GoPats.com - Out In The Loop

Show Your Patriotism And Win A Trip To Aruba

2011-04-22T14:12:15Z

We heard from the folks at the Aruba Marriott about a contest they are holding to find the biggest Patriots fan.

All you need to do is submit a video through their Facebook page for a chance to win. Why a trip to Aruba? It just so happens the 2012 Patriots Cheerleader is being held at the same resort. The prize to be awarded is two round trip tickets to Aruba for a four-day, three-night stay at the Aruba Marriott.

Visit the Aruba Marriott Resort’s Facebook fan page for rules and to enter.

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This is from Out In The Loop, a journal of the musings of Mike Maddaloni, a Boston sports fan living in Chicago.

New Link For SportsMemorabilia.com

2011-04-09T20:36:16Z

We just heard from Frank at SportsMemorabilia.com about their site. He was also kind enough to point out a couple of broken links on the GoPats.com Links page. So of course we added a link to his site, which is a one-stop shop for sports memorabilia fans.

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This is from Out In The Loop, a journal of the musings of Mike Maddaloni, a Boston sports fan living in Chicago.

New Graphic by Jeffrey Carrier

2011-01-03T15:40:46Z

Happy New Year! As the Pats prepare for the postseason and take a well-deserved bye week off, here’s a graphic by Jeffrey Carrier of Artistic Revelation. Jeff has contributed some of his great work to GoPats.com over the years and this one came in late last year, and after weeding through my email, I am just getting to it now. No time like the present, eh? Click on the image for a full-sized version. Go Pats!

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Kevin Faulk Celebrity Softball on May 15, 2010

2010-04-24T04:16:51Z

We heard from Kevin Faulk’s people about his annual celebrity softball game, and want to pass along the details.

It will be held at Campanelli Stadium in Brockton, MA on May 15, 2010. The game will start at 7:05 PM. There are two types of tickets available for the game; V.I.P. and general admission. V.I.P. tickets will be $150 and general admission are $10. Tickets can be bought here.

The proceeds for this event will benefit the United Way, Kevin’s charity of choice. It is a great event and it is a good opportunity to see your favorite Patriots players play Softball.

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Say How Much Of A Fan You Are With Boston Accents

2009-10-24T19:54:41Z

When I recently visited my friends Tim and Mary, I saw Tim sporting a t-shirt reading, “Wicked big Celts fan.” Being from the Bay State myself and knowing Tim is from there too, I asked him where he got it. It turns out he knows who makes them. Being the consummate networker he is, Tim put me in touch with them.

Boston Accents has a number of t-shirts and caps that, as you can guess, have sayings with a Boston accent. They sent me some samples at no cost, including a cap reading, “wicked big Pats fan” and t-shirts reading the same as the cap and “Best quartahback evah™ - 12,” which is trademarked, who knew? All the t-shirts have a unique color dying that gives them an earthen look, and fit very well. They did not ask me to promote them here on Out In The Loop, but I offered as they are fellow entrepreneurs, not to mention Boston sports fans.

By wearing Boston Accents, you can not only show your colors, but say them with the proper accent, which is wicked pissa!

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New Link For New England Patriots Latest News

2009-10-24T19:35:37Z

We heard from the folks at New England Patriots Latest News, which looks like a news aggregation site for Pats news. Worth checking out, especially for those Out In The Loop!

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New Link For Best Buy Fantasy

2009-10-24T18:23:11Z

We just heard from the folks at Best Buy Fantasy about the site and weekly contests. It is a weekly fantasy football challenge where participants compete against celebrities to be entered into sweepstakes and win prizes. Every point by which the participant beats the celebrity grants them one entry into the weekly sweepstakes.

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Week 3 Guest Column By Mike Scanlon

2009-09-29T20:32:22Z

Special They Aren’t

by Mike Scanlon

If you are looking for an elegant win, one with long arcing completions and stout defensive stands, then this game wasn’t for you. A win though is a win, last I checked, so let’s see how the 2-1 Patriots managed to defeat the sophomore Falcon quarterback Matt Ryan.

The game was characterized by lots of sustained drives, mostly running out of gas within the red zone (only 1 in 5 inside the 20 resulting in a TD), and chip shot field goals. While Steven Gostkowski was a busy guy on Sunday kicking 4 field goals, his sharpshooting capabilities were never tested as he never had to boot one from more than 33 yards.

