I fully expect the Jets to come out trying to run the ball, unlike the last time these two teams faced each other. There’s no scheming to be had here, it just who wins the battle in the trenches.  I think that Vince Wilfork will have a monster game, dominating the line and helping to shut down the run.  On offense, the Patriots will do their usual, spreading the ball around to the open man, and getting some good running yards from Green-Ellis and Woodhead. My prediction: Patriots 35 - Jets 17.

A lot of the talk for this game has focused on the Patriots pass vs the Jets defense.  Their pass rush, who Revis will cover, how will Branch fare, etc.  But I think the key is for the Patriots to run the ball. You don’t want to battle that pass defense every play, you certainly don’t want them keying off on Brady.  And while the Jets have a good run defense, so did the Steelers. I think the Patriots’ offensive line has the ability to push forward and make holes for the running game.  I really think the Pats should come out and pound the ball, and I expect BJGE to have a big game.

I feel a strange confidence about this game.  It’s really a must win game, as it would put the Patriots behind the Jets and Dolphins in total record, division record, and head-to-head.  In addition, its a road game which the Pats know they have to start showing up for.  I think Belichick and the team are really going to be focused and hungry this week and we’ll see some of the defensive players clean up some of their technical mistakes.  Or at least I hope so.  I’m predicting Patriots 30, Dolphins 27.

The 2010 Patriots Season opener is finally here!  Tomorrow against the Bengals!  The Patriots have lots of questions. Last year on offense, they were extremely predictable, simply throwing to Moss or Welker all the time. This year they have 2nd years WR Brandon Tate and Julian Edelman, along with rookie TEs Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez.  Will these new weapons open up the offense more?  Can the Patriots actually run the ball? Can Fred Taylor and Sammy Morris stay healthy? What I’m looking for in this game is to see if they commit to running the ball and if the extra offensive weapons show up.

On defense, there are even more questions. The Patriots will be starting a rookie corner, a rookie middle linebacker, a 2nd year corner, a 2nd year safety, a new free agent on the defensive line, and either a career-long special teamer or a rookie at outside linebacker.  Who will play outside linebacker opposite Tully Banta-Cain? Ninkovich? Murrell? Cunningham? Can rookie Cunningham contribute?  Can the Patriots get any pass rush? Can they stop the run? Will the young defensive backs hold up?  Do they have to keep a vanilla defense or with all these young and new players, can they put their usual disguises and trickery in there?  Lots of questions here as well.

I’d like to see the Patriots win. But more importantly, I’d like to see some balance on offense, with the new weapons involved, and I’d like to see something from the defense to give confidence that the front seven can stop the run and rush the passer, and the young DBs can cover and perhaps create some turnovers. I feel like this is a year where it may take a while for all the new defensive components to gel together but they may be able to get hot in the later part of year.

My prediction: Pats 28, Bengals 24.

That was an impressive performance by the Patriots. Perhaps their best game of the year, at least #2 after the Titans game.  The run game was going (197 yards), the pass game was beautiful (more touchdown passes than incompletions), and the defense looked great, stopping the Jags on 4th and 1 early in the first quarter to get things going and getting two interceptions.

Now the question is, what do the Patriots do next week?  The game means virtually nothing to us - it decides if we’re the 3rd or 4th seed, but we have no idea who either will play.  So it could be a good opportunity to get a bye week before the playoffs start, BUT it would be nice to see if we could be conistent and continue this great performance next week, on the ROAD at Houston.  It will be interesting to see what the Patriots try to do.  Personally, I would like to see them keep the momentum going, although resting any injured players.

On a side note, the starting Colts players sure looked deflated and demoralized after being benched and losing that game to the Jets…

A few things to look for today:

• With Edelman hurt, the Patriots have activiated 3rd round pick Brandon Tate off of the PUP.  Could he be our #3 WR?
• We’re thin at RB with Taylor and Morris out.  How will Maroney perform with a majority of the carries?
• After being inactive last week, Adalius Thomas is back this week.  Will his inactivation spark him to better play this week?

