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Five Things to Watch This Week - Week 1

The Patriots play their first regular season game at home against the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday, September 12th. 1:00 PM start time. Don't be late. (I'm parenting solo all day Saturday, so I better get a serious stretch of uninterrupted couch time on Sunday.)

Sweet, glorious NFL football. It's back. No more preseason. These games count. How did last year's season end? Oh yeah!

Honestly guys, I don't know what to make of this year's Pats. They could go 10 and 6 or 6 and 10. The offense looks really good. The defense looks... ahhh... not quite as good (cue Sad Don Draper face). How deep a playoff run can you go on with a top 5 offense and a bottom 5 defense? Maybe some of young guys will actually turn out to be players. If not, it's going to be a long season.

The good news is that we play the Bills twice. It's like that free 200 points they give you on the SATs.

Also, I promise not to bitch about Laurence Maroney this year. If he's not going to put in the effort, why should I? It's just not worth it.


1) Red Lights: Stop for them. Seriously.


2) Stephen Gostkowski: Four year extension for one of the best kickers in football. Yes!


3) #12 - #81: Best deep ball combo ever. (Ever had "deep balls"? It's not comfortable.) Remember early in his career when everyone said Brady couldn't through the deep ball? Hilarious.


4) Pats TEs: Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez look awesome. What could Brady do with tight ends that can actually catch?! It boggles the mind.


5) 5A SECONDARY: They might turn out to be pretty good. But I'm not going to be holding my breathe.

5B D-LINE: There's Wilfork and... um... That's about it. No secondary plus no pressure from the defensive line equals trouble.



My prediction: Pats 35, Bengals 31

Now... Let's go eat a goddamn snack.

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