Patriots 2010: the Year We Make Contracts

[Jason A]

Re: Patriots 2010: the Year We Make Contracts

Ugh.

Adam_Schefter
Turns out Patriots K Stephen Gostkowski, who went on IR today, has a torn quad muscle that might need surgery. He's expected back in 2011.

This year's IR list:
Bodden (DB)
Warren (DE)
Kaczur (G/T)
Gostkowski (K)
Faulk (RB)
Holt (WR)
Jenkins (WR)
McGowan (S)
Barrett (S)
Lockett (S)
Richard (DE)
Weston (DE)

[Jason A]

Re: Patriots 2010: the Year We Make Contracts

Sometimes I forget Taylor is even on the team. Or alive, for that matter.

MikeReiss Patriots downgrade OL Stephen Neal, RB Fred Taylor and DL Myron Pryor to out for Sunday's game.
17 minutes ago via Mobile Web

[walrus]

Re: Patriots 2010: the Year We Make Contracts

Sometimes I forget Taylor is even on the team. Or alive, for that matter.

Pretty easy to forget fragile fred

[Jason A]

Re: Patriots 2010: the Year We Make Contracts

Very impressive and satisfying win. Indy coming up next Sunday afternoon.

[Patman]

Re: Patriots 2010: the Year We Make Contracts

Pretty easy to forget fragile fred

to be fair, he has been out of the league for 5 years

[The Rube]

Re: Patriots 2010: the Year We Make Contracts

to be fair, he has been out of the league for 5 years

I think his original groin is in the Smithsonian.

And nice game. Totally picked apart the Stillers. This Pats team could really make a serious run. Not flashy, not outstanding in any single aspect....just solid. Ring a bell (hint: SB years)?

[Jason A]

Re: Patriots 2010: the Year We Make Contracts

Tom Curran:

The Steelers found a motivated Brady was far too much for them to handle. By the end of the game, they were taking runs at him. LaMarr Woodley's roughing-the-passer penalty was an example. So too was Troy Polamalu grinding Brady's head into the turf after Brady scored, touching off a pushing match in the end zone.

I was told that, as that scrum continued, Brady yelled to the Steelers defenders to get their attention, then unleashed a vicious ground-denting spike punctuated by a simple two-word expletive.

Point made.

I'm thinking the two words weren't "point made."

[pirate]

Re: Patriots 2010: the Year We Make Contracts

the first TD, could there have been a better pass/catch? Talk about throwing it in the one place possible, an inch in any direction and that is incomplete.

Also re: first drive...It wasn't that the Pats scored, it was how they did it; like they were going for 16-0 again. Wow that was impressive.

Can we ask for a do-over on the Browns game??

[Jason A]

Re: Patriots 2010: the Year We Make Contracts

Speaking of the Browns, if Mangenius simply takes a knee the Pats are alone in first today by a half-game.

I know I'm biased and I know that good fortune has shone on the Pats throughout the last decade (the game they won in Buffalo because David Patten, lying unconscious on the field, happened to be touching OOB and the ball at the same time comes to mind), but I can't recall seeing a team win two completely-out-of-their-behind games in a row like the Jets have the last two weeks. Stanton hits the back who's standing 6-7 yards away from him (or just falls down) and the Jets likely lose in Detroit. Then the Browns come out at their own three yard line with 95 seconds left in OT, a situation in which even Don Coryell would've just handed it off to Chuck Muncie, and they're firing the ball 30 yards downfield on first down like they're trailing by two touchdowns.

I'm not sure whether I think their luck's going to run out, or whether getting these types of wins will only make them better and tougher as the season goes on (see 2001 Pats).

Anyway, just a great, great win last night. Two more wins and they lock up that 9-7 record. If everything goes just right, that could be accomplished by Thanksgiving dinner.

