If my heart gets warmed any more, it's gonna explode!

In what is surely the Greatest Humanitarian Story in the History of Everything, lineback Tedy Bruschi returned yesterday to the New England Stupid Patriots, after his season was initially put on virtual hold when he suffered a stroke last offseason. Now, I wouldn't wish a stroke on anybody, and I'm thus glad that Bruschi's career was apparently not destroyed by that, but really -- last night's ESPN coverage of the game in which Bruschi played might as well have been called "The Tedy Show", with only an occasional mention of anyone else on Bruschi's team, and an even more sporadic mention of the other relevant bunch of folks who were on the field last night, the Buffalo Bills. All night, whenever there was any dead air in the game coverage to fill at all, the cameras would switch to Bruschi -- whether he was on the field or not -- whereupon Paul McGuire and Joe Theissmann (ugh!) would start to wax poetic about how damned inspirational the whole thing was. At one point they even got a closeup of Bruschi on the sideline spitting on the ground, as athletes do. Great.

Anyway, in honor of the completion of the greatest single humanitarian event in the History of Everything, here's the inaugural entry in what may become a weekly event here at Byzantium's Shores, your Tedy Bruschi Inspirational Moment of the Week!



So, as I expected, the Bills lost to the StuPats. However, it was interesting to me that the StuPats, as they so often do, just didn't look that good (except for when they play the Steelers in Pittsburgh or the Colts in Foxboro). To be honest, this was the defending Super Bowl Champion team, after a bye week, at home, getting its inspirational leader back from a horrible medical problem and hosting a team with a terrible run defense and a sputtering offense that hasn't won a single road game yet this year, and the last one very badly -- and they didn't win by much, needing turnovers (caused by, yet again, ghastly Buffalo offensive-line play) to put them in position for the winning score. The StuPats should, frankly, have blown the Bills out of that stadium, and instead they nearly lost. They looked listless and, for the better part of the game, strangely unmotivated -- and this is the team led by the Master Motivator, the Ghenghis Khan of Game Planning. The StuPats gave up a huge running game by Willis McGahee, and a lot of passing yards to Kelly Holcomb. Yeah, they won, but they didn't look all that great doing it. The StuPats are in trouble, as far as I can see. Maybe not in the division, but certainly in the conference.

But I don't take a whole lot of heart in the Bills not losing by much. The Bills' O-line still failed to make important blocks at a crucial point in the game; the Bills still made a turnover at the crucial point in the game; the defense still folded at the crucial points in the game. Nate Clements, the self-proclaimed best cornerback in football, got burned on a touchdown pass by Deion Branch (if there's a single StuPat player I like, that's probably the guy). Josh Reed dropped another ball that was thrown on his numbers; that drop resulted in a field goal as opposed to a possible touchdown. On a highly crucial fourth-down play, the Bills' coaches sent in a play where Roscoe Parrish, the rookie receiver who is only seeing action in his second game after a preseason injury, is the main option (not, say, Lee Evans or Eric Moulds, who are supposedly this team's playmakers on the receiving corps). The Bills want to see this game as a valuable learning experience, but quite frankly, I'm not sure I want to see it that way. They had the defending champs on the ropes, and let them back in the game. That's not a good learning experience, as far as I'm concerned. The point isn't to learn how to not lose badly on the road; the point is to learn to win on the road.

Sure, the Bills are still "mathematically" alive to win the AFC East, but the StuPats' remaining opponents are a combined 31-34 (and when you take away their next game, against the 7-0 Colts, their remaining opponents after that are merely 24-34), while the Bills' remaining opponents are a combined 34-25. I'm not holding my breath.

Next week the Bills are off, and then they take on the Kansas City Chiefs at home, a game which I think is probably winnable. Looking at the remainder of their schedule, though, I see no reason to amend my preseason prediction of a final 6-10 record.

Other brief football notes:

:: Wow, were those Giants fired up. Now there is a team that was feeding off the emotion of the moment (and beating the hell out of its nearest divisional rival, to boot).

:: God, the Eagles are in a world of hurt right now. How any coach can be as blase about the running game, as is Andy Reid, is utterly beyond me.

:: Culpepper. Ouch. That sucks. The Vikings are plummeting, fast. (But at least the NFC North has a team with a winning record in first place now.)

:: I just gotta add this: Joe Theissmann sucks. He is the worst damn color commentator in history. Lord, he is jaw-droppingly awful.

:: When did "Hits" become a trackable statistic in the NFL? Did we need to be constantly updated on Tedy Bruschi's "hits"? WTF was that?!

OK, that's all. Thank God for the bye week.