Lucky 13

Happy Thanksgiving!

Worth It

I should be used to this by now, shouldn’t I?

A Cold Night in November

The fellow Patriots’ fans I’ve spoken with seem to be dealing with this Sunday night’s game with a mix of resignation and hope. On the one hand, New England’s defense is just two beaten up to hang with Denver’s offense. If the Pats D was healthy and whole, this would be the biggest regular season game in recent memory, a game for the ages really, with all the anticipation and anxiety of a Super Bowl. Instead, with Wilfork, Mayo, Kelly out and Talib, Arrington and Dennard – their top three cornerbacks – banged up and questionable, this is a game Patriots Nation can shrug off if their heroes should fail.

We’ll party if they win, of course. There’s some spark of light and hope inside all of us who root for the Patriots that cannot be denied. Peyton Manning is coming to town. It doesn’t get any better than this. It’s never been better than this.

Don't Cry for Me, Carolina

I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s just move on.

There Will Still Be Blood

Another big, illegal hit. Cue the lamentation of the women.

Three Strange Days

The more we know, the more we know we don’t know. Our understanding grows arithmetically while our understanding of reality grows geometrically. If not algebraically. Is that a thing? I’ve learned enough math to know I don’t know a lot about math. The pie chart of my math knowledge requires a call out to document the less than single digit slice of my math knowledge. It goes without saying that my knowledge of temporal physics is similarly limited (given, you know, the math involved). So time maybe multi-dimensional. Time may go forwards and backwards at the same time (it feels like that at work sometimes). I know this. Some threads in that big ball of yarn that’s time are finite. They have a beginning and an end. Like the 2013 NFL Season. We’re on the back nine. Well, the back seven. It’s Week 11. Fates are in the process of being sealed.

A Few Bad Men

I’ve never been in an NFL locker room. I don’t know any more about the Richie Incognito-Jonathan Martin story than you do. I guess it’s always cool to play a Jack Nicholson clip but I’m not sure I buy the “A Few Good Men” meme. I’m never comfortable with the comparison of professional athletes to the men and women who serve in the military – even if it’s a movie. I know the “blood in” story in Sebastian Junger’s brilliant “War” and recognized the extreme circumstances under which those men were living. Do not make the mistake of extending the same level of understanding and empathy we feel for men and women under fire to athletes on a playing field. Those men in Restrepo were not playing.

Take the Points

I had this crazy dream where I was back in 2007. Randy Moss was throwing his hand up. Tom Brady was carpet bombing defensive backfields with touchdown passes. Wes Welker was roaming free over the middle. I don’t remember that gigantic tight end though. You’d think I’d remember somebody that big, and athletic, and – wait. What?

That wasn’t a dream?