Somewhere, Bill Belichick is licking his fingers

By: Dustin Beutin

Somewhere in a bunker-like war room in New England, Bill Belichick is licking his fingers. And it’s not because he ate a great bowl of clam chowder.In what is regularly billed as the best weekend of NFL football every year, there certainly was little disappointment. Little disappointment, that is, if you’re from Massachusetts or anywhere north. With Dallas and Indy now out of the picture thanks to a pair of assassins from opposite coasts, New England’s road to NFL immortality seems as if it is merely a formality.

Back to that bunker in New England - surely the Patriots watched the Indianapolis versus San Diego game and shook their heads with laughter as an impressive Colts defense wilted under the opportunity to punish a Charger offense that lost its two biggest playmakers. And as Peyton melted down - eschewing the run and going into “heave-ho” mode - the players of New England probably looked from one to another and smiled. No way the Chargers from sunny San Diego come into the cold of New England and beat an unpredictable, well-coached defense with Billy Volek or Michael Turner; no way they hold back a Patriot offense that features the best combination of receivers, linemen and quarterback this side of San Francisco circa 1988.

Much finger licking is occurring in Bean Town as we speak.

And what of the other side of the NFL? The grandfather conference of the NFC?

Tears, mostly. Frozen tears of joy in Green Bay, where fans will “suffer” through 10 degree weather rather than watching Favre travel South to Dallas to suffer in the warm environs of a dome. Tears of frustration in Seattle, where the official end of the Shaun Alexander era sounded from Lambeau to Queen Anne’s Hill with a snowy thump. Tears of relief in New York, where Tom Coughlin has coached a team that didn’t want to be coached and worked for a city that didn’t want him as a coach either.

But the saltiest tears after this weekend are in Dallas. Call it fate or call it karma. Terrell Owens was crying after Dallas choked more violently than any number 1 seed in the NFC before them. This sad story was written, however, long before what will become Romo’s infamous trip to Cabo San Lucas. It was scripted on the walls weeks ago when Dallas let their foot off the metaphorical gas pedal. If you watch football long enough, you know that when a team with a first year coach, a young QB and an inexperienced defense lets off the gas, disaster is imminent. Doubly so when the aforementioned coach is Wade Philips.

Perhaps Tony Romo shouldn’t have gone to Cabo. Perhaps he shouldn’t be dating at all and must now lead a life as a celibate monk from here to football retirement. Who cares? The point is, while other QB’s in his position may have taken the weekend off from clanging weights at the gym - just as Romo did - most certainly all of them spent their time at home studying film. If you want to believe that Romo used his laptop to do the same while in Cabo, you’re either a moron or you’ve never taken work with you on a romantic vacation with the best of intentions only to find that on the flight back the only thing you’ve accomplished with your materials from the office is get suntan lotion on them.

Cabo isn’t just a vacation destination; it’s a party. And when you’re rolling with one of the world’s top socialites - Jessica Simpson - every evening, every stop on the trip is an event. Quadruple that distraction factor when you consider that Cabo is the current king of romantic destinations for the Hollywood elite and Romo went there with America’s official #1 hotty.

Dallas didn’t lose this game because of Romo, but the appearance is that Romo did not perform his due diligence in preparing to win the game. Fans will forgive a lot when teams die heroic deaths, but they will not suffer the visage of wanton disregard for victory. Not when most of the fans work 9-5, M-F for a yearly pittance of what Tony Romo makes in a single game. Dallas as a team lost, but the focus will be on Romo simply because there is no free ride in life: if Romo wants the fame, celebrity and money that comes with his magnificent, blonde-bombshell-attracting job, so to must he accept that there will be criticism if he openly chooses recreation over hours of study and then participates in a plane-crash of a playoff game.

So does Romo deserve the criticism? Not as much as he’ll receive. Does he deserve Owen’s tearful defense? It’s nice to see he’s liked enough to earn such love from a selfish player. Should he have gone to Cabo?

Only if he likes an off-season of criticism after contributing greatly to a heart-breaking loss for a team that just eight weeks ago looked as if it was destined for a chance at a Super bowl trophy.

Good taste demands dropping the subject at this point, so perhaps its better to speak of the dead in a positive note. Being as there can be little of that for Dallas, someone should say something on behalf of the now deceased Jacksonville Jaguars.

Yea, how they lived their last days as they lived all of their days. Fighting hard. Playing with chutzpah. Attacking up the middle with their stout defensive line and running hard at teams with a magnificent 1-2 combo of running backs. They were a good team, but not great enough to off the Patriots. It’s sad, because if any team in the playoffs was deserving of the grace of football fate, it was the Jaguars.

Jack Del Rio made an incredibly “ballsy” move early this season in cutting a first round draft pick and replacing him with a QB from Eastern Carolina - not the region, but the school. Never before in the modern era of “responsibility deflection” where coaches do everything to avoid blame had a head coach stood squarely in front of his own fans and the national media and said, “I’m the coach and I’m paid to make tough decisions to win.” The Jaguars had a hell of a run - saving Del Rio’s job for sure and proving that there are still coaches willing to sacrifice their own image to win. In the AFC South, where teams are cursed to live in the shadow of Peyton Manning, the Jaguars were dealt a tough hand and deserved better than this.

Which leaves us with only two burning questions: who will be in the Super Bowl?

The short answer is that it doesn’t matter: give New England the trophy now. But, if history has taught us anything, it’s that football is not played on paper or in theoretical match-ups. Something could still happen where the Chargers walk into New England and stun the world. Most likely this would involve some combination of doping, Tanya Harding and thievery, but hey, somehow the group who assassinated Kennedy got away, so anything is possible.

In the NFC, the crystal ball is murkier. The Giants look legit and are built to win in the cold, unlike Seattle, which lost because a passing attack isn’t rated for outdoor use below 36 degrees. The Giant defense is surprisingly unpredictable for a standard 4-3 operation and they possess a defensive line capable of generating pressure, all key ingredients in turning Favre into a turn-over machine. If they make it to the big dance, they’d have a shot against the Patriots.

On the flip-side, Favre has been here and done that. Eli is showing growth, but lives with the Manning “Big Game Curse.” If you were betting on QB’s alone, you’d have to put your money on Favre. What Green Bay lacks in team-wide experience they certainly make up for behind center. The problem is that Favre is easily goaded into chucking the ball, which is the evil side of his “gunslinger” mentality. If the Packers make it to the desert to face Belicheck, most certainly the evil genius from Boston will devise a way to entice Favre into a series of Super Bowl killing mistakes.

Whether it’s New York or Green Bay that wins the NFC game, they will have two weeks of sleepless nights as they dream of being the team to off the Patriots; who, aside from having a wicked 14.5 point spread to cover, have little standing in their way from a trip to Arizona (sorry, Chargers). The problem with dreams is they often turn into a nightmare. There’s something in the clam chowder in Boston these days and unless one of the three teams that have the opportunity to derail the Patriots can find the anti-dote, it will mostly be a 4-peat for Brady and co.

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Though other sportswriters in Chicago might still be unpacking their carpetbags, Dustin Beutin is a born and bred Chi-town sportswriter. Heading into the heart of the Big Ten (Purdue) broadened his sports views, and it was during the Jauron era that he lost the innocence of blind love for Chicago sports and began looking for an outlet to vent his frustration. A trip out west to USC for a Master’s in writing was only tolerable with high doses of ESPN and Dodgers games, though it gave him a respect for the national perspective. Now in the early stages of a sports-writing career, Dustin hopes to give back to the city of Chicago everything it gave him: opinions and heartburn.

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