ first national TV appearance of the season, a Friday night battle with Carolina that will be handled by CBS. Aw, damn, I was looking forward to another WCVB broadcast.

Share your favorite Kige Ramsey observations here.

by Scott Benson
scott@patriotsdaily.com

Okay, first week was oppressive heat, second week monsoon…..what’s next week? A towering inferno? A runaway airliner? An avalanche?

The Patriots lost their second straight pre-season game last night - again on a late field goal - as intense thunderstorms pounded away at the first crowds to pass through the Gillette Stadium turnstiles for the much-anticipated 2007 season.

The Tennessee Titans grabbed a 27-24 decision over the Pats as rookie kicker John Vaughn (was I the only one who did a double take, wondering if the diminutive Wolverine - and former Patriot - was making a miraculous comeback?) pounded through a 22 yard field goal off a bad snap to break a late tie and cap a 20 point Tennessee second half run over New England’s backup defense.

Nothing much of real consequence happened in that second half though, unless you count quarterback Matt Gutierrez again outplaying backup Matt Cassel. The real story last night was a rollicking first half that featured starters from both teams hammering away at each other in a brand of football - though often extremely sloppy - that fairly resembled the product that will hit shelves early next month.

Consumer fraud? I think the only fraud around here is the smarmy, splay footed ‘consumer’ himself. Granted, I didn’t have to sit through the rain last night, but even if I had, I would have enjoyed the hell out of that first half. No NFL fan has the right to expect more from the second practice game of any pre-season.

It began with the visitors returning a wayward Tom Brady pass for a touchdown, and ended with a cranked-up New England defense stopping no less a runner than 2006 Rookie of the Year Vince Young with a wild goal-line stand as time expired in the half. The Patriots took a decisive decision (albeit with the help of a rash of Titans penalties) in the battle of the starters as they carried a 17-7 lead through the pouring rain to the shelter of the New England locker room.

In between, we saw:

Undeniable evidence that the heartbeat of the Patriots defense - the incredible Rodney Harrison - is back and beating stronger than ever. Hey, it’s pre-season, so one’s mind tends to wander even as the action plays out before us. But when Harrison flew in from the right side to blitz Young completely off his feet on a second quarter pass play, he got my attention but good.

It wasn’t just that. The comebacking veteran glided through the secondary all night, arriving in the nick of time on a couple of occasions to tip Young passes away from waiting Tennessee receivers. It’s almost too good to be true, Harrison’s game last night, and all we can do now is cross our fingers that the fates will allow his continuing presence in the center of Patriots defense for the first time in three seasons.

The whole defense was seemingly in regular season form, particularly backup defensive linemen Jarvis Green and LeKevin Smith (is he becoming a player? Be still my heart), who provided solid backside run support and steady pocket pressure on Young throughout. The former Texas standout - who has completely taken over a few games in his time - could do nothing with either his powerful arm or his nimble feet. His only chance for points ended when Mike Vrabel and Tedy Bruschi stacked him up on a fourth down try just inches away from the Patriots goal line. What is it Ted Sarandis used to say? Wow!

New England’s starting secondary had a few ‘wow!’ moments itself - Randall Gay, Ellis Hobbs and Eugene Wilson all joined Harrison with acrobatic breakups of Tennessee aerials. Look, the Titans don’t exactly have Jerry Rice and John Taylor out there running patterns, and Young for all his powers is still a young quarterback, but the Patriots secondary had themselves an impressive night nonetheless.

How I wish we could say that about the Patriots offensive line.

They were awful. Bloody awful. In protecting Brady’s blindside against the Titans’ Kyle Vanden Bosch, Matt Light was about as effective as one of those orange cones they put out to ‘protect’ road crews. You’re killing me, Matt, and what’s worse, you’re killing the guy who might as well be signing your checks. Come on.

The left tackle, whose quickness now seems limited to his quips, was not alone in his culpability. I’m not enough of a technician to know whether some of this comes from their new zone blocking schemes, but some guy named Antwan Odom kept running untouched through the heart of the Pats line to drape himself all over Brady, like an angry supermodel demanding attention. I am honestly amazed that we’re not reading an obit on the Pats dashed 07 hopes this morning after that display.

