Standing Pat

Today's predictable Patriots plug (you're not the only one who can toss off cheesy alliteration, Dan) is heavy on the game quotes, meaning Dan actually waited until after the first quarter to finish his piece.

Two lines stand out.

First, yet another unsubstantiated dig that the Pats threw their final regular seaon game: "But the Patriots went into the tank (making it look good, of course) and got the team they wanted for first-round fodder." (Any proof of that from all your connections inside the organization, Sybil? Didn't think so.)

And then there was this non-sequiter: "It was 24 degrees at kickoff and it looked like it might be a long night for the Patriots when Brady's first pass careened off the shoulder of umpire Chad Brown." I thought the cold weather spelled doom for the Jags. At least, that's what you said yesterday.

There's a larger problem to all this. The Globe is assigning a columnist to write about a sport of which he knows nothing and doesn't follow (except during the playoffs). As such, he turns in these pedestrian accounts that do nothing to shake the insight tree. Unless, of course, you think such analysis as "Once again, Belichick knew what he was doing" and "You can be sure folks in Denver and Indianapolis noticed" passes for wisdom. Is that really what the Globe pays him for?

To quote reader "objectivebruce": "No wit, no intelligence, nothing to think about. Just pointless babbling." Dan himself couldn't write that better.