Two-minute drill

No need to bore you all with an exhaustive rundown on my thoughts from the weekend of football. I'll just do this as quickly and as painlessly as possible:

1st Down: Like a finalist at the Player Hater's Ball, I wish nothing but ill on the New England Patriots. Except in this one notable instance. It's always better to beat the best, in this case the Pats, when they're at their best. And without Tom Brady, New England is suddenly just another team fighting for its spot in the postseason. That's not good for the Patroits, the league or anyone who truly cares about competition.

2nd Down: But on the bright side, it couldn't have happened to a better guy than Bill Belichick. Want to know his career record without Brady? 42-58. That's worse than guys like Wayne Fontes, Jerry Glanville, Norv Turner and Jim Haslett.

To put Belichick's career in perspective, remember this, from the Boston Herald:

In his first year as the Pats coach, he inherited a .500 team from Pete Carroll and promptly went 5-11. He began his second season 0-2 before Mo Lewis removed Drew Bledsoe from the picture, and Brady stepped onto the scene. The Pats won 100 of their next 127, including playoffs. All he did was transform them into arguably the greatest team in NFL history.

3rd Down: Did the Raiders practice at all during August? I mean, seriously: what's the point of training camp if you're going to poop your pants like that in the first game of the season? The same goes for the Lions, Rams and Texans.

4th Down: Let's not read so much in Aaron Rodgers' first game as starter, OK? The season is long and it's ultimately the truth. In fact, let's take that approach and apply it across the board - except in the aforementioned cases.

Turnover on downs: I really, really miss having the NFL Network. I'm such an idiot for not going with DirecTV.

UPDATE: Speaking of football, the "brothas" at Nation of Islam Sportsblog are back from their "European sabbatical."

In their first post in two months, they dust off the Negro Coach and QB Poll. Just browsing through the rankings, I might disagree with the absence of Miami, which has both a Negro Coach (Randy Shannon) and a Negro QB (freshman Jacory Harris) who plays regularly.

Either way, welcome back to the blogosphere. Or as-salamu `alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.