by the Patriots Daily Staff
feedback@patriotsdaily.com

This is - by far - the hardest Roundtable we’ve ever done.

“Hard” is a relative term, of course; there aren’t alarms sounding, and we’re not exactly trying to hang on to the back of a ladder truck as it screams away from a firehouse here. Mostly, it’s clerical work - a lot of typing.

But anyway, as far as trying to have some laughs and talk some football, this week sucked. This Sunday night’s home opener with the San Diego Chargers is a marquee matchup on any schedule, and when the 2007 version was first released, the eyes of many Pats fans went right to that second game. Everybody knows the Patriots could have just as easily lost that nutbusting game last January, and with the added dimension of a catty post-game dance dispute, it kind of stood out. After all, there aren’t many 14-2 teams on the 07 schedule. There happens to be one this week.

And I haven’t given ten minutes thought to it.

I don’t know about the other guys, but I haven’t been able to concentrate on anything but what has unfortunately become known as Camera-gate.

And tonight, it all came to a close.

Late Thursday, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell found that the Patriots did violate league rules govering the use of cameras and listening devices for the purposes of stealing signals, and that he would fine the team $250,000 and impose a sliding scale penalty to guarantee the team will lose at least one draft choice.

Coach Bill Belichick was found to be culpable to the tune of a half-million dollar fine.

The Patriots will lose their first round pick in 2008 if they, as expected, make the playoff this season; if they don’t, they will lose their second and third round picks.

Strangely, the commissioner’s decision seems palatable at first blush, in that it seems to fall close enough to the definition of a fair compromise. There’s just enough there to piss both sides off.

The Patriots get whacked pretty good for ignoring the boundaries of what a three-time Super Bowl champion can get away with. I don’t know why you and I should care about the money (compassion? I didn’t think so), as it is coming from people that can probably afford it. In the end, the only thing that should matter to us, the fans, is those draft picks, and that Eric Mangini is a enormous touchhole.

Oh, yeah….I suppose that our team got a public rebuke as stinging as any in recent memory should matter too. But I’m not going to be a fawning drama queen about it; Goodell didn’t send ME a copy of the letter, so I’m going to try not to take all this too personally. If you want to wring your hands and wail, or rub your favorite fanboy’s nose in it, I hope you choke on it.

At the same time, though, even with the draft picks and the loss of bragging rights and all, there was no suspension, there was no basket of draft picks, there was no ridiculous notion that outcomes of games had been altered. In the end, there was no indication that Goodell was unduly influenced by the braying, whiskey-soaked jackals who stumbled outside his door all week and attempted to speak for him though he was not yet ready to speak.

I’m not making the guy a hero. I’m also not making him a villain. One thing I hope the commissioner makes clear in the coming days is if it’s cheating to nick signals without a camera or other electronic device. Because that’s one thing I never understood about this. Was this about all cheating, or just the kind you do in plain view?

In any event, Belichick and the Patriots crossed a line, considerably, one that in the commissioner’s view goes to the heart of fair play. Now they’re all going to pay for it. It began with Belichick’s public apology tonight, but perhaps none of the penalties they’ll face will be as harsh as the one that will call into question - perhaps forever - every move he and his team made during this historic decade.

I can’t think of anything worse than that. That is punishment enough.

It’s a good thing the rest of our Roundtable tried to focus on this weekend’s game with the Chargers, which suddenly takes on even more meaning with tonight’s news. Think of the following as a palate cleanser.

First, reaction on tonight’s news?

Tim Jordan: I m just glad it’s over and we can hopefully move on. It seems harsh, but it’s consistent with Goodell’s actions since he took over as commissioner. One thing that’s curious is the 2 and 3 if they miss the playoffs - that actually seems steeper than a 1. Now the question becomes “was it worth whatever it cost Mangini to do this?”.

Kevin Thomas: It’s a stiff penalty, especially since first round draft picks have been the lifeblood of the franchise’s success. Having the extra pick in ‘08 mitigates it somewhat. I was expecting worse, frankly, especially after I heard that the going rate for illegally practicing in shoulderpads is a 3rd rounder. Not F’ing-around League, indeed. Reading the excerpt of Goodell’s letter (from Reiss), I find the language to be a bit cagey and lawyerly. It looks like the Commissioner’s biggest issue is with the “calculated and deliberate” violation of the rules (i.e. Belichick being obstinate and flouting Goodell’s authority). Note that Goodell never says what Belichick did was unfair or competitively dishonest (i.e. cheating)–only that the rules he apparently brazenly broke were directed towards the cheating issue (”designed to encourage fair play and promote honest competition”). I don’t know, am I reading too much into this? Will we ever find out exactly what it was they were doing? Probably not. They’ll probably want it that way–keeping the rest of the league guessing the full extent of what they were up to.

I guess one question to ask is Belichick’s reputation around the league so bad in view of this that we don’t need to worry about another team hiring him away? Gauging the reaction around the media and interweb this week, it almost seems like it, as unbelievable as that would have seemed less than a week ago.

Okay, let’s move on to the Patriots and Chargers. There were some hard feelings when these two teams last met in January. How much should we expect this to impact the game this week?

Bruce Allen: The Chargers still seem to be talking, and putting quotes out there. I expect there to be some emotional displays on Sunday night. But mostly it seems that when clubs take the field, most of this stuff is forgotten.

Bill Barnwell: Probably see a couple of minor scuffles on special teams and that’s it. Both teams realize how important this game is and are disciplined enough to not give out personal foul penalties like so many gift bags.

Tim: This game will have the intensity of a playoff game. National Sunday night game with two teams with bad blood and legitimate Super Bowl aspirations. Even with the motivation provided by a week of being called cheaters with tainted titles, I think the emotional edge belongs to San Diego. They have had this game circled since the schedule as released and had the entire offseason to reflect what might have been if they played smarter. Plus, who can forget the Patriots affront to Shawn Merriman’s celebration dance? There are some things you just don’t do and stealing a man’s celebration dance is probably atop that list. How would you feel if someone stole your dance? You’d be mad, probably mad enough challenge them to a dance off so you could serve them. I am impressed that Merriman had the restraint not to.

Let’s break down the matchups. First, how about the Patriots offense against the San Diego defense?

Scott Benson: This is the first real test of whether I’m going to say “run the ball down their throats” every week. That doesn’t seem like a very good idea against these guys. The Pats threw more than 50 times in their last meeting. Which means you have to deal with that pressure on every down, and it certainly had an impact on Brady last time (3 picks and a hell of a beating). But he was also able to move around in the pocket and make some (enough) plays, even with the pressure, and he has a better team around him now. I think like last year, it will be one of their toughest games of the season and I don’t doubt they’ll take their lumps, but at home, with a better offense, I think they’ll make enough plays to win.

