Now that the trophy has been shown off and the Duck Boats have moved through Boston's streets, Patriots fans out there are psyched. Baseball's over! Time to devote the sports news hole to the pigskin!

Almost. We want to give patient Pats fans their due, so we'll breeze through the baseball news nice and quickly:

- There was a victory celebration on Tuesday. Many people attended.
- Joe Torre: out of New York, into Los Angeles? Maybe.
- Joe Girardi, into Torre's old spot in New York? Yes.
- Grady Little, out of Los Angeles? Yes.
- Red Sox free agents: Curt Schilling (he wrote precautionary goodbyes, filed, blogged about possible backup cities), Mike Lowell, Eric Hinske, Matt Clement, Bobby Kielty.

OK, so now Pats fans can listen up, because it's football time and fans have perhaps a day, two at the most, before they should start freaking out over Sunday - if they can hold off that long.

Indy! Peyton! Drama! Intrigue!

Bill Belichick and the Patriots are trying to keep their focus on the upcoming clash with the Colts, but they are (as is to be expected) still being knocked around by critics of the 52-7 showing against Washington last week.

Tom Brady and Tedy Bruschi have both defended Sunday's Patriots form of play, noting that it's their job to go out and execute (and, one could surmise, that means that it's Washington's job to go out and stop them from scoring 52 points and even score some TDs of their own). Others in the football world, however, are warning the Pats: keep this up and one of your guys might go down with an injury/reminder.

But the team is doing its best to continue the practice of looking forward, and that includes staring down Peyton Manning and the rest of the Colts organization. Bostonist was attempting to describe the Manning/New England love affair recently to a baseball-inclined individual, and we wound up with the following: "Imagine A-Rod and Jeter wrapped into one, slap a big grin on the mutant's face, put him on every television commercial known to humankind, give him a championship ring that you really wanted, and then give him a team with a 7-0 record. How do you think you'd like him?"

Image of happy football fans by flickr user z_everson.