The worst

I can't believe that hit by Wes Welker on Aqib Talib. I just can't believe it.

I can't believe that the 5-9 (maybe), 185-pound Welker slammed into the 6-1, 205-pound Talib and that the 6-1, 205-pound Talib is the one who limped off the field, into the locker room, and didn't return to the little thing known as the AFC Championship Game.

Really? I agree with Belichick ... That is the worst thing I've ever seen. Since when does a tiny slot receiver crash into a big defensive back and it's the DB that gets the worst of it? The worst indeed.

Watch the Zapruder film above. "Back. And to the left. Back. And to the left." It looks to me like Welker was looking to pick Talib (a common, if illegal move) and instead of just bumping him he just ran smack into him. When I look at the film I see two guys colliding. Talib seems to actually crunch Welker with his shoulder. If I didn't know the outcome and I watched the video I would say "I don't think that little guy is getting up." But the little guy did get up and the big guy did not. And in a game where there weren't too many big plays for the Patriots, that was a big play. It wouldn't have changed the outcome unless Talib could have played offense too, but losing Talib definitely made Manning's life a whole lot easier.

It seems that Bill Belichick really can't be rational when it comes to #83. First he -- and just about everyone else -- blamed him for not catching that pass in the Super Bowl. You know. The one that should have been a title-clinching TD that Brady completely missed. Welker took the heat for that one just because he tried to make an acrobatic, twirling mid-air catch instead of just letting it sail way over his head. Brady still needs to take the blame for that one.

Then Belichick decided that Welker catching 100 passes each year -- many to keep drives going -- was not really that crucial to the offense after all. He decided to let him walk and replace him with Danny Amendola. I thought Amendola -- if healthy -- would certainly be a very good replacement for Welker. But he couldn't be Welker. The guy is as tough as they come. Amendola was nowhere to be found during the biggest game of his career. That never happens with Welker.

Now Welker is responsible for one of the worst plays Belichick has ever seen? I don't know. Belichick is often right and I'm not. But no matter how many times I watch the video it is just too "bang-bang" a play to say there was any intent by Welker other than to interfere with Talib. It just looks like two guys coming across the middle on a collision course and neither being able to get out of the way even if they wanted to.

On another note... that's the second year in a row that Talib has limped out of the AFC title game. That's not saying he's not tough enough. He's played all year with a bad hip. He's tough. And he's very good. But he's also just as injury prone as that other guy we signed ... Amendola.

Welker ... he's tough. And he keeps on playing.

Mile low

AFC CHAMPIONSHIP
I'm not really sure what the people in the Sports Blabosphere are going to do this week. If you watched the Patriots season end with a 26-16 loss to the Broncos in Denver you know there really isn't much to say.

There aren't any "if only Brady had done this" or "if only Dennard had done that." The Patriots were outplayed from start to finish. It was 20-3 at the half but it might as well have been 40-3. Sure, the Pats were down 24-0 to this same Denver team just two months ago and stormed back to win. But that was at Gillette. And the reason the Pats were down in that game was that they turned the ball over and made one mistake after another.

The Patriots didn't make many mistakes yesterday (no turnovers) ... problem is they just didn't make many plays. Or any plays when it really mattered. It was as sound a beat down as any Belichick-Brady team has ever had. Me and my friends and family didn't get to throw a high-five until the game was almost over. That sucked.

The Broncos were the better team all year. But not that much better. The Broncos defense allowed an average of almost 25 points per game during the season (the Pats D allowed just under 22). The Broncos had a solid run defense (as was obvious yesterday pretty early on) but the Pats were better against the pass (not so obvious yesterday). All-in-all it should have been a pretty even battle. One look at the NFC title match between San Fran and Seattle showed what the game should have looked like. Both teams making big plays on offense and defense and special teams, the lead going back and forth, and finally one team making the biggest play to clinch it.

In the AFC title game it was the Broncos making all the plays. One after another after another after another. At times it seemed the Pats were just standing around and watching. Denver receivers were wide open, caught the ball, and then usually broke a tackle or two before either running out of bounds or going down gently. There were no moments of Bronco players taking a big hit as the cost for making a play. Denver was comfortable the whole game.