Greg Doyle: Controlling Merriman is a key. They did a great job on him last year for the playoff game. Expect some wrinkles by San Diego to combat that and I am sure he’ll get some pressure on Brady. As long as its not consistent, that should be okay. They should be able to throw versus this team. Running will be tougher, but they have to be somewhat balanced. They can’t just let Merriman and Phillips pin their ears back.

Tim: The new wide receivers allow the Patriots to play complementary offense and take what the defense is giving them. Last week they looked like they had no discernible weakness on that side of the ball and moved the ball at will. Maroney’s speed may be something they try to use to slow the daunting Charger pass rush and maybe we will see Faulk in there more this week for screens.

Travis Graham: It was difficult to judge just how good the Chargers defense was from last week’s performance. On paper it looks like they dominated, but I’d bet even the Jets defense would look good against Rex Grossman. I bet Bears fans breath a sigh of relief every time he successfully takes a snap from center without fumbling it. San Diego is going to be difficult to run against due to their defensive line that is built similar to the Pats’. The 350lb. nose tackle Jamal Williams is one of the best at his position and they have two young studs on each side of him in Igor Olshansky and Luis Castillo. The Patriots O-line will have to do a better job at protecting Brady this time around. In my eyes this is the key to the game. If Brady’s jersey stays clean the Pats will win.

Bill: The weakness in the San Diego defense is their secondary. The Patriots won’t have as many matchups to exploit as they did with the Jets, as the Chargers have better cover corners than Justin Miller, but their safeties occasionally get lost and they should have a slight advantage with their wideouts versus any of the Chargers corners. The bigger problem, then, is keeping the Chargers linebackers off of Tom Brady. I’d expect to see a lot of Kyle Brady in the game as a blocking tight end to help out Nick Kaczur, and more Sammy Morris in the backfield.

Dan: This will be a much bigger test for the new weapons, and for the line. I expect Welker will have a big day as a checkdown option. Same goes for backs out of the backfield.

How about the Patriots defense against Ladanian Tomlinson and the Chargers offense?

Bruce: This might be the first game in which the Adalius Thomas signing becomes a huge factor. His size and speed will be at the front of the effort to slow down Tomlinson. I’m looking forward to watching him this Sunday night.

Kevin: One thing that I think plays to the Patriots advantage is that they are getting the Chargers early in the season. Even with the absence of Seymour and Harrison, the Patriots are probably at about as close to full strength right now than they will be all season. The inevitable injury bug hasn’t taken hold yet, and the older guys on defense are still reasonably fresh. Bruce mentioned Adalius Thomas as a big factor. Another one is Junior Seau, who I think can be a big help in slowing down his former Charger mates. There’s a lot that’s changed for the Patriots defensively from the last time these two teams met. Having Thomas and Seau along with Bruschi in the ILB rotation will also allow Vrabel to play at his more natural OLB spot. This is a significant upgrade from the playoff game last year, where Tully Banta-Cain did not have a strong performance at OLB.

Scott: In terms of catching the Chargers at a good time, that may also be true when it comes to LT, who got his first carries of the new year last week.

Travis: I agree with Bruce that Adalius Thomas will be a difference maker this week, but not for the same reason. Antonio Gates gave New England the most trouble in the passing game last year and I think Thomas is the perfect defender for Gates. This time around, the Pats have someone who can match up with his size and speed. I wouldn’t be suprised to see Thomas have his first pick as a Patriot this week.

Bill: There were points early in last year’s playoff game where it seemed like the Patriots had no answer for the Chargers’ offense. Absolutely none. This year, they should be able to do a better job on Antonio Gates with a healthy secondary and Adalius Thomas, but I said the same thing about Jerricho Cotchery last week, and he still had a big game. The front three, though, are still the key to this game for me. They won’t look as good as they did against the Jets offensive line, and they’ll need to get to Philip Rivers to make the linebackers’ lives easier.

Kevin: The last couple of times the Patriots have hosted the Chargers here, they were pretty thoroughly embarrassed by LT and the boys. This will be the first time they get to play the Chargers on the new turf surface at Gillette. Historically, Tomlinson has performed worse on artificial turf than on grass, by a fairly decent margin (4.57 ypc on grass vs. 3.75 on turf), although last year that split was reversed (5.6 on turf vs. 5.1 on grass). Not sure how relevant that is to Sunday’s game, but it is kind of interesting. The flip side, of course, is that Brady and the Patriots generally excel on artificial surfaces, and have yet to lose on the new Gillette turf.

Greg: I am not as impressed with San Diego as most people. I see them as not nearly as talented as portrayed. Their wide receivers may be the worst crew in the NFL. Their line is good, but not great. And I am not real impressed with Phillip Rivers. Sure, he had a pretty good year last year. But at times he seems shaky and immobile. He’ll throw into coverage and get rattled. Obviously controlling LT and Gates are the hard part of facing San Diego. Easier said than done. But if they can keep LT to around 100 yards and not double Gates on third downs, San Diego has nowhere else to turn. I think the Pats will do a decent job of that.

Tim: The Bears did a very good job of containing LT last week, particularly in the first half. It’s pbviously a different defense, but I think the weaknesses that made the Ptriots susceptible to the Chargers last year have been addressed in the offseason. However, it woudbe nice if the Patriots were at full strength. LT has owned them in virtually every game they’ve played. Stopping him is the priorty, but we said that last year and he still ran wild in both games they played. I am more concerned about their defense, but they present many challenges on offense.

Is Norv Turner-Bill Belichick as much of a mismatch as it may appear?

Greg: Slam dunk for Belichick here, but I suppose you have to wonder about the distraction factor given the events of this week.

Bruce: I don’t think so. Turner is a very good offensive mind, who just hasn’t had the horses in his previous stints as a head coach in Washington and Oakland. With this team, he’s going to look a whole lot better. Belichick respects him as an offensive mind, and I think he’ll show this season that he might be a better coach than people think.

Travis: I wonder if this week’s “Water-tape” will rally the troops around Belichick. Especially when players like Vrabel and Colvin get asked questions like “Your critics may say that the only reason you won those Superbowls is because of cheating… thoughts?” That’s got to piss them off.

Scott: That’s not just a this-week thing - that’s a this-year thing. Smooth move, Mangenius. The ticker-tape parade that Gary Myers of the Daily News is promising you will probably be the only one you’ll ever get.

I think the tendency is to underestimate Turner because of his underwhelming head coaching stints, but at one time, he ruled the best offense in the land (with many of the best players, including three Hall of Famers). They lined up 11 on 11, no surprises, yet still won three Super Bowls. Obviously, there’s no more Emmitt, Michael or Troy, but he does have perhaps the league’s best player in LaDanian Tomlinson, and Turner has ridden great players to great success in the past. This is no cakewalk for Belichick and his staff.

