Sports Redux: It's That Time

Isn't there a certain buzz around the air around here four times a year? Whoever designed the sports calendar was a genius. Basketball and hockey start right at the time the baseball season is winding down. Baseball, aside from its soul-nourishing appearance in the dead of winter, starts just when we need it to. And then there's football. It may not be strictly necessary for it to start in September these days, now that pennant races don't always end in heartbreak, but it really seems like time for football.

And with the Patriots just a few days away from kicking off the 2009 season, and the Sox off last night, we'll give the NFL some attention. Patriots Daily isn't convinced the Pats will destroy Buffalo on Monday Night. Bill Simmons says the entire league is cuckoo. The Globe says that Terrell Owens will be a good test for all the question marks in the Pats' secondary. And still, Vegas has the Patriots as 10-point favorites.

Prediction time! Leave yours in the comments, and at the end we'll see who came the closest. Our six playoff teams in the AFC are NE, SD, Indy and Pittsburgh, with Baltimore and Tennessee as the wild-cards. In the NFC, we like Philly, Minnesota, Seattle and New Orleans, with Carolina and the Giants as the wild cards. We're going to go with the Patriots beating the Eagles again in the Super Bowl, but we don't feel at all confident...about the Eagles.

With the Red Sox and Rangers both off, nothing happened in the AL Wild Card race yesterday, though we did learn that Clay Buchholz has grown up a lot. Thanks mostly to losing some of the pressure he put on himself after no-hitting the Orioles at age 14, and the support of the "Deal Or No Deal" model that he fell in love with after Donald Trump introduced them at a mixed-martial-arts match Clay attended with Craig Hansen, Sean Casey and Manny Delcarmen. Remarkably, everything in that last sentence is true except for the "age 14" part.

in the "how small is your violin?" department, the NBA is making plans to go ahead with replacement referees, since everyone is starting to think that the current refs will be locked out because they and the league can't agree on a pay cut and retirement benefits. Bostonist, of course, is of the opinion that most of the NBA referees are lucky they aren't being charged money for their refereeing quality, but we'll wait and see. You just know this will be resolved in time to get Bennett Salvatore and Dick Bavetta back in time for the Cleveland series in May.