Yes, I am biased toward the New England Patriots in the AFC Match-up this Sunday between our Beloved New England Patriots and the Wanna-be low-rent NY Jets. My fandom for the Patriots is not something that should surprise anyone as in this neck of the woods, it is the classic Boston - NY rivalry.
For example:
RED SOX vs. YANKEES - (RED SOX are the classy team)
PATRIOTS vs. JETS - ( PATRIOTS - Ditto )
BRUINS vs. RANGERS - (BRUINS - They take no prisoners)
CELTICS vs. KNICKS - ( CELTICS - Knicks are a joke)
And so it goes.....Now we have a Loud Mouth Braggart Coach, Rex "yes-my-wife & I have-a-foot-fetish" Ryan acting like he himself will be out there on the field playing the game against Tom Brady....ridiculous.
Bill Belichick has no need to run his mouth - He displays the quiet steady Leadership that marks a Champion....His opponent coaching the Jets looks like the loud obnoxious idiot you avoid at all costs....Ryan is a feckless bastard who will be taught yet another lesson this Sunday by the Masters, Brady & Belichick
And just to provide further evidence, let's look at the Patriots by the numbers:
1 -- Number of Super Bowl victories that quarterback Tom Brady needs to tie Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw for the most Super Bowl wins by a starting quarterback in NFL history. Brady is tied with Troy Aikman with three.
5 -- Number of conference championship game berths since 2000, tied with the Eagles for the most since that year.
9 -- The Patriots are the only team in the NFL to have recorded nine or more wins in each of the last 10 seasons.
14 -- Number of playoff games the Patriots have won in the past 10 years, tied for the most by any team in any 10-year period.
.846 -- The Patriots' home playoff winning percentage, the best mark in NFL history (11 wins in 13 games).
SUNDAY will be the next step in the Championship season during which the PATRIOTS have demonstrated that they are the class of the league.....Sunday afternoon will be the battle and we will be there watching faithfully. GO NEW ENGLAND !!!
Jets noise mostly bounces off even-keel Patriots
By Len Pasquarelli
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com
Jan. 12, 2011
Coach Blowhard may have put his foot in his mouth again -- as opposed, one might point out, to someone else's tootsies between his incisors -- when he reissued the hackneyed "it's personal" challenge to characterize Sunday's third meeting with the New England Patriots this season.
For those who pay attention to semantics, that's "it's personal" as opposed to the lame "personal matter" camouflage behind which he recently reverted to deflect all those foot-fetish accusations of the past few weeks. Similar words, of course, but different intents, indeed, even the outspoken New York Jets head coach and resident manure-stirrer Rex Ryan would agree.
While his purposeful goal may have been to increase the temperature of a Jets team that ironically figures to confront polarized extremes late Sunday afternoon -- the league's hottest offense playing in Arctic-level conditions -- Ryan has succeeded in ratcheting up the rhetoric. But just as significantly, he has raised the hackles of a New England bunch that seems to successfully subvert its sentiments.
The latest example, taking Ryan's hyperbolic lead, came Tuesday, when cornerback Antonio Cromartie termed Patriots' quarterback Tom Brady an orifice from which human manure exits. Pretty strong words from a guy who on national television, couldn't remember the ages of his seven kids. For the sake of the Jets and Ryan, here's hoping that Cromartie, who has fathered the seven children with six different women, exercises more discipline in his coverage techniques that he apparently did with his contraceptive methods.
Noted one Patriots veteran on Tuesday evening, reacting to Ryan and Cromartie, but declining for fear of retribution from his coach or his teammates to attach his name to his words: "Damn right we're (upset). But we bite our tongues here. It's part of what you marry into when you come here. We'll do our talking out on the field, where the pictures are worth a million words, not in sound bites that are going to get all that useless attention."
Credit Ryan and Cromartie and the rest of the mouthy Jets for at least standing behind their trash-talking. The Jets don't talk off the record or without attribution, and for such lack of cover they are to be congratulated. But they are like the sassy neighbor who lives next door, but carries on his battles across the backyard fence, and always finds a ready excuse to dash back inside when you're both out getting the mail at the same time.
Measure, not mouthiness, usually wins such critical NFL games. And there is no more measured team than the Patriots, who reflect the dispassion of their coach, in much the same way the Jets mimic their leader. It's easy for the media to be critical of Bill Belichick, because you leave his press conferences with a notebook page half-filled, as opposed to requiring a couple legal pads for Ryan's rants. But neither man would have it any other way. And just as the bluster of Ryan now permeates his team, the publically even-keel approach of Belichick prevails with the Pats.
The overriding promise of The Wizard of Oz is that, once the needy had navigated the treacherous yellow brick road, the great and powerful man would deliver, among other things, a heart and courage to the deficient. The truth, though, was that The Wizard rendered his best rhetoric from behind a curtain. Ryan doesn't ask for any draperies, but the curtain could come down on his shtick if he and his team fail to deliver on their inflammatory words.
In New England, it's understood that you play, and you act, like a Patriot. With the Jets? Well, as the HBO series Hard Knocks displayed, they've got to erect signs that remind their charges to "Play like a Jet." Even if his history of the franchise is more along the lines of the performance of a bi-plane. And they've got to stoke the players with those "it's personal" proclamations. In New England, conversely, nary is heard a discouraging, or defamatory word.
Notable with the two AFC East rivals is that each has a "New" in front on its name. But the guess is that, on Sunday afternoon, it's going to be the same old story: the braggadocious bully may win the debate, but probably not the football game
THIS is part of what makes NEW ENGLAND the team to beat...many others would rehash the past...Not Belichick, not Brady. They have only one focus - WINNING on Super Bowl Sunday.
