Hello, Belgium, our football is better!

First off, hallo to all of those reading this in Belgium. For whatever reason (terrorism, most likely) a whole slew of hits came in from Belgium last week. Thanks for reading. I'm sure once you've realized that there's not a whole hell of a lot that's written here of substance you'll move on. Besides, I'm not writing about soccer. I like my football like my cars: American. Ignore the fact, please, that my wife drives a Japanese mini-van. Add hypocrisy to the list of my crimes, St. Pete.

So my second-favorite football team laid an egg yesterday afternoon. I didn't get to watch it. In fact, I watched no afternoon football whatsoever. Yesterday evening, two NFL teams played what appeared to be one long game of JV vs. Varsity. Sorry, Dallas fans, there's always next year.

But boy, I saw the "highlights" and my Patriots sucked. Y'know, once not too long ago that was a gritty up-and-coming football team that played staunch defense and scored just enough points to win by running the football consistently and making opportunistic plays in the passing game with a scrappy young 6th round draft choice named Brady.

Now? There was the EPIC 16-0 season with the MORE EPIC failure in the Super Bowl - where this team was exposed as fraudulent. The QB? He's become a glamour boy and married to a model. Nice work, if you can get it. But his team has taken on that type of personality: all flash and no guts. Sports writers keep telling us that the NFL is a passing league and that the old "3 yards and a cloud of dust" days are over. Yet, time and again, teams do what Cleveland did yesterday: smashmouth football with a good young RB grinding out tough yards and then taking shots down the field with a competent (perhaps not flashy) passing game. Under the pressure to perform well, and with their vaunted offense sputtering, the Patriots defense wilted in Cleveland against an opponent who was young and hungry.

All last week writers were piling on the Bandwagon claiming that the "Patriots were back." And they might be, but Pittsburgh's waiting for them - if they're really "back" they'll have to prove it on the field and not in pre-game TV shows. Here's a free piece of advice for Coach Belichick and his hoodie: Finding a running-back might help.

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The rest of the weekend was a blur. Watched some hockey. Coached some hockey. Ran here, there, and everywhere. I have a 7-day work week, folks.

Bye now,