Sports Redux: 38 Special

There clearly was a bit of a letdown for the Patriots yesterday. After the excitement of opening day, and the motivation leading up to the Charger game, there was nothing particular about Buffalo to get the competitive juices flowing. And that's why, for most of the first quarter, the Bills looked like they belonged on the same field as the Pats. When starting Buffalo QB J.P. Losman was knocked out early, it looked like the Bills might rally around rookie Trent Edwards.

Early in the second quarter, the Pats drove down to the goal line, and Tom Brady fumbled on a QB sneak. This seemed to focus the offense in a way that just seeing the Bill jerseys didn't, so Brady spent the rest of the afternoon marching the offense down the field and throwing touchdown passes (one to Benjamin Watson, one to Jabar Gaffney, and two more to Randy Moss). Meanwhile, Laurence Maroney was doing his best "clock-killin'-Corey-Dillon" impression, and the defense was holding Edwards and company to a long string of 3-and-outs.

38-7 final score, the third straight game the Pats have put exactly 38 up on the board. It'll be a long time before we get tired of numbers like that.

We are, however tired of numbers like 1 1/2 (the Red Sox lead, again) and 6 (the magic number, seemingly for the past month). The Sox fizzled against the Rays yesterday, dropping Tim Wakefield to 19-3 lifetime against Tampa. Now a day off before a six-game homestand of non-division also-rans. Cleveland and AnaheimOrWhatever clinched their respective divisions yesterday.

Image from Amazon. We swear we knew last night we were going to use this headline, and didn't rip off the Globe.