THAT’s how awful they were.

Brady wasn’t a whole lot better (he was picked twice), but as I say, there were extenuating circumstances. Under a heavy rush, he sailed one over Donte Stallworth on the Pats’ first possession, and Cortland Finnegan (these guys talk tough all week, and then they come at the Pats led by a kid named Cortland?) grabbed it on the fly and raced 51 yards undeterred for the early Tennessee lead.

To his credit, though, Brady then led the Pats right back in five plays to tie the game. On the decisive snap, Brady pump faked an approaching Vander Bosch off his feet before ducking under the rusher to find Wes Welker for a 28 yard touchdown pass in the left corner of the Tennessee end zone. By the way, Wes - YOU ARE TRYING TOO HARD. What a fidgety little bugger. It’s almost painful to watch him earnestly try to earn his spot all at once with the three-time champs. Calm down, Wes - it’s like they used to say to Bobby Hamilton; you’re going to have a heart attack!
 
Anyway, Brady later returned to convert a Green fumble recovery to another six points for New England, as Josh McDaniels finally sobered up enough to call a few running plays to take the heat off New England’s two-time Super Bowl MVP. Sammy Morris showed again an effective north-south style on the 23 yard drive, and Heath Evans took it in behind a Russ Hochstein block to give the Patriots a touchdown lead.

Hochstein, who was lined up as a fullback, was hurt on the play, and we’ll watch nervously over the next few days to see if the valuable backup can escape this brush with the injury list unscathed.

After years of abject fanboyism, I finally threw in the towel on Kevin Faulk after that awful night (and playoff exit) in Denver a year and a half ago. Kevin is unfazed; no Patriot is having a better pre-season than the ninth year man from LSU. He piled up over 100 yards in total offense last night, much of it on expertly turned screen passes in the teeth of the Titans’ jailbreak pass rush. You can’t kill Kevin Faulk - you can knock him ass over teakettle and send the ball flying into next week, but you can’t kill him. Even with the additions of Randy Moss, Stallworth and Welker, Faulk remains an incredibly valuable piece of the Patriots offensive puzzle.

Speaking of Stallworth, he had an auspicious Patriots debut, opening with a slick 15 yard gain on the Pats’ first offensive play. The display of impeccable timing between the new arrival and Brady was an eye opener; but later, the unfamilarity between the two showed as missed connections led to the two Brady picks. Stallworth was quick to take the blame after the game, but whoever was at fault, it’s clear that much work is still to be done before New England’s passing game fulfills the its lofty expectations.

There’s work to be done all around, as the Pats showed when, with a 14-7 lead, Stallworth drew a PI on Kelly Herndon off a long pass up the near sideline, setting up a New England first down at the Tennessee 1. Morris failed twice to punch it in, and after an incomplete Brady pass on third down, Stephen Gostkowski shanked a 33 yard attempt and the Patriots left with no points off a sure thing. Ouch.

Sure Tom Malone, we haven’t made a decision yet, we want to see plenty of both of you new punters……..Baugher, get in there! As far as sure things go, the first-year punter is seemingly one, as he drilled a 70 yard kick to drive Tennessee back underneath its own goalposts after it had stopped New England deep in its own territory. It further proves my groundbreaking new theory - Danny Baugher is killing the goddam ball.

All in all, though, not a bad night. Unless you were directing the telecast for Boston’s WCVB, the anchor of the Patriots Television Network. If this is the anchor, I’d hate to see the affiliates. A more amateurish broadcast you could not imagine. It was all they could do to find the freaking ball. Half the time we at home had no idea what the hell was going on, and game callers Don Criqui and Randy Cross were no help. Hey - what exactly happened on that first half play, when the Titans called for a replay on what appeared to be a Brady fumble? Didn’t the ref come back and say it was a fumble recovered by the Titans? Next thing I know the Pats are lining up in a 2nd and 14 situation, and Tennessee is charged a timeout. Wha? Is this is scrimmage or something? The Pats got a do-over?

