Remember this?

Well it’s time that we FINALLY bring the Stanley FUCKING Cup Back to Boston!

GAME 7 BITCHES! DO OR DIE!

So this happened:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9BqUBYaHlM

A year later, this happened:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HoeHg-2kLY

Yeah, we know you’re a loser, again. We’re thrilled. You choked. So now, we can move on happily to what really matters today:

LETS FUCKING GO BOYS! DO OR DIE.

Best day ever. Unless, the Mavs were the Celtics.

Hell hasn’t frozen over yet because LeBron James has been denied a championship. Special thanks to Dirk Nowitzki and the Dallas Mavs for making this possible. It’s always good to see the team that knocked out your team lose in the end, but somehow, this is bigger than that and SO MUCH sweeter than that.

I’m not even sure how my hate for LeBron got to this level but is it weird that seeing him loose and the thought of him bawling like a baby in the locker room feels almost as good as if it were Kobe after the Celtics beat him in a Game 7 of the finals? Cause it kind of does.

By: Phil Shore, YawkeyTalkies Staff Writer

New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was in destroy mode Sunday night against the Pittsburgh Steelers. In the team’s 39-26 victory over a team that has a strong defense, and who many opine is the best team in the NFL, Brady led the way going 30-43 for 350 yards and three touchdowns as well as one rush that earned him another touchdown.

For his career, Brady 6-1 against the Steelers — 4-1 at Heinz Field — and has 14 touchdowns against the Steelers and only three interceptions. Part of it is game planning: New England throws the ball against Pittsburgh 73 percent of the time and only rushes on 27 percent of the plays, as opposed to throwing it 55 percent of the time and rushing it 45 percent against every other team in the league.

Still, in order to continue that trend, the Pats need to be successful throwing the ball, and that comes down to Tom Brady taking charge.

It isn’t just against the Steelers though. New England, especially the way it is currently constructed, places all of its burdens on Brady. It’s cliché to say the team will go as far as he does, but there is no better way to describe it.

Which begs the question, is Tom Brady underappreciated?

Many would say it’s impossible for a quarterback to be underappreciated. That they get all the attention, and Tom Brady and his hair get more airtime on ESPN than all the players in the league not named Brett Favre.

But do people realize how important Tom Brady is to this team? And does his team undervalue him?

Take last week’s loss against Cleveland. The loss wasn’t Brady’s fault, the team was bad in all phases of the game, but Brady was certainly not on his mark. He completed only 19 of 36 passes, and although he had two touchdowns compared to zero interceptions, one of those TDs he was bailed out by Aaron Hernandez, who was able to make an amazing play off a deflected pass.

Brady was out sync with his receivers and just didn’t have it going for him that day. It happens. It’s difficult to play at top level for the entirety of the season. But the Patriots are hard pressed to find anyone to pick up Brady’s slack.

The running game is at its worst in recent memory and the defense is extremely vulnerable, with a lacking pass rush and a very inexperienced and inconsistent pass defense.

If Brady has a bad game, then the rest of the team is doomed. Even if you point to the Week 4 thrashing of Miami where special teams were the focus, Brady was still very accurate, going 19 for 24 and a touchdown.

Brady is the emotional leader of this team as well. Look at the barking he did on the sidelines against Pittsburgh. He knows what the team needs to do to be successful, and if it isn’t getting done he’s going to tell everybody what they need to be doing. He’s competitive, he’s tough (he missed a practice this week with a foot injury), and he’s fearless.

With an elite player like Brady on the roster, most teams would do whatever it took to put the best team around him and maximize his potential to take them to the Super Bowl.

The Patriots organization, however, insists on getting rid of its top players. Major weapons on offense and defense (Randy Moss and Richard Seymour come to mind) have been traded away for draft picks. The Patriots have place around Brady a bunch of journeymen, retreads, and rookies.

While there was a definite need to make the defense younger, the Patriots waited too long. Instead of bringing guys along, they are throwing players into the fire now. That’s not to say guys like Brandon Spikes and Devin McCourty won’t be good pros—because they do have a lot of potential—but as long as Tom Brady is on the roster they should be trying to win now.

People will say Peyton Manning does a lot with a mostly unknown cast of players, but the Colts don’t trade away all their best players—they just all get hurt.