Other than Edelman, there really wasn't one player on the Pats who looked like they had a clue. Combine that with the Broncos playing an outstanding game and you get dominated. Manning threw for 400 yards because the Patriots' pass rush was more invisible than it usually is. And it's usually very hard to see. It was not the secondary's finest day, but it's hard to cover the best group of receivers in the game when the best quarterback in the game never gets dirty.

The only chance was to put pressure on the Broncos with the offense. But for the fifth year in a row the season ended with the team struggling just to get near 20 points. Brady missed some early chances at big plays and the offense showed a little spark at the end but when the team needed a big play they couldn't make it. The offensive line -- which had looked so strong down the stretch -- was a non-factor. The beast running game that had the offense looking like it was geared for a drive to the Super Bowl didn't show up. Folk hero LaGarrette Blount rushed for six yards. Six.

With the offense providing no pressure and the defense scratching and clawing to keep the game close, the Broncos were content to kick field goals. It seemed that John Fox (me last Tuesday: "Belichick will not lose to John Fox.") figured out sooner than most people that field goals were going to be enough to beat the Pats on this day. You had the feeling that if the Broncos needed to get touchdowns on those drives they would have gone on some of those fourth downs and put up seven. But they never had to.

Another disappointing ending to a great season. But that's the thing. It was another great season. That's like 13 in a row. And this year's team was as fun to root for as any of them. No Gronk. No Big Vince. No Mayo. No Seabass. No Spikes. No Amendola and Vereen for much of the year. But the team kept winning. I thought there was no way they could compete with the Saints offense, even at home. Pats 30-27. I figured there was no chance to come back down 24-0 to Denver. Pats 34-31. And there was no way they could go into Baltimore and beat a Ravens team that had won four in a row. Pats 41-7.

I figured it would be unlikely that they could go into Denver and pull off the upset in one of the toughest places to play. But this team just kept winning. Even the games they lost were close ones. Till today. As has been the case often in the past few years, the Pats saved their worst game of the season for their last game. That's always disappointing -- but no longer surprising -- with a Belichick-Brady team. That's what makes winning three titles in four years still so amazing. Watch each episode of "Three Games to Glory" one of these boring non-football days ahead and you will see just how many times the team's season came close to ending. But each time someone stepped up and made a play. Each time. The 2013 Pats were that team for most of the season but came up two games short. The 2014 Pats look to have a chance to take it two steps further and get the fourth "Three Games to Glory" made.

Well, that is if Gronk comes back healthy. If Vince can still play. If Edelman and Talib re-sign. If the team can find a pass rush. If Brady can stay healthy one more season. If ...

If my biggest complaint about the Pats is that they keep losing in the Super Bowl or the AFC title game ... well, I remember 1-15.

The good Manning

I know it's taboo for a Pats' fan to say... I like that Peyton Manning. (Not so for the little Manning, but he's thankfully done for the year ... so who cares about him?)

I like Peyton. He makes really funny commercials. He seems like a genuinely good guy. His teammates seem to really like him. He often loses to the Patriots in huge games. He doesn't sell UGGs. Oh, and he's one of the three or four best quarterbacks I have ever seen play the toughest position in pro sports.

Montana. Brady. Bradshaw. Aikman. Marino. Elway. Kelly. Staubach. Manning. For me, those are the best of my generation. You can put them in any order that you want. I never thought a Patriot quarterback would be on that list. I grew up watching Bradshaw and Staubach build Hall of Fame careers. I later watched as Montana, Aikman, and Elway won titles. I may not have always been rooting for them but I always enjoyed watching them and loved the way they played.

Manning is the same way. I don't really want to see him win another Super Bowl -- mainly because he's a Bronco and Pats' fans have a special dislike of the Mile High team. But if he does win it all he will have earned it -- again.

Even after a career-threatening neck surgery took a year away from him just as he was entering the last few years of his career, Manning the elder has battled all the way back and still makes passes that boggle the mind. He may be better than ever.

And he's still pretty funny....

Wet and wild

Standing in a torrential, wind-blown rainstorm with your boots covered in mud for eight hours sucks.

