Catching up

The Pats are incredible, and that game against the Eagles didn't worry me as much as I think it did some people. While I was pretty nervous during the whole ordeal, I take hope from the following:

On offense, the Pats actually did really well. Take away a questionable-at-best offensive pass intereference or the missed/not-missed field goal (the replay showed it seems to have been good), and the Pats punted twice. Their possessions were TD, TD, FG, TD, Punt, TD/FG/Missed FG debacle, 10 play drive that ended on downs at the 30, TD, Clock-kill for a punt. So, on 8 "non-clock kill" drives, they were a bad call away from 5 TDs and a FG. I'll take it. It seemed like less of a success for the offense because the Pats lost two possessions (Samuels TD-return and the onside kick Philly recovered).

On defense, they accomplished the game plan they wrote up. I was going crazy with all those in-cut passes getting completed, and I couldn't figure out why either a linebacker or Rodney Harrison wasn't dropping into coverage to at least clog up some of those passing lanes that were ridiculously open for most of the game. Watching a few replays, I started to realize that Harrison/Thomas/Colvin were staying about 4 yards behind the line of scrimmage on a lot of pass plays instead of dropping into that zone area that was open: they were spying Westbrook. I'm pretty sure the gameplan was: take away Westbrook and see if injured McNabb/AJ "backup" Feeley/Rookie could beat them. To AJ's credit, he almost did by exploiting the void in the defense that the extra defender applied to Westbrook created. This was a flaw in the game plan, not necessarily of the defense, and hopefully one that doesn't need to be repeated.

Special teams, eh, wished they'd been ready for the onside, but at the same time I would be thrilled if all our opponents always try to onside regularly: we'll recover a lot of them with better field position than on regular kickoffs.

Shifting gears:

Red Sox & baseball: The team is pretty much complete, at this point. Trade Coco (or maybe Ellsbury, whose value is probably a hell of a lot higher than the player he is destined to become for us) for some future prospect or a good reliever, resign Kielty, maybe see if you can get something valuable for Tavarez. Otherwise, you know what you have to go to war with, you have some good prospect in the rear to step up or be traded for replacements midseason, and kick some ass once the calendar turns April.

Also, avoid Santana, because you need to sign him to a free agent contract while giving up blockbuster prospect. Honestly, I'd roll the dice that he doesn't get moved and take a chance on signing him next year rather than lose 3 quality prospect (or, in all likelihood, 1 realized quality major leaguer) to pay him $20mm per. If the Yanks do trade for him, you just need to say, "oh well" and take solace in the fact that they are in weaker position to make deals or have cheap talent elsewhere and hope that Santana's spike in HRs is a trend and not a 1-year fluke. Great pitcher, but the cost to the franchise to get him may be slightly greater.