I turned my lonely eyes to Criqui and Cross to straighten me out (maybe I was just hammered), but Cross was blathering on about how highly touted Matt Cassel is or something. He must have been hammered (he would HAVE to be hammered to say something like that; another nice game by Matt last night).

Anyway, compared to the WCVB crew, the Patriots offensive line didn’t have that bad of a game.

Lodge your broadcast complaints here.

by Bruce Allen, Greg Doyle, Tim Jordan, Kevin Thomas, Dan Snapp, Travis Graham and Scott Benson
feedback@patriotsdaily.com

The Patriots open their 2007 home schedule tonight with a pre-season matchup with Vince Young and the Tennessee Titans (8:00 PM, on the Patriots Regional Television Network).

The team has now broken training camp and is moving quickly towards the season opener, so urgency will begin to rear its head a little more every week now. And tonight is not your typical practice game, it seems: the Titans are still fuming over last December’s loss to the Pats in Nashville, and come to Foxboro (if you can believe Keith Bulluck) with an eye towards settling the score.

No wonder Vinny Testaverde hasn’t joined the Patriots yet: self-preservation.

Anyway, tonight gives the team’s fans a chance to work out the kinks on their (traffic) timing patterns, at the very least. While I’m thinking of it, maybe it’s time to bring out the Roundtable gang for a little conditioning run of their own. First, some breaking news:

According to Adam Schefter on NFL.com, the Patriots have just signed Ty Warren to an extension:

The Patriots signed standout defensive end Ty Warren to a five-year extension on Thursday worth over $36 million, including $17.5 million in guaranteed money.

Warren, the 13th overall pick in the 2003 NFL Draft, had two years remaining on his exisiting contract.

He had two years left on his rookie deal, so this seems a break with renegotiation policy. Is this smart, or are they setting a bad precedent? Also, what effect might this have on the Samuel stalemate, if any?

Scott: I’ll choose ’smart’, because we all saw how Warren played last year. He’s becoming one of the best defensive linemen in the league. If the precedent is that the Patriots build from the inside out, I’m good with that (hey, ‘Zant’!). I’m mostly relieved that there’s at least one ’suffocating’ rookie contract that we won’t be hearing about later on. 

Bruce: It’s pretty clear that the Patriots will pay the guys that they value highly. Obviously Warren fits into that category. When Belichick got here, he put an emphasis on building the defensive and offensive lines, and once he finds the guys that fit what he wants to do, (Seymour, Light, Koppen, Warren) they get the deals done. Cornerback doesn’t seem to be a position where the team is going to invest heavily. They showed that with Ty Law, and it appears they’re doing the same with Asante Samuel.

Dan: Well, this proves it! It’s Belichick’s last year!

We’re at the three week mark today; has anything happened to date that you didn’t expect?

Tim: It’s surprising to see Jabar Gaffney staying ahead of the WR class this year. I guess it shouldn’t be considering his performance at the end of last year, but he was usually one of the first names mentioned as the odd man out prior to training camp.

Travis: I didn’t expect to NOT hear Chad Jackson’s name at all. I thought he would come out with guns-a-blazing after a tough rookie year and reportedly recovered from his off-season surgery. Oh well. I also didn’t expect Donte’ Stallworth to have an alterego “Nicco”, a resident of Mars. The league-wide urine analysis takes place before the first preseason game, correct?

Greg: I didn’t expect to see Brandon Meriweather at corner as much as they have had him there. It doesn’t surprise me they tried him out a bit, exposed him a bit. But the extend of it has been a little unexpected. I still think he’ll be mostly a safety and play a lot this year.

Dan: Not Patriots-related, but I didn’t expect things to go so badly for the Colts. In addition to the players they lost in the spring (which the press summarily dismissed), they’ve now lost key cogs on both lines. The Colts are a great team, but there’s only so much attrition you can offset.

Tim: I am rooting for Mike Richardson to be the big surprise in the secondary. Ii am hopeful we are looking at a David Givens redux - a physically gifted late round golden domer who, for whatever reason, never fulfilled expectations at ND.

