Sports Redux: God Help Us, We're All Jets Fans Now

Well, the Patriots did their part. On a snowy nasty day in Foxboro, the Pats did all they could to help the Cardinals get back to the airport and back to sunny Phoenix in record time, pasting Arizona 47-7 and allowing them to have the buses warming up at halftime. Matt Cassel threw for 345 yards, Lamont Jordan ran in two scores, and the Pats pulled everything shy of the Flutie drop kick to embarrass the NFC West "champs".

As far as the help the Pats needed, well...they got some. Baltimore and Miami both won when a loss really would have helped us out. So the road to the wild-card hinges on Jacksonville beating the Ravens. But the road to the division title (which we prefer) makes for strange bedfellows indeed. What the Patriots want - need - is a win by the Jets against Miami on Sunday. And what the Patriots probably need to do is beat Buffalo (obviously) but keep it close, so the Jets spend most of Sunday afternoon thinking that they can still win the division. In other words, we'll be rooting for the Jets, while we're hoping the Pats don't blow the Bills out early enough that Eric Mangini can look up at the scoreboard, call off his troops, and hand the playoff spot to Anyone But Bill Belichick. For what it's worth, New York has turned on the Green already, so we may be the only ones rooting for them. It's a weird game. Go Jaguars?

Speaking of inept New York teams, the Celtics, on the surface, had a fairly close game with the Knicks last night. But it was never in any real doubt. The C's sprinted to a 40-point first quarter, relaxed a little, and let the Knicks fire up more 3's than you'd really like to see (and Quentin Richardson has officially accepted the Ricky Davis Torch as the guy who's just honestly more comfortable scoring 30 points in a blowout loss than having to make a big shot in a close game). The C's pulled away thanks to (drum roll) Rajon Rondo, who blew by NY "defenders" over and over again in the second half en route to a career-high 26. The worst part of the day for the Celtics was finding out that Glen Davis got into a car crash on his way to the game and went to the hospital with a concussion and whiplash. Maybe the C's should look into sending a car for Louisiana boys who don't know how to drive in the snow.

We feel for the Bruins, who are just as hot as anyone and are still relegated to third-star status. But we can sense that they don't mind. They just nod grimly and go to work. And they did yesterday, as the offensive explosion continued with a 6-3 thumping of the Blues in St. Louis. Blake Wheeler scored twice, Phil Kessel got two assists to extend his scoring streak to 18, and most happily, Patrice Bergeron is out of the hospital after Saturday's concussion.