Patriots Schedule

Along with Mr. Brady hosting Saturday Day Night Live this week (which will give me a reason to actually watch it for the first time in ages) the preseason and regular season NFL schedules have been released. Preseason isn't worth commenting on since it's going to be mostly second and third string players who are trying to make the cut, the regular season schedule is interesting:

Thurs., Sept. 8 Oakland Raiders
Sun., Sept. 18 at Carolina Panthers
Sun., Sept. 25 at Pittsburgh Steelers
Sun., Oct. 2 San Diego Chargers
Sun., Oct. 9 at Atlanta Falcons
Sun., Oct. 16 at Denver Broncos
Sun., Oct. 23 BYE WEEK
Sun., Oct. 30 Buffalo Bills
Mon., Nov. 7 Indianapolis Colts
Sun., Nov. 13 at Miami Dolphins
Sun., Nov. 20 New Orleans Saints
Sun., Nov. 27 at Kansas City Chiefs
Sun., Dec. 4 New York Jets
Sun., Dec. 11 at Buffalo Bills
Sat., Dec. 17 Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Mon., Dec. 26 at New York Jets
Sun., Jan. 1 Miami Dolphins

Bolded games are where the fireworks are going to be. Pats travel to Steel City for the third time in one calender year, and I'm sure Cowher & co. want to make up for how badly they performed in the playoffs. Not that winning a regular season game actually makes up for getting your ass handed to you in the playoffs, but people like to think it makes up for it anyway. Indy coming into the Razor will be the best game of the year. Peyton Manning has yet to beat Tom Brady, and the Pats lose at home less often than the 49ers win against teams that aren't the Arizona Cardinals. I think a lot of pressure is going to be on Indy to show that they can win in New England, since it's either a preview of the invevitable playoff matchup, or could help them earn home field advantage and avoid coming back here again altogether.

Throw in the fact that there have been some major personell changes this year, and the fact that the Patriots have one completely boneheaded loss to a division "rival" (as if the term even remotely applies) each year. I'm predicting a 13-3 season with the #2 seed in the playoffs again. Pittsburgh is not going to be 15-1 this year, but if the Colts can actually win here than they won't be flushing their last game of the season down the toilet like they did against the Broncos this year.

The Good: The BYE week is actually somewhat sane this season. It would be slightly better to have it on the week of October 30th to prepare for the Colts, but it's still much better than the bullshit week 3 BYE from last year. Who comes up with that shit? I'm still amazed that they could play so many consecutive games with so many injuries and still end up 14-2 with another Lombardi trophy to add to the case. I'm aware that the Red Sox breaking the curse was a historical event for the ages, but the Patriots are the best team in sports, hands down. Also good is that the Pats don't play the S-U-C-K D-I-C-K Jets until December, which gives that fag Pennington a good three months to fuck up his rotator cuff again.

The Bad: Too many games being broadcasted on FOX and ABC. God knows CBS are the biggest bunch of cocksuckers on earth, but Phil Simms somehow manages to be slightly less annoying than John Madden, and a lot less annoying than the NFC cocksuckers on FOX. I honestly get the feeling that FOX sportscasters are bitter over working for the network that gets stuck covering the toilet league, otherwise known as the NFC. Hearing them trying to rationalize two 8-8 teams being in the divisional playoff games (when not a single one had done so before in the history of the league) was fucking hilarious. Your commentators suck and you cover the septic tank games of the season, get over it.

The Strange: Makes no difference, but I could have sworn that the opening game was supposed to be the Superbowl Champions against the team they beat in their conference Championship game. The Pats hosted the Steelers for Gillette's inaugural game after upsetting them in the 2002 AFC Championship game. They hosted the Colts last fall after beating them to advance to Superbowl XXXVIII. So this year they host the... Raiders? Seems very strange, but it'll be nice to watch a bloodbath and to have that moron Randy Moss be on hand to watch a superbowl banner being raised, because that is the closest he will ever get to one. I also find it strange that the Patriots are visiting Pittsburg for the second year in a row, while hosting Indy for the second year in a row. I thought the league tried to alternate between the "same conference / different division" match ups every year. Oh well, the way it worked out should actually be a lot more interesting, for the reasons I mentioned above.

Final call: The AFC Championship game will either be here or at Indy, with the possibility of the Steelers being the guest rather than the team that isn't hosting. NFC sucks dong, always and forever.