Yes the excitement for the Super Bowl between the New England Patriots and New York Giants is already beginning to escalate but I can't help but feel a tad depressed that there will be no football on this weekend. This also serves as a reminder that after next weekend it will be five long months before training camps open up for the 2008 season. At least there's the draft to look forward to in April. And Free Agency in March. I guess football season never really ends, does it?
The Patriots got back to practice and, gasp, there was no sign of Tom Brady in the locker room this morning. Was this because he just wanted to avoid two trillion questions about his ankle? (Which, by the way, I had wrongly dubbed "Broken-Foot-Gate", Wendi Nix on ESPN corrected me this morning, it is "Bootgate". Sorry, I hate when I get my "gate" naming incorrect. It's my own personal Gate-gate now I guess.) Of course there's always the other possibility for Brady - that his ankle is still tender and he's going to take a couple days off to let it heal up completely. The Pats were going full pads today so that could be the case. We'll see when the practice report comes out later to see if Brady participated. An injury report is not required by the NFL until next Wednesday so there won't be any definitive word on it by then. And I'm pretty sure by then we'll have some other "gate" to be dealing with.
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What's the deal with Osi Umenyiora? Has he not been paying attention all season long that whenever an opponent says something about the Pats it ends up getting endlessly hyped during the lead up to the game? I'm not about to go so far as to say that the Pats feed off of comments like those any more than any other team, but the media certainly has given them a reputation for doing that and thus will make sure that every single member of the Pats is aware of what Osi said. Here's his comments to Bob Costas on Inside the NFL about Pats Left Tackle Matt Light (transcript courtesy of Mike Reiss, Boston Globe http://www.boston.com/sports/football/patriots/reiss_pieces/):
Osi Umenyiora: “It was a good match up the last time. I mean, I think I got him a couple of times, he also got me a couple of times. It was a war out there and to be honest with you, I not quite sure that he thought that he was going to see me again because of some of the things he did and said during that game. But, you know, unfortunately he does have to see me again.”
Bob Costas: “Trash talking is one thing, you seem to be implying that he made some dirty moves. Did something happen outside the pale?”
Osi Umenyiora: “He was doing a couple of things that you know he shouldn’t have been.”
Bob Costas: “Like what?”
Osi Umenyiora: “Hitting after the delay and trying to, I don’t know if he was trying to intimidate me, I don’t know what he was trying to do, but he did a couple of things that he shouldn’t have done and, you know, now we are really going to go at it this time.”
Bob Costas: “Were there angry words?”
Osi Umenyiora: “A couple.”
When asked if the Patriots were a dirty team, Umenyiora said: "I wouldn’t call them a dirty team, I wouldn’t say that. I haven’t really experienced them as a team to be dirty. They have certain individuals like I am sure we have certain individuals who are perceived to be dirty but people wouldn’t call them a dirty team.”
Okay, first of all it isn't even really that bad is it? I would imagine just about every left tackle in the NFL does whatever it takes to stop the oncoming rusher. It's the most difficult position to block, especially because he's the one covering Tom Brady's blindside. Regardless every Patriot is going to be asked about Osi's comments today and even though there's nothing that is all that inflammatory it will at least annoy the players to have to respond to yet another opponent making pre-game comments about how they play. That unto itself will be enough to give the Pats a little more fuel for their fire when it comes to Super Bowl Sunday.
Keywords: New England Patriots Tom Brady New York Giants Super Bowl Eli Manning Osi Umenyiora Matt Light NFL Injury
