Well, it was a former Boilermaker -- Bernard Pollard -- who may have altered the course of NFL history with his knee-buckling hit on Tom Brady yesterday, about twenty minutes into the Pats 2008 season. Peter King was very somber on NBC last night, implying this was bad for the entire league and "cast a pall" over everything. What? Shut up, Peter. It's an injury. It happens. Terrific Tom hasn't missed a game since he took over for Bledsoe back in '01 and, well, his luck ran out.
I was amused at Randy Moss' postgames comments on the hit:
"I don’t really want to get into it, but for me personally, I think it was dirty,” Moss said. “When I came back in (to watch the replay), it looked dirty to me. I’ve never been a dirty player. I honestly don’t even know how to play dirty. I just play the game. Any time you see something like that that looks foul, that looks dirty, it opens your eyes. So for me personally, it looked dirty."
You don't want to get into it, but you will. And shouldn't Randy be more concerned with, you know, holding on to the ball that he fumbled on that very play? Maybe he was distracted trying to determine if Pollard's hit looked "foul."
It's amazing how no matter what happens to the Patriots anymore, there's always whining and excuses. Pollard is now dirty even though he was blocked into Brady. The Giants shouldn't have won because there was holding on the Tyree play. The Giants shouldn't have won because the Pats dropped a sure interception. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're just another team, Patriots. And now you're one with Matt Cassell as the starter -- until they sign Chris Simms to start, anyway.
Pollard, of course, swears it wasn't dirty but he's in a completely no-win situation. What's he going to say? That he kind of wanted to take out Brady's golden knee? (By the way, I was all set to link over to Kissing Suzy Kolber and their "bounty" they'd put on Tom Brady last season -- and then I go look to provide links -- and they're already awarding it to Pollard. Well-done, gentlemen.)