Bruce: Richardson appears to have gotten the attention of the scribes down at Gillette. Maybe it’s just the Charlie Weis/Notre Dame easy story connection, but he’s been the subject of a few articles this past week, and several have noted that he’s been fairly impressive thus far. It would be a good story to have a late round pick come in at a position of need and contribute, so he’ll likely get more attention as camp progresses.

Scott: Josh Miller was cut on Thursday, meaning its very likely that the Patriots will have another first-year specialist for the second season in a row. Any surprise that they were looking to replace Miller?

Travis: I was in attendance at an evening pratice last week, and all three punters were kicking back and forth. The punters are probably the only players that the fans can actually judge. It’s not rocket science to figure out who’s kick went farther. That Baugher kid clearly had the best leg. Miller’s cap number was $1.14M and Baugher’s is $0.28M. I think that made the decision real easy. I hope Miller stashed away some of his “Felger Fifties”.

Scott: What about the tight end position? You couldn’t have predicted the various ailments (in some cases, maybe you could have), but who thought that it might actually be a soft spot when the season started? I didn’t. I suppose the prevailing thought is that they went with tight ends when they didn’t have receivers, so this time they’ll go with wide receivers if they don’t have tight ends. I’m probably old fashioned, but I think you lose something on the physical side when you do that. I think those kind of things matter when you’re expecting to go - as Patrick Sullivan used to say - deep in the playoffs.

Greg: No, but I’m actually impressed they managed to find two guys off the scrap heap, Marcellus Rivers and Brian Jones, I think are capable of playing in the NFL this year. That helps. Neither is likely to make it here, as Thomas, Brady and Watson all should be healthy together at some point. But these guys are competent players and its surprising they found them when the need arose.

Bruce: Well, the position might be soft right now, and perhaps even when the season starts, but I think they’re going to be cautious with these guys because they know how important the very element you speak of is. Watson and Brady will be given the time they need to be at full strength when they’re needed. I expect David Thomas to start the season on PUP…not a mention has been made of him really, and I don’t even recall him being mentioned in the walk-throughs.

Dan: See, here’s where Borges is just dying that he’s not still at the Globe. It’s a tailor-made column for him. Team lets Graham get away to a big rival, “thinking they can replace him on the cheap,” he’d say. Then he could reel off something about fragile second-year man David Thomas, and how they were so unsure of Thomas, they made a makeup pick in Mills the next round. Finally, he could top it of with Geritol jokes about Kyle Brady. Tailor-made, I tell you.

Bruce: So was it Borges that had the hatred for Belchick and the Patriots, or was it Mike Sando? I guess we’ll never know.

What’s the take on Matt Cassel, by the way? Should he be showing more poise in his third year?

Tim: Cassel seems to be getting a ton of snaps since training camp started. Considering his experience I am cutting him some slack on the workload alone. He seems to make a play worth mentioning each practice. I agree he wasn’t very smooth in Tampa though.

Greg: I like Cassel. He has obvious talent, the reports on him are positive (including his work ethic) and has had some good moments in spots. But sometimes in these last three preseasons, he has looked not as smooth as you’d hope (for lack of a better word). Call it poise, whatever. In some ways its unfair, he usually comes in after Brady who is about as poised a QB as you can find. So that can exaggerrate the shortcoming. And he is usually, if not always, playing with a mishmash of backups, guys who haven’t played together a lot and guys who won’t make the team. It would be interesting to see how he looked if Belichick could give him a quarter or quarter and a half with the first offense. Maybe this week. I think we could get a better judgment on this question if that occurred.

Dan: And just like that, Albert Breer mirrors what Greg said earlier about Cassel working with the first team. Good call, Greg:

QB Matt Cassel had one of his best days of camp today, and it seems to be in large part because – with Tom Brady absent – he was working with the top group. The big thing was that he was getting rid of the ball on time, and was moving up in the pocket instead of abandoning it altogether in most cases. It’s important that the Patriots get him game reps, because that’s what he’s lacking. The internal clock just hasn’t been there enough, and he can only develop that with game reps. But his touch and velocity are there on the throws, and he’s got every bit the arm that Brady does.