I think the Steelers will win the Super Bowl, mostly because they have the #1 defense in the league.  James Harrison is amazing, Ike Taylor will mostly shut down Larry Fitzgerald (with help from Ryan Clark and Troy Polamalu) and the Steelers will win.  I was originally picking the Ravens because of their defense (#2 to the Steelers) but defense usually wins.  I’m still hoping to see some excitement from Kurt Warner and some ridiculous catches from Fitzgerald, but its the Steelers.  With their pass rush, they should force Kurt Warner into some bad throws, and I think their D will get some turnovers out of it.  On the other side, Roethlisburger and Willie Parker should be able to do enough to win the game.

Here are my playoff predictions.  My somewhat ’sleeper’ teams that I really like are the Ravens and Falcons.  As is the usual with the NFL playoffs, I would expect the teams with the best defenses to go far.  So the Titans, Steelers, Ravens, Panthers, and Giants.  Here we go:

Wildcard Round:

Ravens over Dolphins
Colts over Chargers
Vikings over Eagles
Falcons over Cardinals

Divisional Round:

Ravens over Titans
Steelers over Colts
Falcons over Giants
Panthers over Vikings

Conference Championships:

Ravens over Steelers
Falcons over Panthers

Super Bowl:

Ravens over Falcons

I’m looking forward to this game tomorrow.  Matt Cassel showed last week that he can be effective at managing the game and making the short screen passes to Faulk and Welker that have been so important to this offense in the past.  But we didn’t get to see him try to stretch the field with Moss.  Whether that was the gameplan, or due to the Jets double-covering Moss is unknown.  This game should be an opportunity for us to find out if Cassel can run the whole offense. I would expect to see him try some deep passes to Moss, it would be awewsome to see a high offensive output in this game to show that we can put up points similar to last year.

The day is finally here. Patriots vs Giants. A rematch of an incredible game from 5 weeks ago. A chance for the Patriots to make history and go 19-0. The Super Bowl. Let’s take a look at the matchup.

Lets look at the Patriots offense vs the Giants defense. In the Patriots last two playoff games, the opposing teams have kept Randy Moss well covered and forced the Patriots to run the ball or throw short to Wes Welker and Kevin Faulk. The Giants, however, are more of a team that will blitz more in an attempt to get to Tom Brady. These blitzes will leave some of the wide receivers open downfield if Brady has time to throw. In the first matchup, Brady was only sacked once and hit a long TD pass to Moss on a blitz. This time around, the Patriots have two more starting offensive linemen back that they didn’t have in the last matchup. I expect to see the Patriots hold the Giants blitz off enough for Brady to make some long throws. I expect the Patriots to score touchdowns on the majority of their drives (6 of 8 maybe?).

On the other side of the ball, the Patriots defense didn’t play too well last time. The Giants scored touchdowns on all four of their trips into the redzone. That will have been a point of emphasis in the Patriots practices this week. The key things the Patriots defense has to do are to pressure Eli Manning, stop Brandon Jacobs and Ahmad Bradshaw, and cover Plaxico Burress. In the last matchup, Manning looked great against the Pats defense until they started blitzing, the pressure forced him into some bad throws, including an interception. With the pressure the Patriots offense puts on the Giants offense as well, forcing them to try to score on nearly every drive, I expect Manning to be pressured into some bad throws again. I also expect to see some more frequent blitzes from the Patriots defense early in the game.

On special teams, the Giants scored a touchdown on a kickoff return in the last matchup. I don’t expect that to happen again. The Patriots I’m sure have studied that and the special teams will ensure that doesn’t happen again. Especially with Kelley Washington playing as well as he has lately.

My prediction: Patriots 42, Giants 24.

Predicted stars of the game:

• Offensive line - gives Brady the time he needs to hit some big throws against the blitz
• Randy Moss - catches 1 or 2 long passes
• Kevin Faulk - comes up huge again, making some nice blocks and catching short passes
• Tom Brady - nearly perfect in the pursuit of perfection
• Mike Vrabel - will be big in pressuring Eli Manning
• Ty Warren - same, also a force against the running game
• Junior Seau - will play like a madman, with some big hits and maybe a turnover
• Kelley Washington - some big special teams stops