Sports Redux: "We Didn't Do Well on Anything"

That summary, even more terse than usual, came from Bill Belichick after the Patriots lost a 36-35 exhibition tuneup against the Rams, who finally got their revenge for Super Bowl XXXVI. Really, coach? 36-35 shouldn't warrant that dour a proclamation, should it?

Well, maybe. The Rams were God-awful last year, they had a QB who - although highly touted - was starting against an NFL defense for the first time, and this was supposed to be the most realistic tuneup for the regular season. And the Pats looked overmatched. Not good.

Let's start with the offense. It will be quick, since they only had possession for 16:14 of the sixty minutes. Tom Brady threw three TD passes (two to tight end Rob Gronkowski), so that was good, but otherwise the offense couldn't do anything. How does 28 total yards rushing sound? "Terrible execution across the board," said RB Sammy Morris, who's getting the start as Laurence Maroney drifts farther and farther away from the field from week to week.

Defensively? Well, again with the time of possession; you don't let an offense stay on the field for 75% of the game unless you're giving up chunks of land on a regular basis. "We were flat, we didn’t execute and we just didn’t play well," was the summary of safety James Sanders. They at least gave #1 pick Sam Bradford a taste of confidence, which already makes the Rams the favorite in the NFC West. Meanwhile, besides Brady and Gronkowski, the only Patriot who should be feeling any confidence is Brandon Tate, who ran back the opening kickoff 97 yards for a touchdown. Fans who left Gillette right after that probably are feeling pretty smug today.

The Red Sox start their gigantic series with the Rays tonight in Tampa Bay, and are sad but not terribly surprised to find out that Dustin Pedroia's going to need season-ending surgery on his little feet. Dusty is taking his second stint on the DL about as calmly as you'd expect: "I’m upset, man. I feel like I let everybody down. I can’t really do too much." They've got playoff fever in Florida, where the Rays and their 11,000 fans (one of whom is a friend of Bostonist, so we're going to go ahead and spotlight her Rays travel blog) know they can pretty much bury the Sox with a sweep this weekend. So yeah, these are big games.