You Missed Your Chance To Take Out The Pats

As talented as the Patriots are, we've had a couple instances this year that have reminded what's really annoying about New England: They really are the same team they've been for the past few years. On games when matters aren't going well — and they certainly weren't yesterday — they still find a way to ugly up the game and win anyway ... just like those past Patriots teams that really didn't have that much talent. It's very frustrating.

You had to think, in his career, Tom Brady had one lousy playoff game in him. He had it yesterday, and the Patriots still won pretty handily. (Even if they did piss everybody off in the process.) New England clearly hasn't looked as dominant in the last six weeks as they did to start off the year, but not only have they still won every game, they haven't exactly convinced anybody that they're reeling either. You get a sense that, at some point, they're going to put it all together, they way they did at the beginning of the season, and just destroy somebody in their definitive "we are the best team of all time" game. It's beginning to look like that game will be the Super Bowl. If you didn't get them yesterday, when they were at their worst, you're probably not gonna get them at all.