If we’ve learned one thing already this NFL season, it is that the Patriots are not Super Bowl contenders, and that the Broncos have already sewed up the Lombardi Trophy.

Also, Danny Amendola is fragile and not half the player Wes Welker is.

Now that we’ve got all that out of the way, your Sunday afternoons (and this Thursday night) should be wide open now.

OK then. If you’re still reading,

The Patriots pulled out their season opener in Buffalo yesterday squeaking by the Bills on a last second field goal, 23-21. Get all the coverage at PatriotsLinks.com, and here are a few of the local highlights:

What we learned: Danny Amendola delivers gutty effort to lift Patriots past Bills – Christopher Price runs down the takeaways from yesterday afternoon.

Amendola’s gutsy performance quiets critics – Tom E Curran nails the miserable contingent of Patriots “fans” perfectly. The Tweets he posts at the end are just a few of the polite ones.

Danny Amendola’s first performance worthy of Wes Welker comparisons – A nice addition to the Boston.com stable is Erik Frenz’s Going Deep blog.

Analysis: Patriots-Bills – Erik Scalavino of Patriots Football Weekly has a few observations of things that stood out to him.

Tom Brady’s Offense In For Some Not-So-Smooth Sailing And Other Leftover Patriots Thoughts – Michael Hurley has a great roundup of yesterday’s action.

Boomer Esiason On Toucher & Rich: ‘Wouldn’t Worry Too Much’ About Patriots’ Offense – Catch Boomer’s first appearance with the 98.5 morning show.

Tom Brady on D&C: Danny Amendola ‘just awesome’ in second half vs. Bills – The Patriots QB made his first regular season appearance on D&C.

Edelman, Vereen fill void for Patriots – Field Yates has the pair stepping up to play big roles yesterday.

The Red Sox didn’t get the sweep in New York this weekend, but by taking three of four, they pushed the Yankees to 10 games back in the AL East, and Boston has a 7.5 game lead in the division over second place Tampa.

We know Tony Massarotti still doesn’t trust this team. Yesterday Dan Shaughnessy tried his best to somehow, someway, find a negative in what is happening right now.

chb-jeWhat a joke.

Will Ellsbury’s foot slow Red Sox? – Gordon Edes says that the injury isn’t quite the “critical mass” moment that Shaughnessy wishes it was. John Tomase leans closer to Shaughnessy’s view.

Altered approach has led to big results for Middlebrooks – One of the big reasons for the Sox September surge has the third baseman. Tim Britton looks at how Middlebrooks turned around his season.

Simmons podcast: 60 minutes with Ainge – Be sure to check out the Bill Simmons BS Report podcast with Danny Ainge. If you don’t have time to listen to it all, the highlights are here.

Published by Bruce Allen

Automattician.

2 thoughts on “Good News – Your Fall Just Freed Up”

  1. Let us not forget that Shaughnessy is the Irish derivation of Schadenfreude…and Tomase is, well, Tomase…Massarotti is analogous to Charlie from “Its Always Sunny in Philly”…Ellsbury needs to be back as soon as possible for every imaginable reason and I trust Edes sources…

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  2. Bruce:

    Another year, another early season game where the post game media coverage (and some of the in game media coverage) misses the larger points. It is so easy to write the “Pats new Wideouts suck” story…while at the same time ignoring several key points in the game…for example the Patriots are up 10-0 have the ball and are marching towards at least 3 maybe 7. Ridley falls and puts the ball on the ground resulting in 7 the other way. Changed the dynamic of the whole game. Let’s play the what if game for a second. What if Ridley does not put that ball on the ground and the Pats instead score 7. Most likely they are looking at a 17-0 or 17-3 score (with the way the defense was playing) going into the half. Coming out in the second half the Pats would have gone to a heavy run game… picking and choosing where to pass…that would have freed up more space for the young receivers to work and I am thinking would have allowed them to have better results.

    I came away from the game excited that the team passed its first early season test. The young guys will learn. I have no idea if Ridley will stop putting the ball on the ground but Kevin Faulk learned so it is possible. With more time to learn the kids will acclimate more. Of course that will rain all over certain story lines…but so be it.

    One last thing…there are no style points in football!

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