Brady will do everything he can to win games and put the young guys on his shoulders. But there will be days where it will be too much, and the Patriots haven’t put together a team ready to win without his heroic efforts.

He’s the ultimate team player, but for a team that believes the player is a part of a system, Brady seems to be getting the short end of the stick.

By not getting the best possible players, are the Patriots really undervaluing Brady? Are they wasting the remainder of his productive seasons?

By: Phil Shore, YawkeyTalkies Staff Writer

No matter how much Bill Belichick preaches that no one individual is greater than the team, Tom Brady is the face of the New England Patriots.

His talent, leadership and determination have led the Pats to three Super Bowl victories, in which he was rewarded the game’s MVP twice. He was the NFL regular season MVP when he led the Patriots to an undefeated regular season.

But has Brady ever really recovered from his ACL and MCL injuries suffered in 2008?

Brady can still play, and New England is still a good team, but is either elite anymore? Sometimes Brady just doesn’t have it—like against Cleveland yesterday—and the team cannot bail him out.

The overall passing stats will have you believe that nothing has really changed. He is on pace to throw 27 touchdowns, right around his season average, and he hasn’t thrown an inordinate amount of interceptions. His passer ratings for the past two seasons are the highest in his career, excluding the magical 2007 season, and his completion percentage is actually higher post-injury than pre-injury.

But there may still be an issue.

Mentally, Brady wasn’t always at his best last year. He looked uncomfortable and timid in the pocket last year, especially early in the season. Brady isn’t as mobile as he used to be, and when defenses send strong pass rushes at him he doesn’t do a good job evading them. Rather, he takes a good beating nowadays. And at 33-years-old, he isn’t getting any younger.

While the numbers may not be as noticeable long term, this season—despite the team’s successful record—his numbers show a significant drop-off.

Brady has not thrown for 300 yards yet this season. In the four games since the bye week, Brady has pass completion percentages under 60 percent in the past three games, and they get lower each week, bottoming out at 52.8 percent this past weekend.

He was exceptionally poor against the Browns. The team was out of sync all game, and while his receivers, namely tight end Rob Gronkowski, dropped a number of balls, Brady was terribly off the mark all game.

There are a lot of factors other than the injury that are causes for concern and make Brady look not as sharp. First, since the bye week this year where a real difference is seen, there is no more Randy Moss. Moss is a future Hall of Famer, and he does make things easier, as far as throwing to him and taking attention and coverage away from other players.

The running game is pretty bad, probably as worse as it has been in Brady’s entire career, so they can’t alleviate the pressure off of Brady. Injuries and holdouts have weakened the offensive line and they don’t block as well anymore.

All of these reasons allow the defense to crank up the pressure.

As for defense, this Pats defense is not nearly as good as the units of the Super Bowl teams, so they aren’t keeping teams at bay. The way the defense is playing since Brady’s injury, they don’t have a good pass rush and the coverage is poor. They allow big plays, a good amount of points, and Brady needs to be on in order to keep New England in the game.

Maybe it was just a bad game for Brady; it’s tough to be on for all 16 games in a regular season.

But something wasn’t right. Defenses are pressuring Brady and he isn’t responding well. He can’t get away from the pressure like he used to and he doesn’t have the help to cover any mistakes or deficiencies in his game.

With such a bad running game and the shaky knee, Brady could get to be more like former Miami Dolphin Dan Marino—a legend, but declining in production towards the end of his career without sufficient help, namely a strong running game to balance out the offense so he doesn’t have to play at the highest level every game.

Is Brady’s knee still an issue? Is it, even slightly, hampering him? Are the team’s weakness elsewhere shortening Brady’s career?

One thing for sure is that he will never tell us if it is.

By: Phil Shore, YawkeyTalkies Staff Writer

When the New England Patriots and Bill Belichick traded away Randy Moss, many were up in arms.

The best deep threat in the game was gone. Could any young receivers step up? Defenses didn’t have to double Moss anymore. How would the different coverage affect the receivers? Wes Welker? The running game?

The Patriots went out and picked up Deion Branch to add to the wide receiver depth chart. But really, how could the Patriots be a better team without Moss?

The Pats’ faithful responded differently, however. They just said that Bill must have seen something and they were cutting ties before it affected the team.

But what did Belichick see? In a non-scheduled press conference, he told everyone Moss’ contract situation and off-field attitude were not reasons for the move. So what was it, other than getting a third-round pick, which was seen as below value for the future Hall of Fame receiver?

