Jets II: The Reckoning

On December 16^th, 1916, the “Mad Monk” Gregori Rasputin was assassinated in Russia. As the story goes, he was poisoned, shot, stabbed, shot again, beaten, shot a third time, set on fire, impaled, drowned, shot, and then given a really nasty papercut. It’s seemingly appropriate, therefore, that on the same day 101 years later Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots will attempt to recreate much the same level of punishment on his former manboy Eric Mangini and the New York Jets. As most of the world now knows, the so-called Mangenius’ biggest accomplishment of the year was snitching out the Patriots to the NFL after the first game of the season for videotaping defensive signals. If Mangini’s goal was to both turn himself into a pariah among the NFL coaching fraternity and enrage the Patriots into humiliating every opponent they play, mission accomplished. Ask the Redskins, who probably couldn’t have been beaten any worse if 97-year old Joe Gibbs had decided to play quarterback himself. Yes, the Baltimore Ravens gave the Pats a good game, but with all due respect to former U. Miami Student-Athlete Jonathan Vilma, the Jets defense is not that of the Ravens. No, every sign points to this one turning out like an episode of Oz, with Belichick playing the role of Adibisi. In other words, you might not want to let the kids see this one. That said, this is football. You’d never have thought the Philadelphia Eagles would have given the Patriots the game that they did, let alone the Ravens. Still, if I were a betting man (which I am), I would bet on this one ending ugly. The Patriots are a proud team, and the SpyGate incident has, if nothing else, raised the argument that their vast and impressive accomplishments are potentially less than legitimate. On Sunday, look for the Pats to answer that accusation with some authority.