Standing in a torrential, wind-blown rainstorm with your boots covered in mud, while drinking, eating meatball subs, steak tips. scallops, baked stuffed tatos, and pecan pie with friends and family and then watching the Patriots crush the Colts in a playoff game ... that doesn't suck at all.

From the wet and wild ride in to the Pats running wild into the AFC title game to that long-anticipated hot shower at 2 a.m. ... it was a great day.

Bungled

DAVID KOHL/AP

WEEK 5
Every team, even the best in the NFL, has a game or two each year when it just beats itself. That's why only one has ever gone 16-0. And very few ever go 15-1. Or 14-2. There are going to be those Sundays.

The Pats have already had a few brushes with those games (Bill, Jets) but they managed to make enough plays to pull out victories. The Patriots -- on offense at least -- made very few plays in their Joan Rivers-caliber ugly 13-6 loss in Cincy.

The last time the Patriots held an opponent to 13 points and lost? Week 2 of 2001. That's right. The game when Mo Lewis changed Patriot history forever and knocked Drew Bledsoe off the team. Tom Brady has thrown a lot of touchdown passes since that September day and has set a lot of records. That's what future hall of famers do. But #12, for the first time in 52 games, couldn't throw a touchdown pass yesterday.

The Cincy D gets a lot of the credit. They have a great pass rush and made the Pats' usually stout O line look bad for much of the day. And they made Brady look worse. Five weeks into the season and he and his new crew of receivers are still far from on the same page. Cincy's D was missing several starters and their offense has really only one weapon in A.J. Green. That looked like a recipe for 5-0. But not when Brady is under-throwing guys or those guys are dropping the ones that he did get to them. A bad fumble. A bad interception. Too many mistakes. That's what always makes the difference. If the Pats don't turn the ball over they probably win. Win ugly. But win.

One week after playing their best game of the season on offense the Pats played their worst. That's the way it goes in the NFL. One week really has nothing to do with the next.

And hopefully that will be the case this Sunday at home against New Orleans. A late afternoon kickoff against the best the NFC has to offer. Drew Brees. Sean Payton. One of the biggest home games of the year. One of the biggest tailgates of the year.

And maybe the return of Gronk. Just in time.

He's so emotional

Apparently Tom Brady never loses his temper during a game. Never gets upset with himself or teammates. Never raises his voice. It seems that he's always been Mr. Kumbaya during his Hall of Fame career. Drop another pass, Ocho? No problem. Let's get some pizza after the game. Make a bad call and kill a touchdown drive, Bill O'Brien? It's cool. It's nobody's fault. Let's just try harder. Miss a block and let #12 get planted, Matt Light? It's all right. I should have gotten rid of the ball faster.

Tom Brady yelling and acting like the next drive is the most important drive of the season is what makes him Tom Brady. It's what pushes his teammates. Most Pats' fans love the moment just before the team took the field of their Super Bowl against the Rams. Brady grabs Drew Bledsoe by the neck and starts screaming in his face like a lunatic. Bledsoe looks at him with an odd smile before Willie McGinnest steps in and tries to calm Brady down. No moment illustrates the difference between Brady and Bledsoe. Two great quarterbacks. One mad man.

Most of the talk after the Pats' win over the Jets has focused on Brady yelling at his receivers most of the game. The Pats scored one touchdown all night. It was a frustrating, wet night. But it doesn't take a game when the offense scores 13 points to get Brady fired up.

The video above? The Pats scored 34 points in this game.

When the rain comes

TALES FROM THE TAILGATE
Jets 6, Pats 0 (11/28/'93): It was a dry pre-game tailgate for the home opener yesterday. That was good because Mark and I arrived at the Enchanted Forest parking lot around 2 p.m. Surprisingly, none of the lots were open yet for the 8:30 kickoff. So we did a little shopping at KraftWorld and waited for another hour before we could fire up the first tailgate of the season. A great first tailgate was followed by a less-than great first half. Which was followed by a raucous Tedy Bruschi halftime tribute (the third for #54 so far I think). Just as Tedy finished leading his last "Ooooooh yeaaahhhh!!", the sky opened and within ten minutes I was drenched. Bad weather games are always fun. Well, snow games are fun. Rain? Not so much. Rain makes for the worst conditions for tailgating and football watching. Especially if you wear glasses. And if you aren't prepared. Like I was not, almost 20 years ago.