Kevin: Substitute “defense” for “offense” and “Banks, Carson, Taylor” for “Emmitt, Michael, Troy,” and this sounds like something that once could have described our own head coach. Not to say Turner is the next Belichick, but he is an NFL lifer who has been given control over what most observers believed was the most talented group of players in the NFL last season. I agree that this is not really a “mismatch,” and whatever coaching advantage the Patriots might have, it’s probably not going to decide the outcome of this one. The last time these two coaches hooked up, in the opening week of the 2005 season, I thought Turner’s Raiders played a much closer game than they deserved to, based on the respective talent level of the two teams, for whatever that’s worth.

Bill: Mike Tanier wrote about this pretty extensively in our book this year, and the short answer is: yes.

Dan: I’m still in awe Marty Schottenheimer went for it on fourth-and-11. Can Norv Turner really be worse than that?

Tim: Hell, Steve Spurrier beat Belichick so anything can happen. This game is going to be decided by the players more than the schemes. Also, I just spent 10 minutes saying “Norv” repeatedly for a throwaway “Norv sounds like something you’d….” line and it’s just not happening. In fact, after this exercise, I like the name - it’s better than its’ cousin “Norm” and it’s probably fun to yell. I’ve never been upset at anyone named “Norv”, but I think it would be pretty hard to stay angry at a guy named “Norv”.

Let’s have those predictions.

Dan: Be more specific. Do you mean with the use of the Belichick Blimp, the predator drones and the computer chip microphone surgically inserted into Nick Hardwick’s tuckus, or without? Our guys are gonna *&#$%@ murder their guys!! 34-10. OK, technically not “murder”. Defeat the well-respected opponent in a rollicking enjoyable endeavor, with good sportsmanship and fellowship displayed by all. Then home for tea. What’s the rulebook say on murder, anyway?

Scott: Considering the circumstances, I’d love to say the Pats will hit the field in a fury and waste the Chargers by 28 points. I would wish for nothing more at this point, unless it would be for them to waste the Chargers by 35 points. Instead, I’ll try to calm down here and say this will be one of the toughest games of the season, but the home field advantage and the Pats new offense is enough to get by, 24-21.

Greg: I’ll go with Patriots 30-16. They are a better team and will force Rivers into some mistakes.

Bruce: I expect a pretty fired-up Patriots team to take the field on Sunday night. Patriots 31-21.

Kevin: After the playoff game last year, I thought the Chargers were probably the better team. I think the Patriots have improved some since then, and after this past week, I really can’t say the same for San Diego. Considering the home field advantage, I’ll say Patriots 28, Chargers 26.

Tim: I do this at work as a self defense mechanism and I have to do it this week - Chargers by 10. They’ve shown that they can win at Gillette, they are as talented as any team in the league, and they have the aforementioned chip on ther shoulders. This week was as bad as I can ever remember, certainly the worst one the Patriots ever had after a blowout win. The only thing that comes close is the Lawyer Milloy week preceding the Buffalo demolition to open the 04 season. I think this was worse though and I think it’s going to show on the field on Sunday. SD is a probably the last or second to last team I’d want to have on the schedule this week. Truthfully, though, I’ll happily read about the loss if it means the end of these cheater stories. I can’t take it anymore.

by Scott Benson
scott@patriotsdaily.com

The cat seems to have gotten the tongues of Chris Mortensen’s ‘league sources’ as the week has progressed, but that’s only cleared the way for some of the NFL’s biggest stars - including noted clean-livers like Brett Favre and Michael Strahan - to jump in on the hi-tech lynching of Pats coach Bill Belichick.

Also jumping on the pile were Hines Ward of the Steelers and Jacksonville coach Jack Del Rio, who just happened to find convenient excuses for their own past failings in the growing controversy.

Lastly, the group that believes it has been most aggrieved by Belichick - the self-entitled, self-important media both locally and nationally - has had ample opportunity to devote themselves completely to what has always been their highest priority: revenge.

Let’s review for a moment what we know.

According to this Wednesday report from the New York Daily News, the security staff of the New York Jets apparently stopped a Patriots video assistant and attempted to confiscate his video camera as he tried to enter the New England locker room at halftime of Sunday’s game in the Meadowlands. League officials and Patriots security were on the scene as well, and according to the report, an argument raged for as much as an hour before the NFL took custody of the camera and the tape contained within it.

Clearly, we can assume the incident resulted in a formal complaint to the league by the Jets. It’s hard to imagine we’d still be talking about this - and that league spokesman Greg Aiello would have made any statement at all - if there wasn’t.

Everything - everything - we think we ‘know’ from that point is based on ESPN’s Chris Mortensen (he of the ‘Vick Will Not Be Indicted’ stories this summmer), NFL Network’s Adam Schefter, CNNSI’s Don Banks and their ‘league sources’, who, when they aren’t floating in the bottom of a highball glass in the luxury suites of the RCA Dome, happen to serve on the league’s Competition Committee.

Aiello made a brief statement on Tuesday night following a Mortensen report that Commissioner Roger Goodell had found the Patriots guilty of recording the defensive signals of Jets coaches and could render a severe penalty to New England as early as Friday. The statement denied the Mortensen report and indicated that no decision had been reached. The league has remained silent on the matter ever since.

Unfortunately, few have followed their lead. Naturally, there hasn’t been a lot of distinction between what we ‘know’ and what we ‘think’, or in some cases, what we ‘hope’. Everything’s been in bounds this week, to the extent that NESN sports anchor Hazel Mae repeatedly referred to the NFL’s “decision” and the Patriots “guilt” in her Wednesday evening reports, though according to the league, no such decision had been yet arrived at, and no such guilt had been yet established.

But ol’ Mae was pretty restrained, when compared to most of her colleagues around the nation, and predictably, around New England itself. And as players began their work week yesterday, preparing for games this Sunday, some of the league’s brightest (or maybe dimmest) lights began to comment on the controversy, and in doing so, joined Mae and her brethren in attempts to save Goodell the trouble of actually taking the matter under advisement at all.

The verdict? Guilty. The Patriots organization is guilty of cheating their way to three world championships. Belichick, the center of the controversy (to the extent that he found it necessary to apologize to the entire organization on Wednesday), is guilty of chicanery over the last three decades. The players are guilty of leveraging an unfair advantage to successes they quite likely never would have achieved without it.

The only thing missing was a threatened lawsuit by the Rutgers women’s basketball team.