Maybe they just saw a decline in production; in four games Moss had nine catches for 139 yards (no more than 59 yards in one game) and three touchdowns, not to mention not catching a single pass in the Miami game and didn’t play in the second half yet the team winning 41-14 anyway.

So he went to Minnesota. Four more games, 13 more receptions, 174 yards (declining each game), and only two touchdowns later Moss was released.

Now he’s in Tennesee, the next chapter of the wide receiver’s nomadic 2010 season.

Meanwhile, the Patriots won three games without the enigmatic wideout. They’ve seen Branch and Brandon Tate step up and have big games. They haven’t been the prettiest games offensively, but they’ve gotten the job done and now have the best record in the NFL (6-1).

The Vikings are a bit of a mess right now, and the decision to let Moss go after giving up a third-round draft pick (maybe low for Moss, but still having value) only a month prior speaks volumes of the mismanagement going on.

However, reports have (again) surfaced of Moss’ mouth and attitude off the field being reasons for his dismissal from his team.  Head Coach Brad Childress apparently told his team, when referring to Moss’ release, “We want good people who are good football players. This just doesn’t fit,” according to Yahoo! Sports.

And once again, Moss had a poor game before his departure, catching only one pass for eight yards.

So is Moss a cantankerous individual unhappy with his stability with teams in the league and a disruptive force in the locker room? Is his production just not good enough?

Maybe he still is one of the best receivers of all-time, and simply needs the “right” motivation. Maybe Titans head coach Jeff Fisher and QB Vince Young will be the best remedy for Moss.

Or maybe he’s done. Either way, the Pats probably made a good move by getting rid of him.

Dan Podheiser, YawkeyTalkies Assistant Editor, Contributed to this Article

By: Dan Podheiser, YawkeyTalkies Assistant Editor

There were a lot of question marks surrounding this Patriots team heading into the 2010 season. I, for one, never pictured this team as a legitimate Super Bowl contender.

But after Sunday’s win over Minnesota, a hard-fought, gritty showdown, I’m starting to think: Hey, maybe this team can win it all.

The Patriots have the best record in football and have beaten several good teams, but Sunday’s game really was a big one.

Here’s a position-by-position breakdown of the Patriots’ win on Sunday.

Quarterbacks
Tom Brady was hardly even noticeable on Sunday — and he still managed a 100.8 QB rating. Ho hum. All it took was a nice little 65-yard (mostly after the catch) toss to Brandon Tate to break the game wide open. Since Randy Moss left, Brady has had to pick his spots more finely. With just 16 completed passes — for 240 yards — he did that against the Vikings.
Grade: A-

Runningbacks
The law firm was prosecuting today. That’s right, I used it. BenJarvus Green-Ellis had himself a day against the Vikes, rushing for 112 yards on just 17 carries. Green-Ellis is looking like he could be New England’s first feature back since Corey Dillon, and even Dillon wasn’t a star compared to the rest of the offense. Now, with the Pats relying on several less-heralded receivers in the passing game, the emergence of Green-Ellis as a feature back will be huge for the Pats.
Grade: A

Wide Receivers/Tight Ends
There were some noticeable flaws in the Patriots’ passing game today, made even more noticeable because former No. 81 (now 84 in purple) was on the other sideline. Simply put, the Pats lack a deep threat. Sure, Tate has top speed, but he can’t go get it like Moss. Brady tried hooking up with Branch down the sideline a couple times, but to no avail. The good news is that Brady never has trouble finding his wideouts underneath. The bad news — that could come back to hurt New England if they get into a shootout-type game.
Grade: B+

Offensive Line
I’m not sure how many times the announcers mentioned Jared Allen’s inability to record a sack, but it certainly was a lot — and it made the Vikings’ pass rush look terrible. The Pats’ offensive line did a good job Sunday, especially in the run game, but more importantly in protection of Brady. Yes, the QB was hit, but you have to expect that against the Minnesota front-four that Troy Aikman called “the best in football.” I’m not sure if that’s true (at least, not anymore), but they are still a solid core.
Grade: A-

