Hard to believe it’s been five days since the Patriots played on Thursday night losing in overtime to the New York Jets, 34-31. The game wasn’t without excitement though as Matt Cassel led the Patriots back from deficits of 24-6 and 31-24 to end up tied with just 0:01 left on the game clock when Randy Moss made of most fantastic catches I’ve ever seen occur on a football field. The only one’s I can think of off the top of my head are David Tyree in last years Super Bowl, Lynn Swann in the Super Bowl and Marvin Harrison’s one hander in Foxboro a few years back. In his second season here Moss has had some great one’s and hey there maybe even be one from last year that was better but none of them had the pressure of that catch and that’s what makes it his best in a New England uniform.
In case you want to see some highlights of the game from the Jets game here is the video package from Patriots.com
The bug guy, Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, made an appearance on Patriots Friday last week after the overtime loss.
Is Tim Graham of ESPN.com writing his columns while he is high? No Seriously.
“The Joker” says Matt Cassel has shed all doubt and has arrived and that LB Jerod Mayo is putting up some big numbers. Sit down folks, the rookie from Tennessee led the league in tackles heading into Sunday’s games.
Mike Reiss of the Globe tells us the players were given the weekend off after two games in five days.
The Globe’s Christopher Gasper says the special teams let the team down.
The ProJo’s Mike McDermott says it looks like Thursday night’s performance earned Matt Cassel a boat load of money from some team next season and beyond.
Reiss also has a few minutes with the best snow angel maker I’ve ever seen…Patriots long snapper Lonnie Paxton.
Eric McHugh of the Patriot-Ledger in Quincy has some observations on the Patriots next opponent, the Dolphins, after watching them rally to beat the Raiders. He also has defensive coordinator Dean Pees lamenting the defensive mistakes in the Jets game.
Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels had a conference call with the media on Monday.
Make sure you join us here at Sox & Dawgs at 1 p.m. on a Double Live Blog Sunday for our live blog of the Patriots-Dolphins game using the Cover it Live software. Just look for the live blog post, when the it goes active enter a screen name and join in with us! It will be our first of two live blogs that day as Ian will conduct one later that night for the UConn-South Florida football game.
This comes from Peter King’s Monday Morning Quarterback:
Good Guy of the Week.
Je’Rod Cherry, former defensive back, New England. Cherry, who played for New England, Philadelphia and New Orleans in a nine-year NFL career, is raffling his 2001 Patriots Super Bowl ring on Nov. 27 to raise money for children’s charities around the world. “I was moved by some pictures I saw of a child in Africa on his deathbed, and in the background waiting was a vulture, in essence, to consume him,” said Cherry, who lives in Ohio now. “What I saw there moved me to say, ‘What can I do to make a difference?’ What can I give sacrificially from myself to show I do have care and concern about this child’s predicament as well as other organizations that help people across the world?”
Cherry says he cherishes the ring, and played football 21 years to get to the pinnacle of the profession. “But using this ring to help children who are starving … and who have no hope will be a greater feeling than what I felt the day I actually won the ring.”
He’s raffling the ring instead of auctioning it so all fans would have a chance to win it, not just the richest ones. Five tickets cost $10, and can be purchased at netraffle.org. Deadline for purchase is Nov. 27 at 9 a.m.
“After the decision to do the raffle was made,” Cherry told me Saturday, “I said, ‘Wow. I’m actually going to relinquish this ring.’ It’s not going to be easy. Before that season, I’d played football all my life, but I never won a championship. My high school team won one league game in Berkeley [Calif.]. I went to Cal. I started my career with the Saints, and we never won there.”
He got to the Patriots with the middle-class free-agency class of 2001, and as I reminded Cherry, that first Super Bowl team was a bunch of Je’Rod Cherries. It’s fitting he won the ring with a bunch of blue-collar players like him.
Cherry’s disappointed with the raffle kitty so far — it’s approaching $75,000 — but he hopes even if the proceeds aren’t what he hopes for, “I may spur someone who hears about this or reads about a person giving up such a prized possession to do something for others.”
The Patriots find themselves in second place in the AFC East as the teams head into Week 12 play. If the season ended today only the Jets would make the playoffs from the AFC East.
- 1. New York 7-3
- 2. New England 6-4
- 2. Miami 6-4
- 3. Buffalo 5-5
AFC East Week 12 games are:
- Patriots visit the Dolphins on South Beach.
- Jets go to Tennesse to face the unbeaten Titans.
- Bills travel to the land of barbeque to tackle the Chiefs.
