Pats vs. Saints: The Live Blog

8:00. And we’re live! We’re at the Bostonist Sports Headquarters in Cambridge with beverages and an entire thing of candy beans from Hidden Sweets in Harvard. We recently learned that both New Orleans starting CBs are out; that sound you heard was that of Brady and Moss’ eyes turning into dollar signs. Also, Julian Edelman is apparently listed as the Pats’ 3rd QB, which means he can’t play anywhere else until the 4th quarter. 8:05. ESPN’s showing some highlights involving Reggie Bush (also not playing tonight) and Jeremy Shockey (pro sports’ biggest jackass, at least pending the whole Tiger Woods story coming out). 8:09. Vince Wilfork: "We Will Lose" if the Pats don’t put a lot of pressure on Drew Brees. Cut to Chris Berman in the studio, who’s making less and less sense as the years go on, though it hasn’t been as quick as Cris Collinsworth’s instant devolution into John Madden on Sunday Night. The fun continues after the jump…. 8:13. ESPN just showed their montage of crappy plays from the last week. The fumbling bumbling Chiefs and their cavalcade of botched snaps was new to us, but that highlight of two Raider defenders crashing into one another will probably never ever ever get old. 8:18. They’re playing some crazy Dixieland Saints pep-rally song; Chris Berman said it sounded like Louis Armstrong, which caused many groans at Bostonist Sports HQ. It’s basically Louis Armstrong in the same sense that Jordan’s in Natick is basically the French Quarter. 8:21. On Channel 5’s pregame, Tedy Bruschi is defending what he said about Belichick (basically, that 4thAnd2Gate would have been a personal slap to his face if he were still on the defense), and showing pictures of himself still being friendly with current Patriots to show that everything’s OK. So nobody needs to "take Tedy fishing" tomorrow. 8:27. All the ESPN prognosticators in the Superdome are picking the Saints, except for Bruschi (OK, we get it). Stuart Scott says the home crowd will win it for New Orleans. Back in the studio, Ditka picks NO, Keyshawn and Berman picks the Pats, and the

rest pick New Orleans. So we’ve got Keyshawn Johnson, the cuckoo Chris Berman, and Tedy Bruschi on our side. 8:29. Nothing like Kid Rock to get America psyched for football. That’s pretty groundbreaking stuff, here in 1996. 8:31. Ron Jaworski is telling us that this is a matchup of two pretty good NFL quarterbacks. Jon Gruden says Belichick is a great coach. This is the kind of expert analysis you can’t get from a hastily-written sports blog. 8:34. Somebody (let’s get the UniWatch guys on this) should track Randy Moss’ per-game stats and correlate it with his facial hair. Does he play better with the full beard? Is wearing only a mustache hurting him? America wants to know. Bostonist Sports HQ does, at any rate… 8:39. Reluctant credit to Hank Williams, Jr., or his songwriters, for the "church vs. state" line in his more-bombastic-than-ever pregame show. And these graphics are just confusing. Let’s start the game, huh? 8:41. But let’s not let them run the opening kick back to almost midfield. 8:41 and 3 seconds. Brees completes to Deverey Henderson for a 30 yard pass. Well, this isn’t quite the start we had imagined. 8:45. Leigh Bodden almost picks off Brees after New Orleans picks up a bunch of yards, then the Pats stop a run on 3rd down. Here comes the Saints’ FG unit. We literally feel like we dodged a bullet here. 8:46. And the kick is…..good. But on a ricochet. Rats. The score: 3-0, Them. 8:50. Not that we want to jinx anything, but we’ve noticed a sort of postive trend developing in the last few games, where Laurence Maroney seems to have added a new wrinkle to his running game, which we’ll call "running towards the other team’s end zone." It’s a nice addition to his repertoire. 8:55. We hope everyone appreciates Kevin Faulk as much as they should. He’s the little engine that could. And gets an enthusiastic "Welcome back to Louisiana!" from the MNF announcers. But this time, without the misdemeanor pot possesion charge!

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Pats vs. Saints: The Live Blog