10 down, 9 to go

How fun was THAT! To have the game begin and end on the other team's first drive was great. With one Gay interception, the Patriots ended the nonsense some fools were spinning about how this was a "trap" game for the Patriots, and how this could be the one that got away from them. It's almost comical, in hindsight.

The Patriots scored the most points by a road team in the NFL since I was six months old; and it was the second most points ever allowed by the Bills. Ever. As in, "best ever."

My second favorite part of the game came with the Patriots up, 35-7, just under nine minutes to play in the third quarter. They had 4^th and 1 at the Bills' 3-yard line. Instead of kicking the field goal, they went for it. And they didn't just run it up the gut; Brady stepped back, stared down his target for about five seconds, and threw a touchdown to Ben Watson.

Bizarro world in Baltimore: I have been watching NFL games since I was 6 and have never seen what happened at the end of regulation of the Cleveland-Baltimore game. Cleveland kicker Phil Dawson, with the Browns down, 30-27, tried a 51-yard field goal to send the game into overtime. The ball sailed off his foot and hit the left upright. It then bounced over the crossbar, then kicked back into the field of play off the goal post support. (Watch the video.)

The officials watching the kick seemed confused and initially ruled the kick no good. Baltimore players and fans celebrated and Browns coach Romeo Crenell walked off dejected. CBS cameras showed happy Ravens players in the tunnel to the locker room. But on the field the officials were still conferring and CBS kept showing the replay where the kick went over the crossbar (thank heavens I saw it all live on NFL Sunday Ticket).

My FAVORITE moment came on their next drive. With about a minute left in the third quarter, up 42-10, they had 4^th and 1 from the Buffalo 10 and went for it, converting with another pass – this time to Randy Moss. But the best part about both of these situations was the crowd. They were on their feet booing; shots of the crowd showed furious, irate Bills fans, spurred by the media and "the haters" to reject the Patriots trying to score any touchdown in the second half if they have a lead and resorting to, "Waaaaah. The Patriots run up the score. Waaaaah."

Madden has it right: Let the losers quit first

Finally, though, some voices are calling it what it is: A great team being great. John Madden said it's up to the defense to stop them. Mark Schlereth (even if he usually is a buffoon) said that the Patriots don't have to play by anyone's standards but their own. And that's the message coach Bill Belichick is clearly sending: No matter what you do, no matter what you say, whether it's trying to detract from our accomplishments or tell me how I should run this team, WE'RE. NOT. LISTENING.

By the way, I did love Madden's comment in the final minutes of the game, as the Bills were trying a last-minute drive, down 56-10. He said you can't blame the Patriots for trying to score in the final minutes with a big lead if you're going to try to score with a big deficit. I've long said that it's not up to the team in the lead to wave the white flag; once the team playing from behind pulls all of its starters, then you can let up on them. But as long as the team that's losing is still trying to score, so should the team in the lead. That's respectful competition; otherwise you're just pandering, which you'll get accused of for putting your backups in in the third quarter. You just can't win with the haters.

Per their own players, no need to take the Bills seriously

“We have a great opportunity to show the world we mean business, that the Buffalo Bills are somebody to be taken seriously,” Bills defensive end Chris Kelsay told the New York Times before the game. So how seriously should we take the Bills? Well, the Patriots scored a touchdown on every possession they had their first-time on the field, and they scored as many touchdowns on Bills possessions as the Bills did. Chris Kelsay had a miserable two tackles, no assists, no forced fumbles, no sacks. Forget that Marshawn Lynch wasn't in the game; the defense (Lynch plays on offense) got overrun.

Executive of the year

I was wondering what the Patriots gave up to get Wes Welker and Randy Moss, the two receivers they traded for before the 2007 draft. Essentially, they gave up Samson Satele, a center from Hawaii, and Abraham Wright, a linebacker who hasn't played all season, for Welker; For Moss they gave up John Bowie, a cornerback from Cincinnati who hasn't played all season. This nonsense people were rumbling about a couple weeks ago about Detroit's Matt Millen being executive of the year? Only the Patriots robbed other teams blind and build the Greatest Team Ever. Masterful.

"With the 2nd pick in the 2008 NFL draft, the New England Patriots select . . ."

Most people don't realize something what will happen at the draft next April, and I want to point it out now so the haters can start cheering for the 49ers, and so we can get all the whining out now.

Because of a trade last April that sent the 28^th overall pick from the Patriots to the Niners, New England gets the Niners' first-round pick in 2008. And, in case you hadn't noticed, the Niners are tied right now for the second pick in the draft. That's right: The Greatest Team Ever will have a top-five pick in next year's draft and could end up with the second overall pick. I know, I know: "Waaaaah. It's not fair. The Patriots cheated. It's not fair. Waaaaah." Once more people start to realize this, there will be a foolish push to get the NFL to take away THAT draft pick, instead of their league-assigned draft pick (for being caught video taping the New York Jets). But that'll never happen.

The rest of the league

It's hard to pick out a second-best team in the AFC, because everyone else is just a fraud. The Colts have ruined Adam Vinatieri. He's the second great kicker they've ruined, after running the most accurate kicker in the history of football, Mike Vanderjagt, out of town. It's kind of sad. They say a kicker has to be incredibly mentally tough, so it's no big surprise they haven't been great in Indy since Tony Dungy took over.