Another hallmark of this game was the extremely poor play of the Pats special teams. Especially on kickoff returns, the Pats allowed 25, 33, 26, 34 and 23 yard returns throughout the game. These lapses resulted in decent to very good field position for the more than capable Matt Ryan. Ryan had a decent game connecting on 17 of 28 for 199 yards, though luckily enough also had his problems punching through to paydirt. Atlanta’s only score came with 8:48 remaining in the 2nd quarter with a 2 yard plunge by Running Back Michael Turner.

What we haven’t discussed so far was the play of Tom Brady. The reason why is that while he didn’t any big mistakes, he didn’t make many game breaking plays either. Brady went 25 for 42 and 277 yards and a touchdown. Several times during the game he went deep, though each time the team came up short. Balls just off fingertips or just off the mark seemed to be a play that repeated itself during the course of the game. Tom seemed pretty ticked off most of the game with the cameras focusing on him yelling at his teammates, with his jugular vein throbbing on national TV.

Tom certainly has his work cut out for him, not only is his defensive corps depleted, he is missing his main go to guy in Wes Welker, who was out again this week. Its tough to make up the 10+ catches and 100 yards of offense that Welker would typically pick up week after week.

This brings us to a couple of the bright spots of the game.

1) Randy Moss. #81 was thrown at 16 times, and caught 10 balls for 116 yards. While he didn’t connect for a touchdown he helped stretch the defense by going long on several occasions, and also connecting on a 21 yard strike. He also took his share of lumps by catching several short crossing routes that ended in completions, and also big hits at his expense.

2) Something we haven’t seen in some time, an actual running attack. All told the Patriots ran for 168 yards on 58 attempts and 1 rushing touchdown. Fred Taylor accounted for 105 of those yards (as well as the rushing TD). An effective running game helped keep the pressure off Brady and kept the chains moving, even when the rest of the offense was sputtering. This also helped support the incredible advantage that the Patriots held in time of possession, nearly 2:1 over the Falcons.

The Pats weren’t all that special today, but had enough to win.

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New Guest Column By Mike Scanlon

2009-09-23T19:27:35Z

Editor’s Note: Mike Scanlon returns to GoPats.com as a guest columnist. He first wrote for us a while back, and we hope there will be more to come! As always, feedback and comments are welcome!

A Tale of 2 Halves

Depending on which half of this week’s Patriots, Jets game you watched, you would have drawn vastly different conclusions. The end result though is that Tom Brady lost his first regular season game in nearly three years today, and almost as incredibly his first loss to the co-residents of Giants Stadium at their home EVER.

What went wrong?

Last week the Patriots first half looked pretty similar. Nearly 200 yards of offense this week, 230 last week. Lead by 4 points at the end of the first half last week, 6 points this week, Brady completed similar amounts of passes. What’s the difference?

These aren’t the hapless, shoot themselves in the foot, take the ball out of the endzone with nothing to gain Buffalo Bills. THAT’S THE DIFFERENCE. The Jets are a young, well coached, hungry team that stayed focused in the face of adversity. Something we’re not all that used to from our neighbors to the south.

But I digress, the tale of 2 halves was quite striking. During the first half the Patriots sustained drives of 43, 5,(-10),23,53 and 79 yards, scoring 3 times for a total of 9 points. Their starting field position was a respectable average of the 30 yard line. As good as the Patriots performance was during this first half, the Jets was, well, uninspiring to say the least. The Jets progressed the ball an eye popping -1 yard during the first quarter. -1 yards! I beat that amount and never left my couch (except to open some chips and open the door for the pizza guy). The Jets finished up the first half with a total of 48 yards of offense.

The second half looked like the first, except the Patriots looked and played like the first half Jets. The visitors could only sustain drives of 0, 18,17, 14 and 18 yards. They were unable to execute those crutial drives that we have come to expect from Brady and the Pats. With 1:48 on the clock, the ball on their own 10 yard line, Tom Brady took the field, needing a touchdown to win the game. 29 times in the past we were treated to similar game ending situations, 29 times Tom Terrific has marched his team down the field to plunge a dagger into the hearts of their opponents. Unlike all those times however, the Pats could only muster 5 plays and 18 yards before they ran out of downs and chances.