It has been pure hysteria, fueled once again by a muddleheaded mainstream media that has been jumping through its ass since the early 70’s just for the privilege of being called ‘Woodstein!” by Ben Bradlee. It has been pure farce, fueled once again by a thick tongued, barely literate mainstream media that would rather be first than be right, would rather be edgy than educated, would rather be recognized than responsible.

It has been shameful, fueled once again by craven opportunists who saw only the chance even a score and excuse themselves from the spotlight that Belichick and his Patriots had once left simmering on them, though through their actions on the field, and not in the court of public opinion.

So let’s take roll call, shall we? Because what goes around surely ought to come around. The media shouldn’t be the only ones schooled in taking a number.

First we have Brett Favre, followed quickly by Michael Strahan, citing serious concern about the ethics of the situation. Joseph Ethics, founder of modern ethics (okay I’m making that up), spun wildly in his grave at the comments of this odd coupling of philosophers. However, having seen their collaborative efforts in the past, William Irony, founder of modern irony, rested comfortably.

Next, we have Hines Ward of the Pittsburgh Steelers, an impartial observer, who immediately contended (for about the fiftieth freaking time) that the Steelers, and not the Patriots, were the real AFC Champion in 2001. Heard it before, Hines. Ward, all football player between the lines, is apparently a sniveling weasel outside them.

Next up is Jack Del Rio, coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars, who (just a coincidence I suspect) chose to reflect on his 2005 playoff loss to the Patriots and - given what we now ‘know’- raise his eyebrows over mysteriously malfunctioning communications equipment at Gillette. Jack stopped shot of mentioning the delay in that playoff game while league officials labored to correct the problem, before ordering BOTH TEAMS to put away the gear until it could be fixed. Del Rio, once a fearless NFL linebacker, has apparently morphed into a mouse - a simpering, excuse making mouse.

But the opportunists who thrust themselves under halos while dancing on the perceived grave of a superior rival were nothing compared to the media that leapt on this chance to get even with Belichick for never once kissing their ass, despite their antiquated expectation that they are entitled to nothing less.

The examples are too many to mention. My index finger is on the 15 day disabled list from all the links I clicked on (and then slammed shut) over the last four days. The common thread among all of them was the profuse use of “if its true”, and “they could” and “might be” and every equivocation under the sun, though in each case, the qualifier was quickly followed by harsh, brutal judgment that wasn’t qualified at all. In any respect of the word.

One that sticks out, though, was written by former Herald columnist Howard Bryant, now working for ESPN, the home of angry, sloppy drunk ‘league sources’. In a Wednesday column, Howard led the field, now crowded less than 24 hours later, by creating a sidewalk hustler shell game by claiming that unless Goodell came down on the Patriots, and hard, he would forever be branded a patsy of Patriots owner Robert Kraft. In order to be considered a strong and independent arbiter, Goodell had no choice but to dock the Patriots cash, draft picks, and even suspensions. If he didn’t, in the mind of Bryant, he was as tainted as the Pats are thought to be.

Bryant cries for justice while uncomfortably acknowledging, in a all-too-brief disclaimer, that it is still not known what, if anything, is on the tape that now sits in league headquarters. I guess it doesn’t matter, as Howard (who pithily compares Belichick to another Bryant, Kobe, he of alleged rape fame) has already decided the punishment. The evidence, in Bryant’s world, is secondary to the ’statement’ he demands be made. A statement of fairness. A statement of justice.

Vigilante justice.

Closer to home, leading the way in their own ‘we know what’s best for you, and it damn sure isn’t Bill Belichick’ campaign, are the Seventeen Percenters on Morrisey Blvd., who saw fit to run a front page story, positioned above the fold, about how Belichick’s actions (as defined not by Goodell, of course, but by the owners of the printing press) have affected the youth of the six-state region the Globe ’serves’. Lots of tales of abject disgust and disillusionment, as you might expect. This is the kind of thing that drives teens to despair, suicide, or even worse…..becoming Yankees fans. You have to watch that kind of stuff - that’s the next generation of Yawkey Way customers we’re talking about here. Who will speak for the children?

Naturally, the Seventeen Percenters summoned Mom, otherwise known as sports columnist Jackie MacMullan, to write a finger-wagging, tsk-tsk of a column that asked, plaintively, why? How about we start with ‘what’, Jackie? As in ‘what’ you know, today, as you write the column?

Ah, why wait? We know he’s guilty, even if Goodell doesn’t. After all, as Jim Donaldson said, it’s all in the delivery. We might be entitled to forgive a lovable rogue like Ron Meyer, regardless of his folksy transgression. But a surly despot like Belichick? Hang him, and while he’s twisting there, remind everyone - he brought it all on himself. He could have given us the access we wanted, filled out notebooks with every juicy, catty detail we craved, the respect we deserve, but instead, he dismissed us. Us! Us, who fill their stadium seats, us, who sell their merchandise, us, who buttress their charitable endeavors. Us, who MAKE them.

And Bill Belichick is the arrogant one.

Finally, I leave you this afternoon with a tidbit from Jessica Heslam, media reporter for the Boston Herald (which hasn’t exactly covered itself in glory here either, with its cartoonish photoshops and screaming headlines), who described the scene at Belichick’s terse meeting with the press on Wednesday:

One smiling, beat reporter sat with his laptop open with a picture of Richard Nixon in the background facing toward the podium where Belichick was speaking, according to a locker room spy.

Nixon, huh? That’s funny, I was just reading the Thursday article from a local beat reporter, and damn if he didn’t mention Nixon too. Come to think of it, he hasn’t always been friendly to Belichick or the Patriots. He seems like kind of a pain in the ass, frankly, one of these guys who seems to always be reaching for something to be negative about. Maybe I should just go ahead and name him, since he’s really made no effort to, you know, get along. What’s my incentive for waiting until I have some sort of factual basis to go on? I might be inclined to forgive this sort of thing - or at least defend the concept of due process - if he had just played ball a little bit. But eff him - he did it to himself. So here goes.

It’s……it’s……it’s pathetic, is what it is.

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It’s not posted on their site yet, but Patriots Daily’s Bruce Allen did an interview with Cris Collinsworth for a new segment debuting this week on NBCsports.com. The idea is going to be for Collinsworth to talk to bloggers each week from cities involved in the Sunday night NBC games.

The camera incident was of course a big part of the discussion. Also talked about was Tom Brady’s legacy in comparison to Joe Montana’s, whether Norv Turner can take the Chargers further along than Marty Schottenheimer was able to, and which fan base gives Collinsworth the most grief.

We’ll be sure to pass along the link when it goes live.

We also have our first Patriots Buffet Table column posted, which we’re planning on doing for each home game this season. Our resident food and beer expert has put together a San Diego-themed menu for home use or tailgating and recommended a number of beers to try out with it.