It was 1993. It was an ugly winter and the Patriots played some ugly games to match. The team was 1-9 through ten games, losing by scores of 38-14, 45-7, and 28-14 to name a few. I had given up my season tickets a few years earlier and had not regretted that decision one bit as I sat on my couch week after week watching the team get stomped. But there was a reason for hope.

The Patriots had hired Bill Parcells. The Tuna. A two-time Super Bowl champ with the Giants and one of the most entertaining SOBs to ever coach the game. As I used to say "Love him or hate him, you have to love him." The day Parcells was hired the Patriots went from bumbling franchise to a real NFL team. You could see the change almost immediately. Not in wins or loses. That would come later. But in the no-nonsense, my-way-or-the-highway approach. Players who had become used to losing were cut. Quickly. Veterans who had won with Parcells before were suddenly lining up to join the team. The Pats were still getting creamed week after week but there was someone in charge of my football team who knew what he was doing. Finally.

Me, Mark, Shep, Bergs, and a few of our friends decided to buy some tickets to see our saviour in person. The Pats were 1-9 but we were as psyched for the game as if it was the playoffs. It was Week 11 on the schedule and it was against the hated Jets. And Parcells was coaching. This was before Jets-Patriots became a holy war, but they were a division rival, they were a NY team, they wore green, they often sucked as much as or more than the Pats but received way more media attention. You know, New York and all. Beating them would brighten a dismal season.

As with most tailgating stories in New England, the weather would play a huge part in the fun. The guys met up in the newspaper's parking lot on a day that heavy, wind-driven rain was forecast. A forecast I had not heard. I didn't always watch the Sunday morning news in those days to see what the weather would be like. I haven't made that mistake again. I drove into the lot under a gray sky and walked over to Mark, Topher, Bergs, Brendan, Paul, and Tom Brady. Yes, Tom Brady. Not that one. This one worked at the newspaper and was the first Tom Brady I ever heard of. Of the two, he's had the second biggest impact on my life. Paul was wearing his EMT brother's rain gear. Mark had a heavy rain jacket. Shep was covered toe-to-toe in plastic. Tom Brady wore a hat and coat as if he was one of the James brothers in "The Long Riders." Everyone had boots on. I strolled up in jeans, a T-shirt and light jacket, sneakers, and a Patriots painter's cap. "Where's you rain gear?" Paul asked. "Is it going to rain?" I said. "A monsoon," Mark said. A half-hour later the monsoon had begun.

It was the first time I had been to Foxboro Stadium since I gave up my season tickets. As I stood there in the rain feeling the cardboard in the brim of my painter's cap turn to pulp, all the frustrating memories of the 1-15 season came flashing back. But so did all the fun memories. Foxboro Stadium was quite a different experience than what you have today. The stadium was located practically on Route 1 and the dirt lots spread out below it towards the woods. In the shadow of the stadium stood the old harness track Foxboro Raceway, a dirt track that opened in the '40s and was still populated by many of the people who were there for the opening.

We tailgated behind the track towards the woods, a place far from the stadium where security rarely roamed. We stood in the rain eating our wet steak sandwiches and burgers, some of us wetter than others. Tom Brady was from Jersey and this was his first Pats game. We tried to tell him what the concrete toilet bowl was like but we knew he really had to see it to believe it. As we were getting ready to go into the game, Tom took off his jacket and handed it to me. "This might help a little. I've got another coat," he said. Tom's about 6'4'', I'm 5'11''. It was a little big. But drier than what I had on. "But you can't have my hat," he laughed as he looked at my shrinking cap.

The Jets were 6-4 coming into the game so a Pats upset would be sweet. We figured a monsoon might give us a chance. We made our way through the rain and squeezed most of our group onto the bench in Section 309. We had the four seats on the aisle of Row 26. But we often fit five, six, seven guys into those four spots. That's one of the many differences between Gillette and the old stadium. Seats. That's right. Seats. My ticket now entitles me to an actual seat with arms on each side and a back. Made of plastic. Foxboro Stadium had benches. Long, cold aluminum benches with 38 numbers on them to mark your spot. There were about six inches on each side of the number. That was enough room for me but not for some of the larger Pats fans. Since there were no arms dividing the spaces people would crowd in with their buddies even if they didn't have a number on that row. We did it too. It could get pretty jammed. But not as jammed as the concourse below heading for the beers or the bathrooms.