While its true that the Patriots should have made more of their three scoring drives during the first half. Combinations of Brady overthrowing receivers and good coverage by the Jets stopped the Pats short. It’s also true that the Patriots had no answer to Mark Sanchez and his two-headed rushing team of Leon Washington and Thomas Jones. The two combined for 28 carries and 112 yards of rushing.

Question: Is Tom still tentative after his year out from the game? Is the defense reeling from the retirements of Rodney Harrison, Teddy Bruschi and the departure of Richard Seymour? The answer is probably a little of each, with a dash of New York hospitality thrown in for good measure. The answer is that they’ll need to account for these changes if they are to have success this year. They can’t rely on opponents self destructing like the Bills did. Expect opponents to play more like the Jets… during the second half that is.

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New Staying Patriotic

2009-09-19T20:42:05Z

It’s been a while, but there’s no time like the present. Ralph Ingrassia returns with a new edition of Staying Patriotic. You can read his latest article here or it follows below. Also catch the Staying Patriotic archive for all his past articles. As always, feedback and comments are welcome!

For 9/19/2009

Tom Brady needs to take a ride on the Nutrisystem train with Dan Marino

So, I took last year off from writing “Staying Patriotic.” There was a lot going on and it was my busiest year ever. That being said, I missed writing it and would find myself taking notes during games for articles that were never written. To all the people that called and emailed asking for articles, I’d like to say “Thanks for your support, and I’m back for the season.” This year, football is even more woven into my life. I’m the head coach of my son’s team, The Iron Men, and that should introduce a new level sarcasm into my articles. This year, even my wife has a team in my fantasy league, and I don’t know, but that just seems to make her even “Hotter.”

So, with that, let’s get started.

Before I even get into the game, let’s just spend a little time talking about Tom Brady. I get it, right? The guy hasn’t played a regular season game in a year, and it just happens to be the same year that he marries a supermodel. He’s working his way back from knee surgery, which I know is tough having had it twice myself. But c’mon, eat a salad every once in a while, stop having Giselle always on top and try to remember what you looked like the last time you were in shape. Now, when I say “the last time you were in shape” I don’t mean the first game of last season. Who could possibly be in shape when you put in almost zero minutes during last year’s pre-season games?

For the first 55 minutes of Week 1, I watched a Tom Brady that just looked like his heart wasn’t in the game anymore. I was actually ready to stop watching in order to take care of a few things around the house and get ready for the Chargers-Raiders. Instead, I just spent a little time wondering how I could reclaim the just recently lost minutes of my life and thinking that we weren’t off to a great start at all. Damn, was it really going to start off like this?

Then I saw it. Tom gets a little pissed off on the sidelines. The looks of complacency turn to looks of determination. We’ve all seen that look before. That’s the looks that says, “Tom’s gonna try and win this one.” What followed was 5 minutes of “Patriots” football. Now, if you look up the definition for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) on WebMD, you’ll see that one of the symptoms is listed as “Always leaving things to the last minute.” So, let’s pump up Tom with a little Adderall and let him go for it in Week 2.

That being said there was still a lot of things that looked good. Wes Welker continues to perform despite the knee injury, and Randy Moss was looking in top shape. Then there’s Ben Watson, who was not only sure handed against the Bills, but has a great history against the Jets.

So, on to the Jets. For those of you that don’t know, I live the next town over from Florham Park, NJ which is the home of the Jets Practice facility. I see enough Jets fans on a daily basis to drive a man crazy. Nothing would be better than another Patriots win over the Jets. Not only that, I’ve had it up to my ears with the whole Mark Sanchez is the second coming of Nameth nonsense that’s being broadcast all over the place down here.

It’s time for the defense to get down to business. With Mayo questionable and Bruschi, Vrabel, Seymour and Harrison all gone, can the Patriots Defense get the job done? Definitely. The Pats have enough size, skill and experience to do what the Texans couldn’t do last week: Shake up Sanchez, get him off his count and get him on the ground.

With Tom Brady hopefully having shaken the dust off, Welker and Moss looking good, Watson’s record against the Jets and the award winning “Running Back by Committee” that Belichick employs, I think we’ll pull it off.

As a final note, it was great to see Tedy Bruschi on the field and behind the ESPN desk. Tedy was a great player, a class act and a role model that I could count on when I bought my kids their first jerseys and inducted them into the Patriot Nation. I wish Tedy continued success with this new avenue of his career and look forward to his continued presence off the field.

