First of all Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of you now it’s into the red zone where we start with the coach, Bill Belichick and his weekly visit with the local Boston media. The coach’s WEEI segment took the week off due to the holiday. He talked about the upcoming game with the Giants, Troy Brown and the schedule for the short week with the game on Saturday and the holiday on Tuesday.
Rodney Harrison called into WEEI in Boston for a Patriot’s Monday visit with Paul Perillo and Butch Stearns sitting in for Dale & Holley.
Some of the players are now starting to talk a little bit about 16-0 but mostly in the way they’ve talked about the next game all year. When they were 8-0 they talked about being 9-0. Now that they’re 15-0 it’s starting to creep into the conversations. Here’s Tedy Bruschi’s take:
“We’re not shooting for anything. We have to focus on who is in front of us. A small piece has to be in our mind what we can achieve. We want our fans to have fun and you can talk about it. Now that we’re 15-0, yes, we want to be 16-0.”
WR Jabar Gaffney even chimed in:
“Right now, we’re starting to pay attention to it,” Gaffney said in a Boston Herald column. “But during the game, we don’t pay attention to it. We have a job to do.”
Media from all over the country are talking about the possibility of perfection. The Arizona Republic chimes in:
“Is there any doubt that the New England Patriots will finish 16-0? There really can’t be any longer. Bill Belichick, Tom Brady, Randy Moss and Company are going to go down in the record books as the only NFL team to finish a regular season 16-0 and, if the Patriots do what we expect in the playoffs, it will put them in a whole new category … It will make the Patriots the best NFL team we have seen.”
While the LA Times notes that the team hosted the Red Sox and for the first time they had all five of the championship trophies in one room – three from the Super Bowl and two from the World Series:
“This is something historic,” Kraft said, motioning to the shiny cluster. “We’ve never had all five of them together before.”
Then the writer makes this prediction about the Pats winning the Super Bowl this season:
And that Fab Five might never be together again — because there will be six.
I hope everyone has noticed how good the Patriots red zone defense has gotten in the last few weeks. In nine trips into the red zone the opponents have zero touchdowns and two field goals. It is a significant impovement over earlier in the season.
Elsewhere:
The Pittsburgh Steelers put RB Willie Parker on the IR he is done for the year. They signed RB Vernon Haynes to a contract to replace him. Haynes was one of Pittsburgh’s final cuts this preseason.
The Oakland Raiders waited until the final game of the year but QB JaMarcus Russell, the #1 pick in the NFL Draft, will finally start a game on Sunday against San Diego. Russell, who signed a six-year contract with a maximum value of $68 million one week into the season, figures to be the Raiders’ starter next year. He will become the team’s third different starter in 2007.
The Washington Redskins offered head coach Joe Gibbs a two-year contract extension. This is Gibbs second stint coaching the Redskins, he also owns Joe Gibbs Racing.
