Yup, you read it right.  We know, we know. Superbowls, Brady the golden boy, Randy Moss’ ridiculous resurgence, and the all-but-unbeaten (except the Superbowl.  I mean, who counts that!!?!) record.  But last night, Pats fans nationwide–cause this HAD to happen live on camera–squirmed as Bill Belichick made decisions a Madden player wouldn’t make.

A ten year old Madden player at that.

First, he burned time outs early in the second half.  The Pats had none, and as a result couldn’t challenge a play late in the game.

The fact that it happened right AS the two minute warning kicked in and the game went to booth-review? That was just a screw you from the gods.  We get it.

But point is, it shouldn’t have happened at all–Brady has such good communication with his offense that there was no real need for both those time outs to get used earlier.  Not even against the Colts.

And oh yeah, 4th and two with 2:08 left? He went for it.  Even with a solid defense and Manning having not nearly his best night.   Even though he could have punted and then gotten the ball back even if the Colts had scored fast.  Even though he and his team boast one of the best hurry-up offenses of ALL TIME.

Belichick, it’s true. You’re officially too damn smart for your own good.  Even the New York Times said so, front page style.

End of an era, Pats fans?

Buffalo’s freaked out now, though.  Not because of the loss–clearly that’s something they’re used to in Foxboro.  No, the players are freaked out because someone vandalized the lawn of a home belonging to Bills cornerback Leodis McCain after the game.

Other Bills players have warned that they’d consider this a huge threat if it happened to them.  Linebacker Kawika Mitchell’s Twitter featured this: “”W/ all the safety issues n the NFL its not funny at all,” Mitchell wrote. “We have Fam at our homes to protect. If u show ur face on my prop Ill make sure I do everythin to keep my Fam safe.”

To us that sounds like a fair warning–guy’s got guns and he knows how to use them.

Seriously, Buffalo fans.  Leave your players alone.  It’s not like you shouldn’t be used to this by now, right?

Tedy Bruschi, one of our fave players of all time, announced his retirement this morning.  Bruschi worked his way up from practicesquad member to special-teams-only type guy to a starting linebacker who even made a Pro Bowl and has more tackles on a season as a Patriot than any other guy in franchise history.

Bruschi is also well-known because he came back eight months after a stroke, which he suffered right after the Patriots’ 2005 Super Bowl win.  He thought it would be impossible to come back, and many wrote him off as a guy who would coach or work in the front office, but he continued to play.

The most important thing we can say about Tedy Bruschi may actually come from a couple of personal anecdotes from The Sports Chick.  (We try not to over share, but these make sense.)

One of the first groups we ever joined on Facebook was one called “I Wish Tedy Bruschi Was My Dad,” featuring an adorable homepage image of Bruschi and his twin boys, quite young at the time.  Now, there are a lot of good players out there, but probably very few one would like to be related to.  Bruschi was the kind of guy we could tell was a good dad.

Also? One of the very first things that made us decide we wanted a certain friend with benefits to become more than?  His Bruschi jersey.  Not Brady.  Not Moss.

Any player who can command that kind of immediate, visceral positive reaction to his name has got to be doing something right, so here’s to Tedy B: a hell of a player and a real class act.

Happy trails, Tedy.

Burress will serve two years in prison and have two years of supervised release.  Nobody else, including Antonio Pierce, who was there and drove Burress to the hospital along with delivering the gun to him, the hospital staff who didn’t inform the authorities Burress had been shot, etc., was indicted.

Burress is talented and will likely live to play again–another disciplinary action for Roger Goodell!  As far as we’re concerned, shooting himself in the thigh is probably pretty painful…and clearly accidental.  Dangerous to have a loaded gun in a nightclub? Yes. Silly not to reregister the gun when Burress moved and his permit expired? Clearly.  But in our mind, community service irresponsible, not serious jailtime irresponsible.  This is entirely ridiculous.

That bed Burress is taking up–not to mention the taxpayer dollars–could go toward punitive housing for someone who actually hurt or negatively affected the life of someone other than himself.  Stallworth (whose done a good job of owning up to his crime, don’t get us wrong) got 26 DAYS for a drunk driving incident that KILLED SOMEONE.  A little consistentcy, please!

That’s our take, and we’re sticking to it.

(Actually, we just agree with this nugget o’ wisdom…)

shawnemerriman:  Forget the gun…forget shooting yourself…you had on sweat pants in the CLUB man thats tough