Defensive Line
What does Myron Pryor plus Brett Favre’s jaw equal? That’s right: a trip to the turf. Favre was hobbled going into the game, and the Pats’ d-line didn’t make it easy on the Ol’ Gunslinger. Finally, it was a massive hit to the jaw from Pryor that sent Favre over the edge — and out of the game. It wasn’t a great performance by the d-line, which basically got flattened throughout the first half by Adrian Peterson and the Vikings’ ground game; but they did get to Favre when they had to, and that, in my opinion, won the Pats the game.
Grade: B+

Linebackers
Another day, another double-digit tackle performance by Jerod Mayo. He had 14 on Sunday, good for 86 on the year — in just seven games, mind you. Basically, Mayo is out of his mind, and he’s making his U-of-F linebacking mates (Brandon Spikes, Jermaine Cunningham) look pretty good, too.
Grade: A-

Secondary
This was the first game that I can honestly say, wow, Devin McCourty didn’t look like a space cadet out there. In fact, McCourty looked like a seasoned veteran in the way he covered the interior on goal line situations. As for the rest of the secondary, I don’t think Brandon Meriweather could have possibly played deeper when he was shaded towards Moss’ side, but oh well — it worked out.
Grade: B+

Special Teams
No field goals, but great punting against the Vikes. Mesko is turning out to be as reliable a booter as they come. Other than that, there was nothing much to speak of for the Pats’ special teams on Sunday. Tate didn’t fumble, which is always good. The special teams did just what it had to do — not cost the team the game.
Grade: A

Overall Team
It wasn’t pretty, but the Patriots’ win over the Vikings was actually one of the best all-around team efforts of the year. The defense, even the secondary, played great and Tom Brady followed suit once again. There are still plenty of kinks to work out, but I’m not so sure New England has any more problems than any other team in the NFL. I think we’re looking at a team that can go out there and hang with anyone, especially on its home turf.
Grade: A

By: Phil Shore, YawkeyTalkies Staff Writer

In the New England Patriots’ Week 8 showdown against the Minnesota Vikings, all eyes will be on Randy Moss, who makes his return to Gillette Stadium after being traded in Week 5.

Will he want to make his old team regret not giving him a contract extension and trading him? Will he outperform his replacement, Deion Branch? How will the young secondary, who has struggled this season, cover him?

While the Patriots will have to focus on their defense this week, specifically their pass defense, the man they will be most focused on is quarterback Brett Favre.

Yes, Favre has been in a boot all week and everyone has questioned whether he will play. Do you really buy it though? Favre loves the attention, loves having people talking about him and what he’s going to do, so he stirs up the controversy.

Much like his “retirement”, don’t believe Favre won’t be on the field until the whistle has blown and he isn’t in uniform. There is a reason he has a 291 consecutive games played streak (315 including playoffs).

Bill Belichick said the team would plan for Favre playing.

However, while the talk of him playing or not is questionable, what isn’t up for debate is that Favre is severely banged up.

Shoulder, elbow, and ankle injuries have plagued Favre this year. He is also 41-years-old. His body is suffering from the wear-and-tear of the league and he isn’t as mobile as he used to be.

What the Patriots need to do is pour on the pass rush. They need to let him know they will be coming after him, they need to hit him and make him uncomfortable, and they need to force him to throw those awful interceptions that he was called out for by head coach Brad Childress.

The Pats rank 30th in the NFL in passing yards allowed per game, giving up an average of 282 yards. Part of that is because of a young and inexperienced secondary. But part of the blame also goes to the pass rush.

New England is in the bottom half of the league in sacks, tied for 19th overall with 12. Defensive lineman Mike Wright leads the team with a disappointing three sacks. Thirty-five different players have more sacks than New England’s top guy.

The Vikings are in the middle of the pack in the NFL, allowing 14 sacks. Even worse, however, is that they are tied for fourth in the league with 10 interceptions.

The Patriots really need to have a strong pass rush in this game. Not only would it continue to have a negative effect on Favre’s play, it will also make life easier on the secondary, which will have its hands full with Moss, Percy Harvin, and Visanthe Shiancoe.

If the Pats can beat up Favre and force him into mistakes, it will be a long day for Minnesota.

If not, then Moss may have the field day he’s been hoping for.

Who gives a shit? He didn’t do shit last night did he? Does anyone else think this ad sucks ass? I don’t want Lebron James to be anyone, except maybe less of a cocky asshole. Just play, jesus.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fud2ofDU2ok

There is only room for ONE Big 3 in the NBA.