Pitiful Pats / Furyked by the Tour / Red Sox Last Stand
Friday, August 27, 2010
So many sports, so little time. Today I’ll tackle more topics than the Patriots defense tackled Rams last night. With that, here’s your triumvirate of mini columns:
Patriots – Remember all of the good things that I said about the Patriots after their first two preseason games? Forget about that. They were terrible last night! After Brandon Tate returned the game’s opening kickoff for a touchdown, it was all downhill from there.
The St. Louis Rams starters dominated the Patriots starters in the first half. St. Louis had 15 first downs to New England’s 4. The Rams outgained the Pats 241-106 in total yards and they controlled the football more than twice as much as New England with a time of possession edge of 20:25 to 9:35. It’s amazing that the score was only 20-14 St. Louis at the half.
The Pats offensive line couldn’t open up holes in the running game. New England’s secondary couldn’t cover the Rams wide receivers. St. Louis QB Sam Bradford went 15-22 for 189 yards and 2 TD’s and looked like Peyton Manning dissecting the New England defense instead of the rookie quarterback that he is.
They say that the third preseason game is the only one of the four that really matters. If that’s the case, this Patriots team has a lot of problems that’ll need to be addressed before the season opener against Cincinnati.
Jim Furyk – For those of you who felt bad about Dustin Johnson incurring a two stroke penalty for grounding his club in the bunker at the PGA Championship two weeks ago, that was nothing!
Jim Furyk, who is 3rdin the FedEx Cup standings, overslept Wednesday morning when his cell phone died and his alarm didn’t go off making him late for the Barclay’s pro-am. When he awoke at 7:23am he threw on some clothes and rushed to the course for the 7:30am shotgun. He arrived at 7:35am. His punishment for being late? He was disqualified by the PGA Tour – not for the pro-am, for the actual event itself which teed off Thursday as the first of four FedEx Cup playoff events.
Fellow Tour player Phil Mickelson put it best while ripping the ruling, “the rule itself applies to only half the field,” he said. Of the 122 players in the field for the Barclay’s, only 54 play in the pro-am. “So if you’re going to have a rule that does not apply to everybody, you cannot have it affect the competition,” Mickelson said. “I cannot disagree with it more. I have no idea how the commissioner let this rule go through. It’s ridiculous!”
I’d like to add to that but cannot. Mickelson expressed my sentiments very well.
Red Sox – I said a few weeks ago that the Sox were not going to be a playoff team in 2010 and I stand by those words. However, they have a chance to make me eat those words.
It’s very simple. If the Sox, who trail Tampa by 5 ½ games, can sweep the Rays this weekend they will be right back in the race. At the very least, it is imperative that they take 2 of 3 at the Trop. Anything less and you can start to play “Taps” on the Red Sox 2010 season.
Maybe I am being too much of a pessimist here, but I’m not sure that they would overtake the Rays in the end even if they did sweep them this weekend.
We have talked at length about all of the injuries this team has had to deal with and the poor performance by some of its key players this year. Through it all, they have had their opportunities. The latest one squandered was this week at Fenway where Boston failed to sweep the lowly Seattle Mariners. There have been too many signs that it is just not meant to be for the 2010 Sox. I’d like to see them prove me wrong, but it’s just not going to happen.
Related Articles
- 2010 Patriots Preview (Part 2)
- Belichick to Patriots: Forget About the Past
- Brady in Midseason Form…..Behind the Mic
- NFL News & Notes
- Patriots/Falcons Notes & Observations
- Pats Cut Farnham / NFL News & Notes
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