ESPN's Merrill Hoge is just a clown at this point. After last week, he declared the Pittsburgh Steelers the best team in the NFL and said that Ben Roethlisberger was as good as, if not better than, Tom Brady. The Steelers lost to the 1-8 Jets (who had only beaten the winless Dolphins) and Roethlisberger was sacked seven times and had a QB rating of 81.25. Conversely, Brady's QB rating Sunday night was 146.1; his rating against the Jets in Week 1 was 146.6; hell, Brady's backup Sunday night, Matt Cassel, had a QB rating of 87.5. Oh, by the way, Hodge played for the Steelers for almost all of his NFL career; I guess he's still on the payroll.

In my eyes, the Jags are the best team in the AFC right now. Their defense is playing lights-out, they have a dynamic running game, and they have a QB who doesn't make mistakes. To me, they look a lot like the Ravens did when they made their run, and a lot like the Patriots did when they won their third Super Bowl.

In the NFC, the Cowboys are the best team. Don't let the Packers fool you; they've only had to play one team that's currently over .500 (the Giants, whom they beat), and they lost to the 4-6 Bears at home. The Cowboys are looking really good, so kudos to them. Also, don't fall asleep on the Seattle Seahawks; they're 6-4 and don't play a team over .500 the rest of the season. Plus, I like what they're doing on offense: taking a page from the Cowboys and Packers and slinging the ball around the field.

Two issues – a kick that fully crosses the bar is good, even if it hits something that causes it to bounce back. But field goals are not part of the review process, so technically the officials were not allowed to watch TV replays. After 5 minutes and 32 seconds, referee Pete Morelli announced that, “after discussion on the field …” and I thought he was going to say “after review,” meaning they looked at a replay. But he said that the officials discussed it and ruled the kick good and the game was heading into overtime.

Ravens fans who had left the stadium streamed back in and both teams came back onto the field (Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis was taking tape off when he was ordered back onto the field). Cleveland won the toss, drove down the field and Dawson kicked the game winner, ending one of the stranger endings in league history. 

Here is what Morelli said about the original “no good” call: “It was a ruling by one of the officials. The other official informed me that the ball hit the back of the extension of the goal post. ... We determined that was what it struck. Therefore, it made the field goal good.'' 

I firmly believe that someone from the NFL got word to Morelli that the kick went through, even if he himself did not look at a TV replay. We know that the NFL officials supervisors watch each game from its NFL offices and the league is wired to each stadium. Wrote Don Banks of Sports Illustrated: “I was sitting near the NFL's press box observer on Sunday, and after the reversal of Dawson's kick, he was in phone contact with the league's director of game officials, Mike Periera. The instant judgment from the league office? Periera thought the reversal a good call, because he like everyone else watching saw the kick clear the cross bar. At least on TV replays. The officials' process of reviewing the call as a group might not have been textbook, per se, but the end result seemed to be justified.” 

The call was the correct one, and had the kick been ruled no good, the league would have had major egg on its face. The "no replay of field goals" rule is a dumb one that needs to be changed.  

Is perfection boring?: The New England Patriots toyed with the Buffalo Bills, 56-10, to go to 10-0 and it appears no one can stop them from winning their final six regular season games. Sunday’s game was the NBC national game and I imagine sets all over the country were clicking off at halftime. I wound up catching a "Simpsons" episode I taped a while back.

The Patriots-Eagles game is the NBC game next week and can anyone see Philly staying within three touchdowns at New England? I can’t imagine the ratings will be good for a game whose outcome seems preordained. Would the public rather watch a close game between two contending, but just good, teams, or one with a team that is a juggernaut?  

After watching New England score 52 against Washington and 56 against Buffalo, it’s kind of amazing that the Colts “held” them to 24 points and led by 10 in the fourth quarter. Indy is the only team this season that has made the Pats look beatable. 

Colts squeak by: The Colts did seem to leave a lot on the field in the loss to New England, though. They were sloppy in a 23-21 loss to San Diego last week and fortunate to beat scrappy Kansas City, 13-10, Sunday. The Colts simply are missing too many key players, especially on offense. Defensively, the team is playing better than any unit in the league, but if the Colts don’t get healthy they will have little chance of beating New England if there is a playoff rematch. 

The new T.O.: Terrell Owens continued his rehabilitation with four more touchdown catches in Dallas’ 28-23 win over Washington to move the ‘Boys to 9-1. Owens, whose NFL career looked done after his spectacular flameout in Philadelphia, seems like a player reborn both on and off the field. We also got an eye candy bonus when NBC interviewed him shirtless on its pregame show. There’s no denying that T.O. has one of the most sculpted bodies in sport and he loves showing it off. 

Steelers a fraud: Pittsburgh was getting all sorts of love for going to 7-2, but fell quickly to Earth with a shocking 19-16 overtime loss to the New York Jets, who entered the game 1-8. The Steelers have lost three times on the road to teams without winning records – Arizona, Denver and the Jets. 

The Jets sacked Ben Roethlisberger seven times and were able to move the ball quite well against the Steelers defense. Those who thought the Steelers could beat the Patriots at New England Dec. 9 are dreaming based on what we’ve seen so far. Pittsburgh could easily be 6-4 were it not for a close win over Cleveland last week that saw the Steelers rally from 15 points down.  

Pussycats: The Detroit Lions have crashed back to reality, losing 16-10 the Giants, their second in a row. At 6-4, Detroit is three games behind Green Bay in the NFC North, and the Packers can just about wrap up the division if they beat the Lions on Thanksgiving Day.