By Bill Barnwell
bill@patriotsdaily.com

Since the videotape controversy was already discussed in a post on Football Outsiders (and Patriots Daily) this week, this week’s column will be a bit of a respite from Videogate.

The Chargers have been left with a conundrum regarding the redoubling of their skill position assets twice now in the last several years. First, Drew Brees emerged as an excellent NFL quarterback just as the Chargers nabbed the promising Philip Rivers in a trade with the Giants (that also netted them Shawne Merriman, in one of the great draft-day swindles of recent memory). When Brees’ contract expired, the Chargers let him walk away to New Orleans without any compensation. While Rivers has been mostly superb in his time as an NFL starter, Brees was an MVP-caliber performer last year. Had the Chargers dealt him after 2004, they could have recouped at least something for the player. Instead, general manager A.J. Smith decided that there was more value in Brees’ skills for a year as opposed to what he could’ve acquired in return in trade (whether it be draft picks and/or veteran players in addition to cap space).

Another somewhat similar situation brewed this past offseason, as Chargers backup RB Michael Turner was a restricted free agent. As per the rules of restricted free agency, the Chargers were allowed to tender him a contract at one of several levels. Turner received a $2.35 million tender, the highest available and accordingly, the one with the most compensation due the Chargers were a team to sign Turner away from them. The Chargers would have received a first- and third-round pick in exchange for Turner had he signed elsewhere; while there were trade talks around the running back, nothing was consummated, and Turner signed his tender offer and is continuing to backup LaDainian Tomlinson this year.

Now, while people may be aware that Michael Turner is a fine running back, allow me to point out how fine he actually is. Turner’s career numbers through three seasons and one week are astoundingly good; he’s averaged 5.9 yards per carry, exceeding Tomlinson’s yards per carry by more than a yard each full season.

That sort of argument, while a point in Turner’s favor, is a misuse of statistics. Namely, Tomlinson gets the ball in situations where he couldn’t possibly gain significant yardage (e.g. inside the five and in short-yardage situations). That’s where DVOA, our pet stat at Football Outsiders, comes in. DVOA measures how a player does each play versus what the league average is, accounting for down and distance, the yardage between the offense and the end zone, and the defense being faced. In addition, Tomlinson carries the ball much more frequently than Turner, which needs to be accounted for — there’s a benefit to having a back who can carry the ball 300 times at a rate better than a guy like Kevan Barlow. We define “replacement-level” as the level of a player the caliber of Barlow, freely-available talent, and then measure a player’s value on a per-play basis as opposed to that freely-available talent cumulatively over the course of a season.

Somewhat surprisingly, while Tomlinson’s DPAR obviously far outweighs Turner’s, Turner’s DVOA is still better than Tomlinson’s.

As you can see, while Tomlinson was the best back in the league on a cumulative basis last season according to DPAR, Turner was the best back in the league on a per-play basis. It’s, in fact, the best DVOA for a back with more than 50 carries in the eleven years we’ve got DVOA numbers for.

While DVOA is a more accurate indicator of performance than unadjusted yards, again, we see that Turner’s still performing better than Tomlinson on a per-play basis. There’s a second set of reasons for that, none of which are easily quantifiable or even provable. He gets more rest. He doesn’t start, and comes in when the defense is tired. The defense doesn’t prepare for him the same way they do for Tomlinson, and they don’t adjust accordingly. There’s probably some truth in those things, but there’s every reason to think Michael Turner’s a pretty good running back.

There’s a reason to think that he’s not, though, and his name is Richard Huntley.

Some of you may remember Huntley; he was a relatively nondescript running back for a few years in the NFL, playing for four teams. He was drafted by Atlanta in the fourth round in 1996, spent a year there, was waived, and then went to Pittsburgh, where he sat on the practice squad for a season. In 1998, he had 55 carries for 242 yards; decent numbers, but a product of context and full of lots of third-and-long useless yardage, as was reflected in his -35.2% DVOA. 1999, though, brought a new Richard Huntley to the fore. He gained 6.1 yards per carry on 93 carries, became a solid receiver in the rushing game, and put up a 21.9% rushing DVOA, good for fourth in the league. The Steelers responded by giving him a three-year, $4 million contract and a chance to compete with Jerome Bettis (who was in the final year of his contract) for the starting job in training camp. Bettis won out, but as if to prove his 1999 was not a fluke, Huntley’s rushing DVOA in 2000 rose to 30.3%, good for fourth in football. Bettis’ DVOA was significantly lower, at 10.7%, but that was still good enough for seventh in the league.

Huntley was cut after the season and signed with Carolina, where he would challenge the oft-injured Tshimanga Biakabutuka for the starting gig. In traditional fashion, Biakabutuka got hurt and Huntley was the starting back for most of the season. Huntley’s line: 165 carries, 658 yards, a -25% DVOA, and -6.2 DPAR — in other words, replacing Huntley with the best free agent you could find at the minimum salary would have been preferable to actually using him. Carolina went 1-15 that year, George Seifert was fired, and Huntley had three more carries in his career before he was out of football.

Huntley’s an example of something DVOA can’t account for, but a scout or an observer with access to DVOA can: The rest of the offense. As useful as DVOA is, it can’t account for the quality of an offensive line or a quarterback’s ability to put a running back in a good situation more often than not. It’s just impossible to get a first down on third-and-8 running the ball every time. Huntley played with a very good offensive line in Pittsburgh. He certainly did not in Carolina. In Pittsburgh, his quarterback was Kordell Ste…people thought he was good then. In Carolina, his quarterback was Chris Weinke. The situation in Pittsburgh was just more conducive to being a successful running back than in Carolina. DVOA can help strip some of that information out, but not all of it.

So, then, Huntley presents the cautionary tale in thinking that signing a successful backup from a pretty good rushing team is a good way to upgrade your running back spot. Of course, there are positive examples too. What we can do to more accurately ascertain whether the new running back was an improvement on the old one is to judge their DVOA versus that of the starter’s the previous year’s. While Huntley’s -25.0% DVOA was certainly abysmal, Biakabutuka’s DVOA the year before was an even more abysmal -26.1% DVOA. We track a statistic called “Success Rate” which measures what percentage of the time a running back has a “successful carry” — meaning he got a chunk of yardage significant enough to push his team closer to a first down than closer to losing the ball. The average starting running back succeeds about 43% of the time. In 2000, Tshiminga Biakabutuka succeeded 20.5% of the time. That’s astoundingly poor. Huntley got that up to 39%, which is at least remotely close to competency.

Perhaps the best way to see what teams might be getting into if they sign Michael Turner after this season is to look at the performance of teams who have acquired another team’s backup running back (defined as the back with the second-most carries on the team) and made them their starters. We’ll then track their performance the year after and compare it both to how they performed the year prior and how they did relative to the back they replaced. Since we only have DVOA and DPAR for seasons from 1996-2006, this analysis will only include backs from those seasons.