Scott: He’s been lacking game reps since he graduated high school. That’s probably never going to change.

It seems like the expectations for this team are higher than they’ve ever been, including their post-championship years. Does that matter any, either positively or negatively?

Kevin: I wonder about all the new players on the roster, and how they’ll react when the consensus pre-season champions go through the inevitable rough periods that plague every NFL team. When the team finally breaks camp, probably only about 20-25 guys out of 53 will have been here for one of the Super Bowl years, so you can’t just automatically assume that the character and attitude of the team is still the same as it was 4-5 years ago. The key guys, including most of the coaches and team captains, are still in place, so I wouldn’t expect a drastic change. But the newer guys, to a large extent are going to define the character of the team, for better or for worse.

Scott: That’s true - and like Travis said, now they have guys with alter egos, apparently. And MySpace pages (Laurece Maroney). Its an interesting juxtaposition to what has traditionally been a more reserved approach. And if Ellis Hobbs got paid by the word, we’d see Asante Samuel as the far cheaper alternative. He’s our first winner of the Christian Fauria ‘Most Likely Patriot to Comment in Today’s Paper’ award. He does it very well, by the way, and like with Fauria, guys like Hobbs make it easier for the guys who aren’t as comfortable to fly under the radar a little more. Anyway, Kevin, as a follower of the team, what would you define as a “successful” season this year?

Kevin: That’s a tough question to answer without knowing how things play out, but certainly making the playoffs is a must, absent extraordinary circumstances. I can’t imagine being happy if they don’t win the Division, and are at least playing in the Divisional round of the playoffs. Beyond that, it’s tough to say. If this turns out to be one of those years that looks like its up for grabs, with no really dominant teams, and the Patriots don’t make at least a deep run in the post-season, I think we will be right to feel disappointed. On the other hand, I don’t think it’s ever fair to expect a championship, or even a Super Bowl appearance, no matter how dominant a team looks on paper. A lot also depends on how they finish: if they blow a 15 point 2nd-half lead or crap the bed against an inferior opponent like they have in the past two post-seasons, I think we have the right to be disappointed. At the same time, I don’t think there should be any shame in simply coming up short against a tough, worthy opponent. I think I probably would have felt even better about last season if it had ended a week earlier in San Diego.

So, Deadspin and ESPN are probably going to be linking us again today. That’s going to be a regular thing, right? Sure. Send your best wishes to our national benefactors here!

by Dan Snapp
dan@patriotsdaily.com

A River Runs Drew It

“The best day of my year was always the day after the season when we landed in Whitefish and I could feel myself exhale. Like the pressure was lifted off my shoulders - a physical feeling when we would get into Whitefish. I always looked forward to that day every year and it never let me down. The worst day of my year was always that last day of my summer. I would sit on the dock at my house on Whitefish Lake with my legs dangling in the water before I would fly back on the plane to training camp,” - Drew Bledsoe, from the “Drew Bledsoe and the Art of Football” interview in the inaugural issue of “The Whitefish Review” (http://www.whitefishreview.com/).

Well, there you have it. Mystery solved. Now we know.

Drew Bledsoe doesn’t like football.

Is that too strong a statement? OK, we’ll be fair. He likes football, but in more of a “I’ll show up when I want to show up, put in the requisite amount of work but never improve my game, take the blame publicly but let my surrogates point fingers elsewhere, and oh yeah, I’m your starting quarterback” kind of way.

Still too nasty? It’s hard to know the right tone with Bledsoe. I mean, you hate to bash what seems like a nice guy, and he did have a fairly decent career, what with the four Pro Bowls and the passing records and all. And man, that was a pretty cool moment when he stepped in for Tom Brady in the 2002 AFC Championship Game. But then you remember the rest of it.

Maybe we’re making too much of this. Maybe it’s just a benign comment in an otherwise banal interview, with Drew telling the local scribes, “I’m going to Whitefish” because he never got the chance to say, “I’m going to Disney World.”

