200th Helping of Sports Chowdah- Wakefield Stops Sox Bleeding, Pats Have Huge Night in Miami to Kick Off Season

As disappointing as the first week of September was for Boston fans, the last 24 hours seemed to have offset that nicely.

Ordinarily, a record setting performance by Tom Brady in the regular season opener against an AFC East opponent on Monday Night Football would get top billing, but not after Tuesday night in Fenway.



With the Red Sox winning all of two games for the month of September, Tim Wakefield's Groundhog Day-esque quest for career win #200 seemed like an afterthought. After the 3 game sweep in Florida by the Rays over the weekend to give them new life in the Wild Card race, what Boston needed was somebody to stop the bleeding.

Drafted as a first baseman in 1988 by the Pittsburgh Pirates, Wakefield developed his knuckleball while with the Salem Buccaneers of the Carolina League. He was called up to Pittsburgh in 1992 and even won Games 3 and 6 of the 1992 NLCS (both starts against Billerica, MA native Tom Glavine of the Atlanta Braves).

He struggled the following season and was released by Pittsburgh in 1995 during the player's strike. The Red Sox picked him up a few days later and he saw service in Pawtucket and then Boston, filling in for an ailing Roger Clemens.

On July 24, 2011, Time Wakefield recorded career win #199 against the Seattle Mariners. Thanks to an unfortunate series of lackluster starts on his part or the bullpen imploding in close games, the knuckleballer was stuck at #199 for more than 7 weeks. This could've been almost comical if it weren't for the fact that the Red Sox were already swooning in pivotal series against the Yankees, Rangers, Blue Jays and Rays- the latter completing a 3-game sweep of Boston on Sunday, September 11.

After an off night Monday, Wakefield got the start against the Blue Jays at Fenway on Tuesday night. In the early going, Wakefield would give up the Red Sox lead thanks to a 3-run homer off the bat of Jays catcher JP Arencibia in the 2nd and a 2-run homer to Jose Bautista in the 3rd.

With the Jays leading 5-4 in the bottom of the 4th, the Red Sox would take the lead on back to bac solo homers from Jacoby Ellsbury and Dustin Pedroia. Unlike last week's game against the Blue Jays, this would hold up with Wakefield getting out of a two-on and nobody out jam in the 5th and having a 1-2-3 bottom of the 6th as the Red Sox would continue adding to their lead in the 6th, thanks to a leadoff double from Carl Carwford and a 3-run blast from Dustin Pedroia to make it a 10-5 game.

From there, the Red Sox bats would continue to break the game wide open, giving Wakefield plenty of run support for his 6 innings of work. Dustin Pedroia and Jacoby Ellsbury made fairly convincing arguments about their inclusion in the AL Most Valuable Player balloting, with Pedroia going 4-5 with 5 RBI and two homers while Ellsbury would go 4-5 with 3 RBI and a solo homer. The Sox would go on to win by an 18-6 final, at long last giving Wakefield career win #200.

This sets a matchup between Ricky Romero (14-10; 3.01 ERA) and John Lackey (12-12; 6.30 ERA) for Wednesday afternoon's game. First pitch will be at 1:35 PM Eastern time at Fenway.

Boston's recent skid has meant that not only have the Yankees started to pull away, but that the Tampa Bay Rays and Los Angeles Angels still have a shot at the Wild Card. While the Yankees had a rough go of it in Southern California dropping two out of three to the Angels, the Bronx Bombers would go on to take the first two games against the Mariners at SafeCo, including closer Mariano Riviera notching career save #600 on Tuesday night. Meanwhile, in Baltimore, the O's rallied against the Tampa to win by a 4-2 margin. So currently, there's 4 games separating the Red Sox and Yankees in the AL East while there Rays are 4 games out from Boston's Wild Card berth. To make things a little more interesting, the Angels are a game and a half behind Tampa for the Wild Card standings and three games behind Texas in the AL West standings.

OTHER SOX NEWS: Just as Kevin Youkilis was coming back form the DL with bursitis and a sports hernia, David Ortiz say out Tuesday's game after experiencing back spasms.

Relief pitcher Bobby Jenks has been diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism on Tuesday and is out for the season.

Josh Beckett pitched a side session on Monday and is expected to start Friday night's game against the Tampa Bay Rays at Fenway. Beckett had missed his last start with a sprained right ankle.

PAWTUCKET RED SOX: After winning a division title to close out their regular season, the PawSox were swept from the International League playoffs by the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs, dropping the deciding Game 3 by a 3-1 final.