1. Lamar Smith (1997-98 and 1999-00)

Lamar Smith was one of two backs (both of whom were named Smith) to pull this move twice in his career. Starting off his career with Seattle, Smith was an average back by all measures — he averaged right around 4.5 yards per carry, and his DVOA in 1996 and 1997 was right around there: 3.2% and 0.2%. Nothing awful by any means, but not a star about to breakout, either. The Ditka administration in New Orleans brought him in to replace the awful Ray Zellars-Mario Bates hydra of suck, and Smith only made it to 138 carries. His DVOA, a miserable -38.6%, was actually worse than Zellars’ -34.2% the year before, and way behind Bates’ -19.0%. The result? Mike Ditka traded his whole draft for Ricky Williams (who put up a -30.6% DVOA his rookie year), and Smith returned to his backup role for a year.

Smith then moved onto Miami, where Jimmy Johnson was fooling around with Cecil Collins, J.J Johnson, and the last vestiges of Karim Abdul-Jabbar’s career. He made Smith his starter and Smith proceeded to not only bump his DVOA back up to a very respectable -1.6%, he had one of the great out-of-nowhere fantasy season of all-time, with 309 carries for 1139 yards and 16 touchdowns. He improved on Collins’ -18.5% DVOA dramatically. A year later, he averaged only 3.1 yards per carry, and in 2002, Ricky Williams replaced him again.

2. Charlie Garner (1998-99)

Garner’s mercurial career saw him start off as the backup to Ricky Watters in Philadelphia; when Watters left, it seemed likely that Garner would get the starting gig, but he was beat out by Duce Staley. Garner took the opportunity to replace the injured Garrison Hearst in San Francisco, and had an excellent year on a terrible 49ers team (this was the year that Steve Young went down at the hands of Aeneas Williams in Week 3). Garner’s DVOA went from -15.9% to 7.6%, and he kept his DVOA pretty close to Hearst’s 1997 performance of 9.4%. On a significantly worse team (the 49ers went from 12-4 to 4-12), it was an admirable performance and the beginning of Garner’s short career as a starting running back.

3. Ahman Green (1999-00)

Very few people, by this point, remember Green starting his career in Seattle. After being drafted in the third round in 1998, he spent two years struggling to get a foothold on any significant playing time, and was then dealt to the Packers for CB Fred Vinson, a second-round pick the year before. Vinson never played a game for the Seahawks. Green gained over 8,000 yards for the Packers. Oops. Green’s DVOA as a Seahawk in 1999 was good (21.4%), but it was gained on only 26 carries and that’s not enough of a sample to be of any reliability. As a Packer, his DVOA was a solid 6.9%, which was a significant improvement over Dorsey Levens’ -13.5% DVOA the year before. It’d be hard to find any way to say this wasn’t an incredibly successful move for both Green and the Packers.

4. Priest Holmes (2000-01)

The big one. Holmes had a strange start to his career. His first year with any playing time, he ran for 1008 yards and gained 4.3 yards per carry. The next year, he was hurt and only played eight games, but gained a ridiculous 5.6 yards per carry, good for a 22.9% DVOA, second in the league. The Ravens drafted Jamal Lewis and won the Super Bowl in 2000; Holmes backed him up and had a 12.5% DVOA, fourth in the league. If Football Outsiders had been around then, Holmes would have been one of the players we championed the way we do Jerious Norwood now.

Holmes went on, of course, to gain 1555 yards behind a great offensive line in Kansas City the next year. His DVOA that season was 20%, a slight improvement over the criminally underrated Tony Richardson’s 18.1% the year before. It was the third-best DVOA in the league that year, though, and Holmes would be in that rarified air until he got hurt in 2005. He’s the inverse Richard Huntley.

5. Terry Allen (2000-01)

The running back who would not die, Allen came back from injuries to have seemingly three careers. He was solid (4.5% DVOA) as Ricky Williams’ backup in New Orleans, and when Jamal Lewis went down for the season in 2001, with Holmes gone, Allen became the starter in what was his last NFL season. His DVOA wasn’t very good at -5.8%, but it wasn’t a disaster, either, when you compare it to Lewis’ 5.5% the year before.

6. Antowain Smith (2000-01, 2004-05)

The other Smith who pulled this move twice, Antowain lost his job to Travis Henry in Buffalo and was one of the thousands of veteran refugees brought in by Bill Belichick for the magical 2001 season. His DVOA stayed remarkably similar to his performance in Buffalo, going from -9.5% to -10%, but it was a ways better than Kevin Faulk’s -20.7% the year before, or J.R. Redmond’s -19.9%. I think everyone here knows the Smith story well enough.

In 2004, he rose again! After being let go by the Patriots, he ended up in Tennessee, where he backed up Chris Brown. He made his way the year after to New Orleans in its Katrina-riddled season, where stats are pretty irrelevant. Again, his DVOA stayed remarkably consistent (-12.7% to -12.5%), and while he was slightly worse than Deuce McAllister had been the year before, there’s no real predicative value to the 2005 Saints season.

7. Richard Huntley (2000-01)

8. Trung Canidate (2001-02)

Canidate was the speed demon and late first-round pick who was supposed to make the terrifying Rams offense even more so, but he never really made an impact. He barely played in 2000 and 2002, although he was fantastic in 2001, when he averaged 5.8 yards per carry and his 24.1% DVOA was best in football. The Rams shipped him to Washington, where he served as the starter in Steve Spurrier’s offense, splitting carries with Rock Cartwright and Ladell Betts. He actually was an improvement on Stephen Davis’ -8.4% DVOA, putting up a respectable -2.2% DVOA, but he couldn’t take the workload of the starting role, Washington traded for Clinton Portis, and Canidate never played again.

9. Warrick Dunn (2001-02)

Dunn wasn’t a backup inasmuch as he was a complimentary back to Mike Alstott. He was the featured back from 1997-98 and in 2000, but was technically the backup by seven carries in 2001 by virtue of missing three games. He went to Atlanta and was a big improvement over Maurice Smith, who also had one year as a starter and never played again.

10. Amos Zereoue (2003-04)

Zereoue was hyped as a good running back while backing up Jerome Bettis, but the numbers don’t show it. His best DVOA was -9.4%, and he was usually closer to -20%. He never had an above-average success rate, and was eventually dumped off to Oakland for the first year of the Norv Turner era. Replacing Wheatley (5.3% DVOA), Zereoue’s -14.1% DVOA did not help the Raiders’ many problems one bit. He made it to three games for the ‘05 Patriots and was done.