But we know better, don’t we? It’s no secret he wasn’t as dedicated to the craft as, say, Brady is. “Off to Montana” was as much a Bledsoe cliché as “MINNESOTA GAME”. Bledsoe’s unguarded admission to the Whitefish Review only confirms what we already knew.

Resurgence and Fan Frenzy

This offseason, Bledsoe joined in retirement two other icons of the team’s 1990s resurgence: Bill Parcells and Curtis Martin. Overshadowed only by Robert Kraft’s Homeric efforts to keep the team cemented (literally) in New England, their efforts rejuvenated a franchise’s spirit, culminating in a Super Bowl appearance.

Bledsoe’s career got off to a rollicking start, what with thrilling comebacks his rookie season, and then record yardage in the sophomore one, leaving fans with visions of Marino dancing in their heads. In hindsight, the comparison wasn’t fair, but it stuck. So long as he was throwing a heap and amassing yardage, all other means of charting his play were blocked out. We thought he was better than he was.

Fans eventually struck upon a yearly mantra of “This will be the year he puts it all together”, and the needle got stuck. Different perceived obstacles to his development were manufactured in our heads: “He’s had a different coordinator each year”; “He never had a quarterback coach”; “The line let him down”. The excuses shifted to other positions in the post-Super Bowl years: “He misses Martin back there”; “He can’t count on Glenn”; and “He needs a dominant tight end to succeed”.

We never took the time to consider that any quarterback would flourish with the luxuries we deemed necessary for Bledsoe to succeed.

At the same time, Bledsoe cultivated a media-friendly image that was impervious to criticism. He was Boy Scout Drew with the Dad who “Parented with Dignity”. He jumped through all the proper media hoops. He was modest, self-effacing, and generous with praise to his teammates, whether they deserved it or not.

Those two forces - the perceived greatness and the Aw Shucks persona - generated a fan and media army ready to do battle whenever a threat to his mantle arose. So when a skinny sixth-rounder succeeded with the same parts reckoned defective under Bledsoe’s lead, the fandom split. Some just weren’t ready to trust their disbelieving eyes.

When Bill Belichick announced Brady would be starting the rest of the way in 2001, mouths dropped. Ron Borges was furious, and leapt off the cliff of reason at that very moment, never to be right about anything Patriots again.

“Some people learn from their mistakes,” Borges wrote that week. “Others are doomed to repeat them. If you wonder which is Bill Belichick, go ask people in Cleveland if they’ve ever heard the story of the guy who benched Bernie Kosar for Todd Philcox?”

“Brady would never have been sacked at all if his line didn’t stink and his receivers went where they’re supposed to,” Borges wrote a month later, venom and sarcasm dripping. “And his team would score on every possession if it would just listen to him. And who ever stepped up in the pocket better than Brady? It’s amazing his predecessor threw for more than 29,000 yards off his back foot all the time, isn’t it?”

Borges wasn’t alone. Bob Halloran, describing Brady as “incrediblyaverage” and likening him to “a sneeze guard at the salad bar”, proved we should never trust his football acumen again. Halloran even admitted he couldn’t enjoy the team’s success so long as Bledsoe wasn’t the guy leading it. Sadly, many shared the sentiment.

When Belichick dropped the second shoe, trading Bledsoe within the division, fans were apoplectic. Many suggested trading Bledsoe would be the Patriots’ Babe Ruth moment. One fan started constructing a weekly chart detailing the time Brady’s passes stayed aloft in comparison to Bledsoe’s.

Borges predicted doom. “Yesterday, Belichick bet it all on No. 12 and told the croupier, ‘Spin the wheel,’” he wrote. “He bet his coaching future on a guy who’s started 17 NFL games. As bets go, that’s how Las Vegas was built, although sometimes the house loses even there.”

In the gleam of the Patriots’ success, those voices are all muted now. The remaining doubters have converted, Bledsoe apologists like the Globe’s Nick Cafardo are no longer on the Patriots beat, and Borges is writing for the Kansas City Chiefs website. We also learned in hindsight that Bledsoe wasn’t exactly the good soldier as previously portrayed. Michael Holley’s and Pepper Johnson’s books told of a sourpuss Bledsoe in team meetings, and of his going behind Belichick’s back to Kraft’s office.

