Decisions, decisions!

We should all feel very sorry for Dan today. He was faced with a difficult choice--the Patriots' post-game festivities were going on at the same time as Theo Epstein's press conference! What to do, what to do? Cincinnati or Boston? On the one hand, the opportunity to take shots at Theo, accuse him of being arrogant and incompetent, and ask snarky questions about whether he's going to quit again. On the other hand, the opportunity to take shots at Belichick, accuse him of being arrogant and incompetent, and ask snarky questions about whether he thinks it might be a good idea to have a wide receiver on the roster.

In other words, same poo, different day.

Apparently, Cincinnati is nice this time of year, because he chose to completely flip-flop on his stance from last week and start being positive about the Patriots again. With a 38-13 victory, that's not so hard, is it, Dan? Sort of like the guy who only believes in God when it's sunny and 75 out.

National television commentators talked about it. Scribes wrote about it. Fans looked at the game films after the Denver debacle and dissected Brady's every gesture. Nonstop nuance. Forget about body surfing, body painting, body politic, body by BALCO, and Jesse ``The Body" Ventura -- we were immersed in Brady's body language.

You know, I keep hearing about what a good writer Shaughnessy is, even if the content is sometimes bothersome, but I really don't see it. The metaphors and allusions to pop culture are awkward and forced. The parallel structure isn't parallel. The diction is lazy. It's like he doesn't even try.

``How's your body language now?" we asked him.

``The word of the week, right there," he said with a grin. ``Even my dad was like, `Tell me about your body language', and I'm like, `Are you kidding me? Dad, not you, too!' I think instead of talking about concentrating on how you're walking or all that, I think worrying about how I'm passing the ball and how we're executing and converting on third down and converting in the red zone -- I think that's the reason why we won the game."

I was about to say that those reporters asked him one of the silliest questions I've heard in awhile, but I think that award goes to Brady's dad. Congratulations, sir!

At the same time there were multiple theories on Brady's sub-par performance: He wasn't getting the help he needed. He was frustrated because the Patriots let his top two receivers go. He was upset because he took less dough to stay in New England and management wasn't holding up its end. He was injured. His receivers were running the wrong routes. He couldn't remember what he was doing after popping an Ambien. On and on it went.

Uh, the first three theories are the exact same theory written three different ways, Dan. Simply put, "he didn't have the personnel and was frustrated about it." But I guess you have to get to a certain word count.

And what's up with the Ambien theory? Is it just random rubbish or is it a joke about Terrell Owens? How funny! Not.

Turns out he was right. The Patriots yesterday were firing on all cylinders.

Hear that? That's the sound of Dan vomiting on his keyboard as he types this compliment.

Indeed, Patriots fans have come to expect to see Bill Belichick outsmart the other team, and that's what we saw yesterday.

Anyone know the Heimlich? I think he's choking! He just had to say something nice about Belichick!

His only interception came on a ball tipped by Doug Gabriel, who looked remarkably like Wily Mo Peña running back on a long fly ball in Fenway's right field.

Ah, there it is. Heaven forbid we get through a football column without a cheap shot at the baseball team.

I guess we'll get the Red Sox post-mortem tomorrow. I've set the over/unders as follows:

• bad song lyrics: 2
• references to "young Theo": 5
• references to "minions": 3
• "Manny being Manny" insults: 2
• gorilla jokes: 2
• Casablanca references: 1
• incorrect/misleading statistics: 8
• rational, measured responses to the season: 0