11. Thomas Jones (2003-04)

Jones is another guy who had a strange career dictated by context; he went from first-round bust in Arizona to backup material in Tampa Bay to successful back on a Super Bowl team in Chicago. He wasn’t particularly effective in Tampa Bay, putting up a -12.4% DVOA while backing up Michael Pittman (-2.8% DVOA), but the Bears acquired him to supplant the A-Train, Anthony Thomas, who had actually put up a reasonably close to average -3.8% DVOA the year before. Jones got all the way up to -2.3% DVOA before really hitting his stride in 2005.

12. Corey Dillon (2003-04)

Another well-known story to readers of this site. Dillon’s -5.8% DVOA in Cincinnati in 2003 wasn’t fabulous by any means. He got it up to 21.2% in 2004 in New England, supplanting Smith, who was also at -5.8% in 2003.

13. Lamont Jordan (2004-05)

For my money, the closest comp to Turner. Jordan put up some extreme DVOAs as a Jet: in 2001, he was at 46.6% on 39 carries; in 2002, -40% on 84. 2003 saw him actually be average, with a 4.2% DVOA on 46 carries, and then back with 93 carries in 2004, his final year as a Jet, his 36.6% was second-best in the league. By comparison, Curtis Martin’s DVOA that year was 20%, good for eighth in the league, but he led the league with 54.9 DPAR.

The salary cap-strapped Jets had no way to keep Jordan to backup Martin, even though Martin was old and likely to breakdown the next year (which he did). Jordan moved onto Oakland, which gave him a five-year, $27.5 million deal. As you might remember, he was not the best back in football again. His DVOA dropped down to 1.5%; this, however, was still an improvement on Zereoue’s -14.1%. He was hurt for almost all of 2006.

14. Chester Taylor (2005-06)

Another Raven who flew the coop. He was no Holmes, as his -8.1% DVOA as a backup in 2005 was by no means spectacular. With Minnesota needing a running back after Whizzenation, they signed Taylor and gave him the bulk of the carries behind their restructured offensive line. Taylor wasn’t particularly great for a guy who gained 1,216 yards. His -9.4% DVOA was worse than he’d been in Baltimore, and was a step down from Mewelde Moore’s 1.9% DVOA the year before. Taylor was more durable, though, which is why he got the rock.

So, then, combining empirical judgement of the results along with some of my own opinions, I count eight improvements, five declines, and three relative washes. Of course, a back with the success of Turner isn’t really comparable to the failure Ahman Green was thought to be, or the starter Warrick Dunn was. In more likelihood, you can classify Turner in a group of elite backups alongside Jordan, Holmes, and Huntley. Those players went to three teams with very different offensive lines and played accordingly. Turner’s career, and his future as a star back, depends upon the same.

by Dan Snapp
dan@patriotsdaily.com

What the hell is going on?

The Patriots did play Sunday, right? Because suddenly I’m not so sure. Is it even September? Did they even start the season?

We should have been three days into a post-blowout celebration, but we’ve been cheated of that. The rumors that the Patriots are guilty of illegally recording Jets defensive signals, and the mass media fallout that’s resulted, have left us all feeling a little hazy.

It’s still early, and there’s only smoke so far (lots and lots and lots of smoke), but that’s not stopping people from yelling “Fire!” Some are way out ahead of themselves, like Terrell Davis on the NFL Network suggesting a two-year playoff ban. Mike Florio ponders whether Coach Bill Belichick will be fired or merely suspended. And LaDainian Tomlinson, already on record last winter as calling Belichick “classless”, is shooting his mouth off again.

“I think the Patriots actually live by the saying, ‘If you’re not cheating, you’re not trying,’” opined Tomlinson, sharing the results of his exhaustive investigation. You know LaDainian, he’s classy. Just ask him.

There’s still nothing definitive from the league yet, only reports from ESPN’s Chris Mortensen that Commissioner Roger Goodell has already determined the Patriots guilty. Mike Reiss, and Shalise Manza Young , however, have league spokesman Greg Aiello saying no decision has yet been rendered. And Mortensen’s sources have left him dangling recently on stories about Michael Vick and Eli Manning.

Nonetheless, Patriots fans should brace for the worst. Goodell’s the gunfighter hired to clean up Dodge, and neither the team’s reputation nor Robert Kraft’s influence will stop Goodell from making an example of them. Plus, they might just be guilty.

The damage already done to the Patriots reputation may be worse than anything Goodell could mete out.

There was an old novel, “The Good Soldier”, in which two couples enjoy the best of friendships over a nine-year period. The narrator comes to learn his wife’s been cheating on him with his best friend over that same span. He wrestles with the question of whether  this news negates all the good times enjoyed, since every memory has now been corrupted.

This is what Patriots fans have in store for them, whether they themselves will be rehashing the authenticity of the Super Bowl wins, or whether it’s being zealously done for them by pundits and opposing fans alike. It took the 2003 and 2004 wins to quell the “tuck rule” clarion calls, but now there’s gristle for the masses to call those into question as well.

Yeah, we’re never going to hear the end of this.

So are the Patriots victims of some breach of unwritten NFL etiquette? Everybody steals signals, everybody knows about it, but nobody says anything until some maverick whistle-blower decides he wants to take down the league’s elite? That sort of thing?

Even if there’s truth to the “Everybody does it” argument, it doesn’t wash here. The Patriots were so amazingly, arrogantly brazen with this, it’s almost as if they were trying to get caught.

We never thought we’d ever be saying this about Belichick, but how stupid can he get? The same assistant videographer got nabbed in Green Bay, they’ve been warned by the league about the practice, and oh yeah, his old assistant coach - a guy who knows how the operation runs -  is on the other sideline. Ya think they might be looking for it?

The punishment is going to leave somebody unsatisfied. Execs like Bill Polian and Bob Harlan smell blood in the air, and are going for the jugular. Will the loss of a second- and fifth-round pick (The speculation from Sports Illustrated’s Don Banks) appease them? Or will the sway of public opinion force more forfeitures of picks, a forfeiture of the game, or like Florio predicts, a suspension for Belichick?

The events of the last few days have also revealed the league-wide contempt for the Patriots. Remember the days of the Cowboys with the “America’s Team” crap, and how reviled they were for it? That’s the Patriots now.

Whatever Goodell’s decision, the Patriots should follow Rodney Harrison’s lead, cooperating with the league, accepting the punishment and moving on as best they can. We should have little doubt the first thing we hear out of Belichick’s mouth is, “I’m just concentrating on the next game.”

Here we thought it might actually be easy this season. Big free agent signings, huge trades for premier players, and nary a storm on the horizon, save for Asante Samuel’s contract talks.

