Time to kill

When the team you root for is in the Super Bowl, the first of the two weeks before kickoff is a long week. There's a lot of chatter in the blabosphere but not a lot of information or analysis. There's lots of dead time. Time for one's mind to wander...

• It's not good when the NFL Network shows their top five plays from last weekend's championship games and the two that are from the Pats-Ravens game is the pick by the Ravens in the end zone and the great touchdown catch and run by the Ravens' Torrey Smith. Not one good Pats play. They were really lucky to get out of there with a victory.
• I heard Jim Irsay, owner of the Colts, say that he was disappointed that his soon-to-be-former franchise quarterback spoke out about his frustration with all the staff changes since the team's impressive 2-12 season ended. "I don't think it's in the best interest to paint the horseshoe in a negative light. The horseshoe always comes first." The horseshoe? I could understand if he said "the team" always comes first. Or "the franchise." Or "all my millions." Something like that. But the horseshoe? And people hate Belichick? And that kind of talk coming from the guy whose family packed up the horseshoe in the middle of the night and drove it out of its sacred Baltimore and took it to Indianapolis. Ya, the horseshoe comes first... if it's wrapped in money.
• Watching a replay of the Week 9 game between the Pats and the Giants at Gillette did not fill me with confidence. With just two minutes to go in the third quarter the Patriots offense had three points and just as many bad turnovers. Brady, to quote him, "sucked." The offense had more punts than first downs. It's not pretty to watch. And then Brady, Welker, Gronk, and Hernandez caught fire and the Pats would score 17 points in the final quarter to take a lead with just more than a minute to play. Then little Manning attacked our shaky defense and pulled out another last-second victory. I can't take another one of those.
• The Jets implosion just keeps getting better and better. After team "leader" LT blamed everyone else for the Jets missing the playoffs amid a storm of tantrums and arguments, actual leader Darrelle Revis came out and said that coach Rex Ryan had no idea of the turmoil that was bubbling through the locker room all year. The coach who keeps predicting he's so good he will take his team to every Super Bowl played on this planet had no idea that his players were abandoning ship? Well, there might be another ring on Belichick's hand that he didn't come to NY to kiss.
• The Globe's Greg Bedard, one of the best football writers the city has had in years, says that people are being too hard on Brady's AFC title game performance. Two picks (should have been three), no touchdown passes. He said Brady got the job done when he had too. True enough. But I think he's going a little too easy on #12. Brady has passed Neely as the player I have had the most fun watching, but it hasn't been that much fun in the playoffs the last few years. And it's not just because things come harder and defenses get better in the playoffs. Brady made several unforced errors last week. He wouldn't have made it through the first round at the Australian Open. I'm counting on that not happening two games in a row.

When's kickoff?