We believe that Bill Belichick is a genius and Tom Brady is his prophet. We believe in team over self and results over stats. We believe you can blame your lack of execution on a video camera if it helps you sleep better at night. We believe there is no shame in 18-1, only pride. We are Patriots fans. We are Foxboro Blog.
Schedule
Record: 10-7
Regular Season 9/14 vs. BUF - W 25-24 9/20 @ NYJ - L 9-16 9/27 vs. ATL - W 26-10 10/4 vs. BAL - W 27-21 10/11 @ DEN - L 17-20 OT 10/18 vs. TEN - W 59-0 10/25 @ TB - W 35-7 11/8 vs. MIA - W 27-17 11/15 @ IND - L 34-35 11/22 vs. NYJ - W 34-14 11/30 @ NO - L 17-38 12/6 @ MIA - L 21-22 12/13 vs. CAR - W 20-10 12/20 @ BUF - W 17-10 12/27 vs. JAX W 35-7 1/3 @ HOU L 34-27
The season is half-way over and the New England Patriots stand 6-2. It's been a fairly turbulent ride - the opening night nail-biter, the Jets upset, two big wins against the black birds, a heart-breaking OT loss to Josh McDaniels' Broncos, two thrashing - one in October snow, the other in London, and finally a battle against the wildcat for AFC East supremacy. For somebody who envisioned smooth sailing early on, much like 2007, the first half of this season has been quite the surprise. I never thought the Patriots offense would struggle the way it did early on. I also never saw the defense being as dominant as it has been. Joey Galloway getting cut? No way! Brandon McGowan becoming a defensive star? Never! Yet even though things haven't gone quite as planned, one thing remains the same nine weeks later - I believe the New England Patriots are a Super Bowl team.
For the remainder of the season, I'll be doing a weekly set of power rankings on Foxboro Blog. Instead of giving a run down of all 32 teams, I'm limiting the rankings to the Top 12. Before anyone jumps to conclusions, the number of rankings has nothing to do with the man-crush I may or may not have on Tom Brady. It's simply due to the fact that writing worthwhile comments on all 32 teams is pretty time consuming. Also, does anyone outside of Kansas City and St. Louis care about the current battle for the #29 spot? Actually, I'm pretty sure the good people of Missouri are so distraught about their state becoming the nation's capital of stinky football teams, that I'd actually be doing them a disservice by bringing up the Chiefs' and Rams' ineptitudes week after week. So without further ado, here's your Top 12 for Week 9. These are the 12 teams that matter, folks. Or, as I like to think of them, the eleven other teams that will be jealously watching Randy Moss hoisting the Lombardi Trophy this February...
Before we break down the Patriots' performance, let's give take a moment to congratulate Joey Porter on his incredibly insignificant performance. Nothing like running your mouth non-stop leading up to a game and then posting a row of zeros in the stat column.
In order to not be a complete hater, I will give credit to the Dolphins' play callers for keeping the Patriots on their toes. I honestly thought there would be no way that Miami could unleash the wildcat successfully with Bill Belichick coming off a bye week. Early on, it seemed that New England would steam roll the Dolphins. However, the Fins got incredibly creative with their formations to the point where I was sweating a bit in the fourth quarter. There's certainly something to be said for keeping a defense guessing. It lead to some big plays for Miami today. In a must-win game against a superior opponent, it kept the Dolphins alive to the end.
As promised, I'll be doing a game preview for each weeks match-up. I'm calling this segment "3rd and Long", because I plan to go over three hot topics/things to watch for in each preview. It was also the first name that came to me during the approximately eight seconds I spent thinking about what I should call my game previews. So while the name is subject to change, it's what we're going with for this week at least.
1st Down: The Most Annoying Sound in the World
If you thought that was bad, try listening to the latest batch of Joey Porter sound bites. First there was talk of how he has a natural "hate" for the Patriots.
“My feeling towards New England goes back further. It goes back to my Pittsburgh days. I feel a certain way after some things came out, way back when. There was some AFC championships I lost to them a couple times. Come to figure out a couple months later why we lost. So, yeah, I have natural hate for them. Period. And that’s just going to be with me forever. That’s not going to change. You can fill in the blanks. You know exactly what I’m talking about. And they know exactly what I’m talking about. And that’s not gonna change from my thought process on that situation.’’
Joey, if blaming your lack of execution on a video camera helps you feel better about yourself, then hate away. Clearly a video camera is responsible for a punt return touchdown and a blocked field goal touchdown in 2002. Foxboro Blog would also like to thank the good folks at Sony who got us the latest model of the Handycam just in time for the 2005 AFC Title game. We would've never been able to pick off Rothlisberger three times en route to a 41-27 drubbing without it!
Bottom line, Joey Porter can continue to run his mouth and say asinine things like how Brady "influences" the refs. New England does their talking on the field. The only annoying sound Porter will be hearing tomorrow are the muskets firing after a slew of Patriots' touchdowns.
Welcome to Foxboro Blog, the official home of the New England Patriots on the Bloguin Network! I've been covering the Patriots on my personal website, DeROK.Net since 2002. During that time I've had the honor of chronicling two Super Bowl titles, a 21 game winning streak, a perfect regular season, and a host of other memorable moments. Now it's time to ramp up the coverage of my favorite team with a full-fledged blog of their own. The goal is to build this site from the ground up and become the internet's leading Patriots community. I managed to do something similar for my favorite NBA team, the Minnesota Timberwolves, but I only got there through a ton of help from our super-star staff. I believe that Foxboro Blog can repeat that success, but only with similar contributions from my fellow Pats fans. If you'd like to help contribute, feel free to drop me a line using the contact link on the main menu. At the moment, my plan is to have a weekly schedule that includes a game preview, a game recap, and power rankings. However, I've got a lot on my plate managing our 100+ sites on the Bloguin Network, as well as writing for DeROK.Net, TWolvesBlog.com, and my day job as a pediatric resident. Honestly, I have no idea how I'm going to run this site on my own, but I couldn't let Bloguin go without coverage of the Pats for any longer. Also, I'm a huge fan of that Kevin Costner guy and believe that if I build it, the writers and readers will come. So hopefully you'll keep coming back as we cover the Patriots each week, as well as hot topics like Rex Ryan's diabetes, Eric Mangina's epic failues in Clevland, and Nextel's recent attempt to purchase advertising space on Peyton Manning's massive forehead.
Want to blog about the Pats? Foxboro Blog is looking for contributors to help us provide daily coverage of the Patriots. If you'd like to become involved with the blog, please contact us and let us know why you think you'd be a good fit for our staff.
If you're reading this site, then you probably love watching the Pats as much as we do, and betting on some of the games can make things twice as interesting!
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Bloguin is the revolutionary blog network specifically focused on helping bloggers get the most out of their websites. We're currently working on building a large network of online communities and hope to expand our blogging coverage to include a wide range of topics. 
The Bloguin Network allows advertisers to promote their products and services to our ever-growing number of visitors. We offer both site-specific ad placements as well as the ability to run a network-wide campaign. If you're interested in working with Bloguin to meet your advertising needs, please contact us.
The Bloguin Network is always looking to expand. We're specifically looking for blogs in the sports, entertainment, and video games field, but are open to adding any type of quality site. If you're a blogger and interested in joining our network, please fill out our application form.
The Bloguin Login gives you full access to everything our network has to offer. Your name and password will work for each and every one of our sites. Signing up is simple, and will allow you to post in all our forums, create member blogs, and access other cool features! What are you waiting for? Create an Account! 