Bledsoe would never be seen in the same light. All the sediments he never pared from his game were now evident to all. He went from “The Next Marino” to “The Statue of Limitations”.

Grateful for What We’ve Got

It’s not Bledsoe’s fault the bloated expectations we built up for him. He never wanted to be a leader, memorably deferring that role to Bruce Armstrong when called upon to take the charge. He didn’t want the glory either, gladly passing that on to his teammates in his weekly conferences.

He did want the starting job, though, feeling his pedigree dictated it. He retired this year rather than face the ignominy of being a backup in any number of cities. Compare that to Vinny Testaverde, who at about the same age went to the Jets as a backup, and then had his best year ever. But that’s Bledsoe’s decision to make, and we can respect that. You have to love the game to want to be holding a clipboard at age 35.

His comments to the Whitefish Review aren’t all that shocking. After all, what players look forward to training camp? It’s the first part of the quote, though, that’s bothersome: “The best day of my year was always the day after the season.” What does this say about his seasons? That he expected them to end badly? He went to the Super Bowl twice, but the better day was the day after?

Seemingly every other player in the league longs just to get to the Super Bowl, and win or lose stores that day away in the photo album alongside their marriages and births of their children. Drew? He’s off thinking of the lake.

It certainly shed light on why he wasn’t going to last long under Belichick - Brady or no Brady. Belichick loves players who love football, really love football. And that just wasn’t Drew.

In the end, Bledsoe will be missed, just not for the reasons we may have projected for him on draft day 1993. Instead, he became the living, breathing embodiment of how great we’ve got it with Belichick. Every time Bledsoe held the ball too long in Buffalo, every time he threw deep into double coverage in Dallas, we had our tangible reminder of why Belichick’s the best at what he does.

Hopefully history will truly reflect just how ballsy a call Belichick made with Bledsoe, not once, but twice. To put it in Borges terms, the house lost, and only Belichick knew the dice were loaded.

This Monday, Michael Silver had a Bledsoe update on Yahoo.com:

“I’ve been sending the guys cell-phone photos, beginning with the first day of training camp,” he says. “The first was of my feet in a lake with a beer in my hand. There was a picture from a golf course, one from the boat when I was waterskiing and one when I was riding my motorcycle.”

There you have Bledsoe’s NFL legacy: all he really wanted was to be somewhere else.

This is another look into Bill Walsh’s Finding the Winning Edge.

Chapter 10 of the book is entitled “Designing a Winning Game Plan.” Within this chapter, all the elements of what needs to be considered in building the game plan are discussed. A lengthy section of the chapter deals with Situation Offense. It is noted that there are at least nine different categories of situational offense: Normal down and distance in the open field, Backed-up, Third down, Fourth down, Red zone, First and goal, Goal line, 2-point play and Blitz.

The Patriots do a lot of situational offense work, and it has been specifically mentioned here and in the newspapers. I thought we’d look at one of those situations, and see what Walsh advises when the offense is backed up inside its own ten or five yard line. There are 13 priorities mentioned here that should be considered:

• Moving the ball past at least the five yard line.
• Selecting core plays which are low-risk.
• Reducing the chances of fumbling by limiting ball-handling to key players.
• Selecting plays from the short-yardage selection of your game-plan.
• Cutting off defensive penetration with a double tight-end formation.
• Utilizing a close flanker to block the blitzing strong safety.
• Selecting passes which emphasize ball control.
• Selecting ball-control passes which are thrown to the outside (i.e., passes thrown over the middle are more likely to result in either an interception or a fumble caused by a forceful hit on a relatively exposed receiver by a defender).
• Throwing the ball deep to change the momentum and keep the defense off the field.
• Throwing passes only to the strong-hand side of the quarterback (i.e., a right handed quarterback should pass to his right).
• Avoiding plays in which both guards pull.
• Attacking the defense between the ends.
• Deciding if taking the safety is an acceptable option.

