By Steve Buckley Boston Herald General Sports Columnist Saturday, January 20, 2007
INDIANAPOLIS - Tomorrow’s AFC Championship Game between the Patriots [team stats] and Colts has turned into the Decorum Bowl, with players from both teams competing to see who can make the nicest comment about the opposition.
And the champion of that little contest is the embattled Colts, who have apparently learned from the mistakes the dead-and-buried San Diego Chargers made last week. The Bolts, before morphing into the official laughingstock of the NFL, talked an awful lot of smack. First, musclehead Shawne Merriman went on television during halftime of the Patriots-Jets wild card playoff game and predicted a NY victory - this while the Pats held a 17-10 lead. Then, the Chargers and their many boosters started planning a victory parade through downtown San Diego.
The Patriots eat this stuff up. And the betting here is that they’ve been keeping tabs on things all week out here, looking for a quote, a statement, a smirk . . . that could be viewed as a sign of disrespect. C’mon, you know how the Patriots work: They could find a discarded shopping list in Marvin Harrison’s trash and use it as proof that the Colts were looking past them. Look at this: Marvin’s buying a bottle of champagne! What’s that all about? Indy quarterback Peyton Manning, who had been unquoted and unseen throughout the week, finally held court with the media yesterday at a press conference staged in the ballroom of a downtown hotel. And it came as no surprise that Manning said all the right things to any Patriots-related question. At one point, he even borrowed the old Bill Belichick line about how the coach isn’t the guy out there making the tackles. “Believe me, I probably wish he was out there making the tackles, as opposed to (Mike) Vrabel and (Tedy) Bruschi and all those other great players that they have,” he added. Manning went on to call the Pats “a great group of players, and obviously, they’re well-coached.” Next up was talented wideout Reggie Wayne, who said, “Those guys, they pretty much have a dynasty going.” Defensive back Jason David put it out there that Tom Brady [stats] “does an excellent job of distributing the ball.” And defensive end Dwight Freeney called Brady “an All-Pro guy who has a lot of poise in the pocket.” Defensive tackle Raheem Brock predicted that the Pats will “come up with a good game plan.” And so on and so forth. About the only potential bulletin board material the Colts provided was when Freeney admitted he hated the Patriots. But even that was quickly dismissed because he spoke from the perspective of his childhood growing up in Connecticut where he rooted for the Giants. In fact, the Colts are so respectful of the Pats that even simple slips of the tongue were pulled back and corrected. Here’s a classic: Free safety Bob Sanders, after pointing out that Brady is 12-2 in the postseason, was told that the Pats quarterback actually is 12-1. When Sanders was asked if he was including a loss tomorrow, he quickly jumped in and said, “No . . . no, really. I ain’t gonna jump that far ahead.”cw0
Maybe it would be more fun if we had a Freddie Mitchell-type Colt warning he “has something” for the Pats. Or if coach Tony Dungy lectured his players about packing for the Super Bowl trip to Miami next week. But no. The Pats have a blank bulletin board because the Colts, having learned from the past, have given them nothing to put on it.
Posted by: justanotherparatrooper
OMG , Im gonna OD on the sugar
Posted by: Delta784
Rodney Harrison will come up with some real or perceived slight or sign of disrespect.
Posted by: justanotherparatrooper
Manning " oh yeah...well theyre uniforms are so much prettier than ours!" Wayne " I just love how they do theyre nails"
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