Bill Belichick and the Patriots coaching staff will be running the show for the AFC this weekend.  Other than the fact that it means the Patriots aren't in the Super Bowl, do you consider this to be a benefit, hinderance, or a non-factor as the Pats prepare for the 2011 season?

Stephen: The way Bill Belichick dedicates his time and resources to building the best football team, I have little doubt that coaching the Pro Bowl will affect his preparation for the 2011 season. Whether its scouting other players or talking to potential free agents, he will find some way to benefit from coaching the AFC squad. The man has won three Super Bowl titles and is generally viewed as a great talent evaluator and roster manager. Missing a week or two for the Pro Bowl will not affect the way the Patriots and Belichick prepare to address their needs this offseason.

If any player on the Patriots roster could be considered a Pro Bowl snub, who would it be?

Jason:  I think you could make a very good argument that TE Rob Gronkowski was a snub. Zach Miller was selected as the backup TE, but Gronkowski scored twice as many TDs and had a higher average yards per catch. Miller had 18 more catches and 139 more yards, but in my book, the 10-5 TD edge should have given the edge to Gronk. On the plus side, his youth and continued development with one of the league's elite QBs makes it likely that he'll be taking the trip to Hawaii sooner or later.

With the off-season underway, the Foxboro Blog crew will be sitting down at the round table and hashing out some of the critical issues facing the Patriots this spring and summer.  We'll begin this series of round tables with some more light-hearted discussion about the Pro Bowl.  Here's today's topic...

The Patriots had six players (Brady, Mankins, Wilfork, Merriweather, Mayo, and McCourty) named to the Pro-Bowl, the most of any team in the league.  There were rumblings in the media that this was too many. Who do you think definitely deserved to make the team, and which selections may have been questionable?

Rick: The guys who definitely deserve to make the team were Brady, Wilfork, Mayo, and Devin McCourty who is IMO the defensive rookie of the year in the NFL considering that the cornerback position would be a nightmare without him. Meriweather did not deserve to make the team because he had a very off year and at times Belichick would bench him for dumb plays like running into James Sanders on the James Jones TD against the Packers and then the illegal hit against Todd Heap. He needs a reality check this offseason. Logan Mankins had a good HALF A YEAR, but I feel you have to play at least 3/4 of the season to be Pro Bowl eligible.

Wes Welker admitted yesterday that he regretted the veiled shots he took at Rex Ryan by making multiple foot references in a press conference leading up to the Patriots playoff game with the Jets.

"I’m not going to get into any details about it, but I don’t think it’s worth putting coach (Belichick) in that situation. So in a sense, I do regret it. As much as you might want to get enticed into that stuff, at the end of the day, it’s just not worth it."

While I certainly saw the humor in what Wes did during his press conference, I was pretty against it at the time.  Like Wes admitted, it simply wasn't worth responding to anything the Jets were saying that week.  In some ways, Welker's comments just re-enforced that the Jets trash talk was having the desired affect.  They were trying to get under the Patriots skin and distract them from the task at hand.  If the trash talk isn't affecting you and all you're thinking about is the game, then you don't spend time thinking up all the different ways you can slip the word "foot" into your press conference.

I’d like to thank everyone for joining me for the first-ever Opening Lines “Special Edition” column. Can you feel the excitement in the air? We’re just a few short days away from one of the most exciting events in sports, featuring the best from each conference facing off in an effort to earn the ultimate bragging rights for the 2010 season. A game where legends are made, dreams are crushed, legacies are decided and champions are made. I’m talking, of course, about the Pro Bowl.

The Pro Bowl is basically the league’s half-hearted attempt to engage fans by allowing them to vote for their favorite players to represent their conference in a meaningless game for a national television audience. It’s kinda like American Idol, except you couldn’t beat up nearly as many of the truly annoying contestants. The event is so prestigious, a few players choose to skip the event each year because it’s not worth the extra practice time and risk of injury just to get a free Hawaii vacation that they could afford ten times over from a single game check. But on the plus side, it actually allows players like 49ers MLB Patrick Willis to find out what it feels like to play football in January (yeah, I went there). And it gives the fans a chance to see all of the stars from New York Jets. Yep, aaalllllll three of them. Oh, did anyone mention the Patriots are sending seven to Hawaii? You can add that to your long list of disappointments this morning, Jets fans. You may have won one lousy playoff game, but you’re still just the annoying little step-sister of the AFC East who still can’t find a date to the prom. /end anti-Jets rant

Even though I was rooting for the Jets to win, there was definitely some severe satisfaction in watching Rex Ryan and his group of thugs go down in flames tonight.  There will be no Super Bowl for New York.  Six months of non-stop trash talk has amounted to... 

