Down but Not Out

This kind of reaction really burns me. Real classy fans they have there in New York.

I've been a Red Sox fan (and Yankee hater) for over 30 years -- a rivalry that makes anything the NFL has to offer look like a Sunday School picnic -- and I have never cheered or applauded when a rival player was injured or suffer any other misfortune. Unbelievable.

I'm not ready to throw in the proverbial towel yet, and I'm certainly not conceding the division title to anyone (much less the NY Jest) one (victorious) game into the season. The team that was introduced as such in Super Bowl XXXVI has been challenged at every other position, and while this test may be harder than most, it doesn't mean the season's over.

Last season, the Patriots found their motivation in the previous year's playoff loss, and then the absurd media piling-on that surrounded the Spygate episode. They had something to prove then, and they have something to prove now. There's still plenty of talent on that team, they have the best coach in the business, and Matt Cassel isn't exactly a rusty tomato can.

It is a tragedy that one of the NFL's premier players will miss a season while in the prime of his career, but any team worth anything is bigger than just one player. Now's the chance to figure out how big they really are. The New England Patriots truly have nothing to lose -- conversely, victorious opponents (if any) know that there will be an asterisk next to each "W."

And those bozos dancing on tables in Manhattan and elsewhere have lost their right to lecture anybody on character.