Sports Redux: 7 > 3

We guess we have to face the facts that the Steamroller Pats of this past autumn were the aberration, not the norm. The M.O. for the first three championship teams was: keep it close, make the big plays and make the other guy NOT make them, then walk out with a win, and make sure the other guy walks out shaking his head and wondering if one or two plays would have made the difference.

The Steamroller Pats were nowhere to be found in Foxborough yesterday. The perfect QB was anything but, throwing three interceptions and a handful of other ill-advised passes. The Brady-Moss express never got going, for the second game in a row. On the other side, the defense was once again giving up huge chunks of yardage in short amounts of time.

But there was a key difference. Brady may not have been at the top of his game, but when the Pats got close to the San Diego end zone, they got touchdowns. When the Chargers got close to the New England end zone, the D put on the clamps (special props to the grizzled old linebackers, who made a couple sensational plays) and San Diego got field goals.

With the long bomb removed from their arsenal, the Pats decided to anoint a couple offensive players to do the heavy lifting, as well as doing impersonations of Patriots past. Kevin Faulk took on the Troy Brown role; every time he got the ball, he made something happen. And Laurence Maroney did his best "clock killin' Corey Dillon" impersonation, pounding and pounding through the Charger line and leaving a helpless SD offense sitting on the bench for pretty much the entire second half.

It didn't hurt the Pats' cause that LaDainian Tomlinson played only a few minutes, then spent the rest of the game bundled on the sideline like an Imperial Stormtrooper on the ice planet of Hoth. Philip Rivers, questionable all week, went the whole way (despite what the halftime studio guys said) and played a great game, but couldn't get his team into the end zone.

So now it's the Giants, who survived ridiculous Antarctic conditions to beat Green Bay in overtime and win the NFC. It's not the Brady/Favre, good/evil matchup America was hoping for, but it's Boston(ish)-New York(ish), and that's a good enough subplot for us. If the main plot (19-0 and a championship) doesn't get you pumped up enough, that is.