Nothing.

They didn't win their division.  They didn't win the conference.  So much for "leading the league in wins", Rex Ryan.  The only things the Jets lead the league in this season were sexual harrassment scandals, illegitimate children fathered, explitives spoken, DUI's, foot fetish video appearances, cell phone pictures of penises, weight of their head coach, and unmet expectations.

It's the question that I've been asking myself all week:  Who do I root for in the AFC Championship?   As a Pats fan, the correct answer is that I root for a huge earthquake to level Heinz Field and swallow up both the Jets and the Steelers, but that's not very likely.   So assuming that no natural disasters occur on Sunday, other than Rex Ryan's post-game dump, which team do I throw myself behind?  Back in the day when my NBA team, the Timberwolves, were relevant and they would get ousted from the playoffs, I would often turn myself into an NBA monk and just pretend the rest of the post-season never happened.  Unfortunately, there's just no way to do that this time around.  The AFC Championship isn't being played at 10:30 PM on TNT like a Kings/Lakers game, the Super Bowl is a national event that everyone talks about, I happen to run a sports blog network that will be covering the games heavily, and I just like football too much to ignore it when there's only three games left until, well, who knows with the lockout?  So like it or not, I have to pick a side. 

In most situations like this, I just choose the team that I happen to like better.  With Jets/Steelers it becomes a little more difficult as I have to realy sit down and figure out who I hate less...

Why I Hate the Jets: 

- Rex Ryan is the antithesis of everything I believe a football coach should be.  He has no class.  He has no character.  He is loud-mouthed, self-serving, and puts himself in front of his team.  He allows his players to say whatever they want, no matter how inappropriate, and as a result has bred a 53-man team of pretty crappy role models.  He is a gigantic blight on the National Football League, and other than serving as a great villain for anyone with an ounce of moral character to despise, he adds no positive value to the game of football.  

And he likes to suck toes.  Just had to throw that in there. 

- The Jets have sexaually harrassed Inez Sainz this season, as well as had a scandal about sexual harrassment against Jen Sterger come to light.  Santionio Holmes was investigated for assualting a woman.  Antonio Cromartie needed a loan from the team to pay his child support for the nine children he's fathered with eight different women in six different states. I'm not Mr. Feminism, but that seems like a locker room full of scum bags to me.

- Mark Sanchez is not a good quarterback.  His team wins in spite of him, not because of him.  I'm tired of hearing people praise him when it's the Jets defense that gets the job done. 

- The Jets hurled profanity laden tirades against the Patriots last week, including a threat of injury to Wes Welker by Bart Scott.  Total classlessness.  You would never hear a Bill Belichick team disrespect their opponent like that.

Why I Hate the Steelers:

- The Pats beat them handily in two AFC Championship games and all we've heard from them is whining. 

- They've won six Super Bowl titles, which is the most ever.  I could respect it, if the last two they won weren't complete and utter crap.   They were a 6th seed in 2005 and beat Cincy in the Wild Card round by putting a cheap shot on Carson Palmer and tearing his ACL at the start of the game.  They lucked out on a missed Vanderjagt chip shot in the next round.  In Super Boxl XL, the most rigged football game I've ever seen, the referees have openly admitted that they made horrible calls that cost Seattle the game.  Three years later, they were bailed out (as was the rest of the league) by Brady's ACL tear and the streaking Patriots getting locked out of the playoffs despite being 11-5.  They barely eeked out a Super Bowl win against a Cardinals team that the Pats beat 41-7 weeks earlier. 