We should have known better. The Patriots are at their best when facing adversity. Here’s hoping they’re at their best now.

Adversity’s here.

by Scott Benson
scott@patriotsdaily.com

ESPN’s Chris Mortensen - citing ‘league sources’ - reports tonight that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has decided that the Patriots violated league rules on Sunday by stationing a cameraman to videotape the defensive signals of the New York Jets.

The league has not issued a statement on the controversy, which arose in the wake of the Jets embarrassing loss in the season’s opening game.

Mortensen’s sources - who chose to remain anonymous - claim that the Patriots will have until Friday to respond to the charges. Goodell, according to Mortensen’s sources, could impose “severe sanctions” that may include “multiple draft picks”.

The sources go on to allege that the Patriots are also being investigated due to questions - presumably raised by the Jets - about audio communications equipment used by the Patriots during their one-sided victory over New York, which had been touted as the Patriots’ immediate successor as divisional champions.

Mortensen’s report does not indicate whether the league’s Competition Committee - which includes Colts President Bill Polian - has conferenced on the matter, or made a recommendation to the Commissioner. No committee member has commented for the record on the Patriots controversy.

Patriots Daily will continue to monitor this developing story.  Full commentary will follow in Friday’s Patriots Roundtable.
 

by Christopher Price
chris@patriotsdaily.com

At the start of the second half on Sunday when Ellis Hobbs started out of the end zone eight yards deep, almost every Patriots fan from Bridgeport to Block Island — as well as most of the New England sideline and coaches box — had the same thought: Good Lord, what is he doing? Anyone who has ever played football knows that you never think about doing something like that.

“It was one of those things where it was like, ‘No, no, no,’” said wide receiver Wes Welker of his reaction when Hobbs started out of the end zone.

But Patriots Head Coach Bill Belichick knows that when it comes to returning kicks and punts, things aren’t always what they seem to be. You can’t get caught up in the traditional hard and fast rules of special teams — like automatically taking a knee if the kick is received in the end zone, or not calling for a fair-catch inside the 20.

“Every kick is different,” cautioned Belichick yesterday when recalling Hobbs’ return.

That’s why, when the Iowa State product started his 108-yard trek into history, Belichick was maybe the one New England follower who didn’t wonder what was going on. Much is made of his background as a defensive mastermind, but that discussion often shortchanges Belichick’s history on special teams. Few head coaches have the special teams background that Belichick does. Among his other duties, he was a special teams coach from 1976 to 1982 with the Lions, Broncos and Giants. Seven years — longer than anyone else who is currently an NFL head coach, other than Cleveland’s Romeo Crennel. And more than most head coaches, he knows the importance of special teams — some would argue that his special teams unit was almost solely responsible for winning the 2001 AFC Championship Game against the Steelers.

And while many teams have hard and fast rules on special teams play, Belichick said yesterday he’s frowned on such an approach. That not only goes for the personnel asked to work on special teams — the Patriots remain one of the few teams in the league who use a healthy number of starters for most special teams formations — but for on-field decisions on punts and kick returns. You can give a returner some general guidelines and a solid phalanx of blockers, but in the end, there are too many variables to use a dogmatic approach to the kicking game.

“I think if you’ve been around the kicking game in this league long enough, you know it’s hard to have a hard and fast rule and be right every time,” Belichick said yesterday. “You could have a rule, but I don’t think you’re going to be right every time.”

According to Belichick, there are simply too many possibilities.

“Hang time is involved, which I’d say is a big factor. You tell me whether you’d rather handle a ball that is three yards deep in the end zone with a 3.7 hang time or handle a ball that comes down on the goal line with 4.2 hang time. It’s not the same,” Belichick said yesterday.

“You can say don’t catch the ball inside the 10-yard line, but if there’s a five-second hang time and you have four guys standing behind you on the goal line and the ball comes down on the six, I don’t know how smart it is to let it hit and bounce down to the two,” he added, referencing Kevin Faulk’s decision to take a fair-catch on a first quarter punt at New England’s nine-yard line.

So when Hobbs came churning down the sidelines into history, Welker — as well as everyone else who had a flying Elvis on the side of their helmet or front of their shirt — quickly changed their tune from “no, no, no” to “yes, yes, yes.” And New England had its latest special teams hero.

“I think Ellis made the decision that he thought was the best one at that time,” Belichick said. “ It worked out OK, so that’s good. I think he was trying to make a play. What I always encourage the players to do is try to make a good play and it turned out good.”

FIVE THINGS TO LOOK FOR THIS WEEK

1. How the New England offensive line handles the San Diego linebackers. The Charger LBs can bring the pressure like few other teams in the league — last year, only one other team had a higher percentage of sacks come from their linebackers than San Diego. On the heels of their effort against the Jets (when they held New York sackless), it’ll be another stern test for Patriots’ offensive linemen Matt Light, Logan Mankins, Dan Koppen, Stephen Neal, Nick Kaczur and Ryan O’Callaghan.

2. The Randy Moss/Quentin Jammer matchup. Jammer isn’t the shy retiring type — on his Web site last year, he wondered how many picks he would get against Moss — even though a Los Angeles Times story recently named him the league’s worst corner in coverage (by their count, he was targeted 126 times last season and gave up 72 receptions, a league high). Moss is coming off one of the best performances for a wide receiver (nine catches, 183 yards, one TD) in the history of the New England franchise. It’s likely the two will spend the bulk of Sunday evening going head-to-head.

3. The continued maturation of Laurence Maroney. For the first time in his professional career, Maroney had a game where he got 20 or more carries. As he starts to develop into a full-time featured back, games like this week’s contest with the Chargers (who were a Top 10 team against the run last season) will go a long way toward defining his career as a No. 1 running back in the NFL.

4. Special teams showdown. Can Ellis Hobbs turn in another solid return performance? Can Matt Cassel regain his role as holder after botching a 43-yard field goal attempt by Stephen Gostkowski? And will Chris Hanson get a chance to punt in a pressure situation?

5. Playoff hangover. Even though most of the bad blood stemming from the post-playoff histrionics was supposedly settled at the Pro Bowl and during the offseason, there’s still enough history between these two teams to make one think that it’s not completely in the past. If things get out of hand for either side, this game certainly has the potential to get ugly fast.

STAT OF THE WEEK

10. The Patriots had the ball for 12:30 in the fourth quarter of Sunday’s win, an astounding 10 more minutes than the Jets.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“I always try to find that sixth or seventh gear, the gear they don’t even make.” - Kick returner Ellis Hobbs on one of his goals as a return man.

Christopher 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. His book “The Blueprint: How the New England Patriots Beat the System to Create the Last Great NFL Superpower” will be released in October by Thomas Dunne Books. He can be reached at chris@patriotsdaily.com.