[Jason A]

Re: Patriots 2010: the Year We Make Contracts

Sort of an odd move that came down yesterday. They must be planning to give Banta-Cain and Cunningham more reps at OLB and playing Woods full-time on special teams. Woods was working on the University of Michigan grounds crew as of last week.

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- The Patriots announced the re-signing of outside linebacker Pierre Woods today. The team had an open roster spot after waiving outside linebacker/defensive end Shawn Crable on Tuesday.

"We made a decision based on what we feel like is best for the football team, a lot of things went into it. We did what we feel like is best for right now," coach Bill Belichick said.

Woods (6-5, 255) played for the Patriots from 2006-2009, and was with the team in 2010 training camp before he was let go at the final roster cutdown. He had not hooked on with another team this season.

Woods' primary contributions have come on special teams, and he also adds depth at outside linebacker behind Jermaine Cunningham, Rob Ninkovich and Tully Banta-Cain.

Crable was serving mostly as a sub-rushing defensive end this season, and that isn't a role that Woods is likely to duplicate. Woods is considered a stronger special teams player than Crable and that could be part of the team's thinking with the Woods-for-Crable switch.

"Based on the circumstances and the situation, all of those factors, we felt like he would be able to help our team this week," Belichick said of Woods. "Whether that is the way it is next week, or if it closer to the way it was last week ... We had been in contact with him, like a lot of players that we've had a long history with. I think we had a pretty good idea of where he is [physically]."

In the last month they've cut Wheatley and Crable, their second- and third-rounders from the lousy 2008 draft.

[Swansong]

Re: Patriots 2010: the Year We Make Contracts

That '08 draft was truly terrible.

I like what they're doing though. It seems like they're just cutting bait on a lot of passengers and telling the guys left to sink or swim. For the most part it's been working. If they can have another draft this coming April anything as strong as the last two I'd say we're well on our way to another good run. I mean, they're arguably an elite team now (at worst in the second tier) and are playing a lot of untested rookies who seem to improve every week.

[CLS]

Re: Patriots 2010: the Year We Make Contracts

That '08 draft was truly terrible.

Check out http://www.boston.com/sports/touchin...u_the_wor.html for some other thoroughly forgettable drafts.

[Jason A]

Re: Patriots 2010: the Year We Make Contracts

Check out http://www.boston.com/sports/touchin...u_the_wor.html for some other thoroughly forgettable drafts.

Canty will probably be my least-favorite Patriot for as long as I live. I'd take 53 Monty Beisels before I'd take a single Chris Canty.

I have no recollection of Jeff Carlson at all. You could've put him in a multiple-choice question and I wouldn't have ID's him as the guy who started those two games in 1992.

[Jason A]

Re: Patriots 2010: the Year We Make Contracts

From today's Reiss chat:

Jim (Portland, ME)

What's the word on Fragile Freddy? I'd like to see us pound up the Colts on the ground (and free up playaction).

Mike Reiss (12:19 PM)

Jim, my opinion is that this is the week for Taylor's return.

I think Reiss said the same thing last week and maybe before the Cleveland game as well.

[Jason A]

Re: Patriots 2010: the Year We Make Contracts

Obviously Belichick is chiefly to blame for ignoring the NFL memorandum (and costing the team a first-round draft pick, which when combined with bad drafting from 2006-2008 contributed to the talent decline on this team), but are we really going to have to listen to this crazy, paranoid bull**** until he is either fired or resigns as head coach?

I've always heard, reliably, that the Colts never trusted that they were totally alone in the Colts' locker room in Foxboro, and that when Manning had something of strategic significance to say to offensive coordinator Tom Moore, they both stepped outside into the concourse outside the locker room. So if you're outside the locker room Sunday, don't be surprised to see Manning and his first-year coordinator, Christensen, huddling for a few minutes.

That's Peter King, the "most respected football writer in America."

I wonder who told him that -- "reliably." Any chance it's his Sunday Night colleague, the completely-beyond-reproach Tony Dungy?

The whole thing just makes me sick.