Basically, they've fielded two of the worst Super Bowl teams in recent memory, who won it all by getting lucky, getting bailed out by the refs, and having other teams beat the actual good teams.  In both those seasons I've failed to see them put forth a true "Championship" level effort.  Where is the defining moment where they overcame a huge challenge to prove they were the best?  There isn't one.   If they win again this year, they could very well do so by facing a slate of a 5th seed, a 6th seed, and a 6th seed.  Pathetic.

A Super Bowl is a Super Bowl, and if it were any other team, I'd leave it at that.  But the last thing I want to hear is PIttsburgh fans spouting off about "seven rings" when three of them basically meant their team were the tallest midget at the circus during the three weakest seasons over the course of a decade.

- Ben Rapistberger.  It would really irk me to see yet another shoud-be-convicted-felon hoist the Lombardi Trophy.   The only thing Ben Roethlisberger shold be holding between his hands are prison bars. 

I was processing the Patriots’ season after their disappointing home playoff loss to the New York Jets, Bart Scott’s interview with ESPN stuck in my head. He told him that the Patriots’ defense “can’t cover a nosebleed.” It turns out he was right. In that game, the Patriots had a good cornerback in Devin McCourty, but who did New York keep exploiting? They exploited the weaker cornerbacks in Kyle Arrington and Darius Butler. It begs the Patriot fan to wonder, do we have enough elite cornerbacks to get back to the Super Bowl without a legitimate pass rush?

Now, you can make up for the pass rush if you have top cornerbacks. Look at those same New York Jets. With Darrelle Revis and now Antonio Cromartie, New York was able to drop their guys into coverage and not allow any room for receivers to get open. This limited guys like Branch, Welker, and Gronkowski to get yards after the catch.

On a lot of mock drafts, New England’s picks are projected most likely in the first round to come from the defensive end or the running back positions. If that is the case, I would want New England to go after cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha of the Raiders. Asomugha’s contract was voided after the 2010 season because he did not make certain incentives on his deal.

Yes, New England does get Leigh Bodden back after an ACL tear last summer. But, how will Bodden’s health be coming off a surgery that basically needs two years to heal up to full strength? It is a huge gamble to put him at that number two cornerback slot. Asomugha is a playmaker who can develop his own island in  Foxboro and be a part of a championship team in his prime. Asomugha and McCourty could equal Revis and Cromartie in terms of production and definitely improve a very bad pass defense.

New England made a play at Julius Peppers last offseason and now they need to make the right move in March regardless of the CBA situation and get themselves a bonafide star. Plus, it would allow them to have a veteran leader on the defensive side of the ball to compete with the Jets come 2011.

Reports are out today that Tom Brady will be undergoing foot surgery to repair a stress fracture.  This appears to be a bit of a surprise, as Brady was recently quoted as saying that he was thankful that this off-season would be surgery-free.  Nevertheless, this surgery is relatively minor compared to some of the other operations he's undergone in the past and the general consensus is that Brady will be fully recovered in time for training camp. 

In related news, Foxboro Blog has some inside information.  Sources are telling us that Rex Ryan took time away from his preparation for the AFC Title game to contact Brady after news of his injury broke.  The rival head coach apparently left a message on Brady's cell phone wishing him well during surgery and made an offer to help "lick his wounds" during the off-season. 

Needless to say, Brady has not returned the call.

The 2010 Pick 'Em game is officiall down to the wire.  With just three games remaining and only a single game separating our leader, Jason, and 2nd place Rick, there could very well be more than the Lombardi Trophy at stake on February 6th.  

Both Jason and Rick are backing the Steelers, making the Green Bay/Chicago game the one to watch.  If the Bears pull out the W at Soldier Field, both will be 22-17 heading into the big game.  I, on the other hand, have already been statistically eliminated and am guaranteed to finish dead-last in this contest.  Given my 3-5 record in the post-season thus far, I think that's a fitting place for me.  

If there's any consolation in this, it's that I'm picking the Jets in the AFC Championship.  If I continue along my track record, that means that this is the week that Rex Ryan finally gets shut up.

Onto the picks...

Game	Derek	Jason	Rick
NYJ @ PIT
GB @ CHI
Last Week	1-3	3-1	3-1
Record	18-20	22-16	21-17