We can see that some things are obvious - using low risk plays, giving the ball to your sure-handed players, but the interesting one to me was the last one…taking the safety. We know that Bill Belichick and the Patriots did this memorably in a Monday night game in Denver a few years back…a play that was thought to be unorthodox, but was really one of the clear options for that particular situation.

by Scott Benson
scott@patriotsdaily.com

You know it’s time to break camp when the release of a video game threatens to tear at the very fabric of your organization.

Actually, yesterday’s bitching about Madden ratings was all good natured - John Tomase of the Herald has the graphic blow-by-blow in our feature of the day - providing a light moment in the final hours of the official ‘training camp’ portion of pre-season.

We give Donte Stallworth a decision over Laurence Maroney in the Great Madden Debate, but woah, woah……an alter ego? An alter ego named Nicco who lives on Mars? Is this like the time Garth Brooks started releasing bad records under the name of Chris Gaines? Is Stallworth going to come out for a game this year dressed all in black, with his hair all combed different, a sullen soul patch sprouting under his lower lip?

It’s official - Donte Stallworth, 97 speed rating or not, is nucking futs.

Maroney also chatted with the press long enough yesterday to entertain notions that he, like San Diego’s Ladanian Tomlinson, could probably miss all of the pre-season and still be ready to go when the Patriots meet the Jets on September 9th. All right, Larry, but let’s see if you can get out of the red jersey first.  According to Maroney, that starts with the head coach.

Which is exactly what LT says.

Keith Bulluck of the Titans is rarin’ to get a piece of those bastard Patriots this Friday, after they done him wrong last December. Just like John Wensink, he’s skating by the bench, challenging the team’s tough guys. Who’s that he’s pointing at? Well, naturally, the toughest Patriots of them all - Reche Caldwell and Vinnie Testaverde.

Settle down, Keith. Did you remember to take your pill this morning?

What was it with the chatty Patriots yesterday? You’ve got Stallworth and Maroney in the premiere episode of Real World Foxboro, and here’s Josh Miller, also wanting to call a house meeting to confront the roommates about not punting in Tampa last Friday.

Miller doesn’t want to question the coaching staff, so what does he do? He questions the coaching staff. Hey, Josh, if they didn’t have anything against you before, they may now. Remember what Ray Davies said - paranoia will destroy ya.

I really think its time we get the roommates out of the house. I know, how about a part-time job in a yogurt shop? Or maybe running a daily Patriots links site?

What’s your Madden rating?

By Bruce Allen
bruce@patriotsdaily.com

We’re very pleased to announce that we’ve filled what was previously the only open day in our posting schedule.

Tuesdays will now be home to Inside Gillette - a weekly notes column from Christopher Price which will bring Patriots Daily readers right to Foxborough, with bits and pieces picked up from around Gillette during the week. Quotes and stats of the week, as well as items from practices, press conferences and the games themselves will all be a part of the column, which debuts a week from today.

Price is an award-winning sportswriter who has covered the Patriots since 2001 for Boston Metro. He’s served a contributor to ESPN.com, SI.com, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post and The Miami Herald. Price’s weekly feature on the Patriots “10 Things We Learned…” was one of the most popular Patriots columns among bostonsportsmedia.com readers last season.

Chris is also the author of the new book The Blueprint: How the New England Patriots Beat the System to Create the Last Great NFL Superpower which is due to be released on October 2.

We’re looking forward to having Chris as a part of the staff, and to including his insights on the team here on the site.

With the addition of Price to the lineup, here is a reminder of what the weekly schedule is going to looking once the regular season gets underway:

Sunday: Sunday Links and Game Day Blog by Scott Benson
Monday: Game Day Rear View by Scott Benson
Tuesday: Inside Gillette by Chris Price
Wednesday: Direct Snapp by Dan Snapp
Thursday: Bill Barnwell’s Statistical Research of the Week
Friday: Patriots Roundtable
Saturday: Greg Doyle’s look at the day’s major college football games with an eye towards the Patriots’ 2008 draft selections.

In between those posts, we will of course also cover any breaking news, add our thoughts to news items, and sprinkle in some excerpts from the Bill Walsh book The Winning Edge.