The rain didn't let up as the game started. And the wind began to pick up. It rained in such thick sheets that some times it was hard to see the action on the field. The Patriots would make a play and the crowd would cheer. The rain would get heavier and the crowd would cheer more. Both teams struggled to pass, run, catch, block, and tackle on the wet carpet. The Jets hit a field goal in the second quarter to take a 6-0 lead. The rain got heavier. "It can't rain any harder,'' I said to Brendan. "It just can't." It did. I looked down at my beer and it was almost full. I was certain that five minutes before it was half empty. Brendan looked at his cup. It was overflowing. "Time for new beers," he said as we dumped out our cups of rainwater. Brendan headed down to battle the beer lines.

A long time later I saw him making his way back up the stairs as the wind whipped the rain horizontally. Brendan was wearing a plastic bag to stay dry. He put his head down, struggling against the wind and rain, gently balancing the two beers so as not to spill a drop. He got about five rows from the seats when the wind lifted the plastic bag up and over his head, covering his face. Brendan wrestled with the plastic -- while not spilling a drop -- and pushed it up and off his head. The bag flew in the wind till it hit another guy carrying up some beers about 10 steps below Brendan. The wind pulled the bag tight against the guy's face, so tight you could see the terror in his expression as he lost his balance and dropped his beers. Brendan got back to the seats, partly out of breath. "Didn't spill a drop,'' he said as he handed me my cup.

The Jets clung to their 6-0 lead late as Drew Bledsoe lead the Pats on one last drive to win the game. Of the fans who came to the game -- and there were a lot for a 1-9 team playing in a monsoon -- many of them were still there. Soaked, but there. Bledsoe move the offense down to the Jets' 30. He then hit receiver Michael Timpson cutting across the middle for a first down inside the Jets' 10 as the clock neared a minute left to play. Timpson tried to get a few more yards in the mud and got hit, losing the ball for a game-ending fumble. Parcells was 1-10. We were soaked to the bone.

We made our way down the stairs as the rain continued and began walking along the main aisle to get out of the stadium. As we walked along the aisle rained poured out of holes that were cut in the concrete. I never knew the real reason why there were holes in the concrete, but my guess was and still is that after the stadium was built someone realized that they had not designed a way for the water to drain out of the upper sections. So someone -- Chuck Sullivan maybe? -- decided they should cut holes in the concrete to let the water drain out. Right about head level for those walking in the aisle. As Tom Brady made his way through each fountain that hit him right in the face, he would turn and look at me. Finally, at the last gushing hole of water, he stopped and said "Nice stadium you got here, Tim. If I knew they had built-in showers I would have brought a bar of soap."

The Patriots went on to win their last four games that season. The foundation was being built for a new approach to football in New England. One where the team stopped beating itself. One where players stepped up and made big plays. And most importantly one where the head coach was really in charge. Just three years later we would be getting ready to go to Foxboro for the AFC championship game.

A few nights later me, Mark, and Shep sat in a bar talking about the game and our new coach. Parcells came on TV talking about the game too. He was saying things like he saw progress being made and that the young players were starting to "get it." And then he added: "One thing I want to say, to those fans who stayed for that whole game in the rain, they are my kind of football fans. We're gonna continue to get better for them."

Mark got a look in his eye. "If I go to the stadium tomorrow to buy four season tickets will you each buy one?" Shep and I said sure, but I don't think either of us thought he was serious. Several glasses of Dewar's can blur one's judgment. The next morning I woke up, still blurred, and another storm was raging, this one with a few inches of wet snow. I looked out the window and the ground was white. No way Mark waited outside to get tickets in weather like this, I thought. No way.

That afternoon I was at my desk in the newsroom. I saw Mark walk in the door, looking kind of wet again. He came over and put a stack of Patriots tickets down in front of me. "You owe me $350 for a season ticket," he said. I sure have gotten my money's worth. And then some.