Enjoy the game and Go Pats!

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Win Trip to London for Patriots/Bucs Game

2009-09-10T14:25:06Z

The folks at the Celebrities for Charity Foundation contacted about a raffle they’re holding for 2 tickets to see the Patriots play the Bucs in London on October 25, including roundtrip airfare from Boston Logan to London as well as four nights stay at the 4-Star Hilton Kensington Hotel.

Enter the raffle at the Celebrities for Charity Web site - tickets are only $2 a piece and proceeds benefit the charity.

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Test New Patriots Schedule Add To Calendar Feature

2009-08-19T13:16:14Z

It always seems to be the last thing I do to prepare for an upcoming Patriots season - adding the game dates to my personal calendar. Every year when I do it, it is a manual task. As I was toggling between the GoPats.com Schedule page and Outlook, it came to me there is a better way to do this.

At the top of the schedule page is a “beta” announcement stating, ”Click on the date link to add the game to your calendar (e.g. Outlook)” and all schedule dates for this season (and previous seasons) have an active link on the dates. When you click it, a file in the iCal format is generated. Depending on how your browser is configured, it will ask you what you want to do with the file, or go ahead and try to process it. If the former, you can try to open it with your preferred calendar program and it will try to add it as a new event.

I put the “beta” tag on it as I am inviting people to try it out, and give us feedback if it works for you or not. I have tested it myself with Outlook 2003 and all worked well. The events list the opponent, whether it is a home or away game, the season and part of the season (preseason, regular season, playoffs). Any and all comments, errors - even compliments - are appreciated!

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Win 2009 Patriots Tickets and a BBQ with Vince Wilfork

2009-06-15T15:35:31Z

We heard from the folks at Celebrities for Charities and Vince Wilfork is offering an “ultimate Patriots fan experience” complete with a BBQ with him catered by Redbones and 2 tickets to each preseason and regular season game for the 2009 season. Now that’s a party!

The deadline to buy raffle tickets is June 30, and tickets are only US$2.00 with a minimum purchase of 5 tickets. Visit the Vince Wilfork raffle Web site for more information, including the charities benefiting from the raffle, and to buy tickets.

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Kevin Faulk Celebrity Softball on May 16

2009-05-12T21:05:36Z

We heard from Kevin Faulk’s people about a celebrity softball game he is hosting on May 16, and want to pass along the details.

Who: Kevin Faulk and his New England Patriots teammates

What: Kevin Faulk and his current and past New England Patriots teammates will play a 5-inning game of softball to benefit the United Way of Massachusetts Bay and the United Way of Acadiana.

Where: Campanelli Stadium (Home of the Brockton Rox), 1 Feinberg Way, Brockton, MA 02301

When: May 16, 2009, Doors Open: 6:00 pm, First Pitch: 7:05 pm

Why: The United Way of Massachusetts Bay brings the community together to help improve people’s lives and strengthen the neighborhoods in our region. The United Way of Acadiana will build a stronger community and advance the common good by mobilizing our communities to improve people’s lives. United Ways bring people together to focus the most important needs in the community- building partnerships, forgoing consensus and leveraging resources to make a measurable difference.

Tickets are available at BrocktonRox.com.

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So Long Mike Vrabel

2009-02-28T17:02:36Z

It has been confirmed the Pats have traded Mike Vrabel to the Kansas City Chiefs, reportedly for a draft pick. In the world of pro sports where players come and go, any trade should not be surprising. But losing someone like Vrabel will cause fans to take a time out and remember him.

Christopher Gasper wrote a great article on Vrabel in the Boston Globe, and I won’t recount all he said and I urge you to read it. Vrabel fit the Belichick model of a no-nonsense player who would play their butt off and in multiple field positions. As much as he was playing on D and stop hundreds of plays, he will be most remembered for his touchdowns, on both sides of the ball, especially in the Pats’ victorious Super Bowls.

When I heard of the trade, a funny story came to mind. A good friend and Pats fan told me one night at dinner with his family when one of their kids started naming items in plain sight, then rhyming them with something. When he got to “table” he paused, then proceeded to rhyme it with “Vrabel,” much to the delight of my friend!

Good luck Mike Vrabel, and you will surely be cheered on your next trip to Foxboro.

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