OTHER MLB NEWS: Former Indians, Red Sox and Dodgers slugger Manny Ramirez was released from a Florida jail after posting $2500 bond on Tuesday. Ramirez faces domestic abuse and battery charges

NFL: What a game! If you thought Thursday night's opener between New Orleans and Green Bay was something, apparently they saved the best offensive performance for last.

On Monday Night, QBs Tom Brady and Chad Henne decided to dwarf the combined total of more than 700 yards between Brees and Rogers.

Miami got the ball rolling with a nice sustained drive for a TD on their opening possession to take the early 7-0 lead. Miami led the NFL in scoring percentage on their opening drive last season, so apparently some of that carries into this season as well.

Brady would respond on the following drive, marching New England down the field, including a 46 yard completion to WR Matthew Slater and capping the drive with a short Ben Jarvus Green-Ellis TD run to tie things up at 7-7. The Pats would take a 14-7 lead into halftime (Gostkowski missed a FG attempt from mid field right before the end of the half).

Miami managed to tie the game up after a Brady lateral attempt was tipped and picked off by Miami DT Jared Odrick at mid field and run back 39 yards, giving the Dolphins 1st and goal from inside the New England 10. Miami managed to tie the game at 14-14 on a short pass from Henne to WR Brian Hartline.

Going with the no-huddle offense, New England got the ball back and Brady found Deion Branch for some quick pickups before pulling ahead for good on a short pass to Wes Welker to make it a 21-14 game.

The Dolphins would start on their own 11 on their next possession, but move the ball down into the New England red zone and settle for a Dan Carpenter FG to cut into the New England lead and make it 21-17.

Brady would find Aaron Hernandez twice on the next possession, once for a 30 yard pickup into Miami's red zone and once for the TD to make it 28-17 (Gostkowski would add to the lead with a chip shot field goal to make it 31-17 early in the 4th).

Late in the 4th, Miami would put together a drive that started on their own 12 yard line and move down the field, only to sputter on 4th and goal at the New England one yard line. What happens next is pretty much the dagger for Miami (not to mention pretty awesome!).



Welker's 4th quarter TD run ties and NFL-long record for 99 yards and iced the game for New England. Tom Brady went 32-48 with 517 yards and 4 TDs (plus the one interception). The Dolphin's Chad Henne went 30-49 with 416 yards and 2 TDs in the losing effort. The Pats win this one by a 38-24 final.

Interestingly, Buffalo won their season opener against Kansas City and despite trailing most of the night, the Jets were able to pull off the win in their home opener against Dallas, making Miami the only Winless team in the division.

The Patriots will next play their home opener will take place on Sunday at 4:15 PM against the San Diego Chargers.

ICE HOCKEY: Alexander Galimov, the last surviving Lokomotiv Yaroslavl hockey player on board the ill-fated charter flight that crashed last week has died from his injuries. Galimov, a Yaroslavl native, had burns over 80% of his body when he was moved to Moscow for treatment. Flight Crew member Alexander Sizov, who was also airlifted to Moscow, is the sole survivor of the crash.

BOSTON BRUINS: Forward Marc Savard will get his name on the Stanley Cup after all. Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli made the announcement at a charity golf tournament on Monday.

Under NHL rules, in order for a player to get their name on the cup a player must play 41 regular games or one game in the Stanley Cup final. However, Savard played in only 25 games due to post-concussion syndrome. However, a 1994 provision in the rule allows the team to petition the NHL to add a the name of an otherwise ineligible player to the Cup. The Bruins petition on behalf of Savard was approved.

A hit from Colorado's Matt Hunwick on a January 22nd game resulted in Savard's 2nd concussion in 10 months.

The Boston Bruins and NY Islanders played a pair of rookie games this week with the Bruins winning Game 1 by an 8-5 final, but getting blown out of the rink by a final of 7-1 on Tuesday night.



Also worth noting that auditions for the Bruins Ice Girls continued into this week- this round was invitation only.

NCAA FOOTBALL: Offensive Coordinator Kevin Rogers is taking a leave of absence form the team due to health reasons, leaving tight-ends coach Dave Brock to fill in on an interim basis, according to BC football head coach Frank Spaziani.

The news comes just days after the Eagles lost starting cornerback CJ Jones, who would be undergoing surgery after being injured on the opening series of Saturday's 30-3 loss to Central Florida.

The winless BC Eagles will next play the Duke Blue Devils (also winless) at Chestnut Hill this Saturday at 12:30 PM ET.

Over the Big East, UConn lost a close one to the Vanderbilt Commodores, with Vandy coming from behind late to win by a 24-21 final. The 1-1 Huskies will next play the undefeated Iowa State Cyclones at E. Hartford. Kickoff is at 8:00 PM ET.

Sports Chowdah w/Sugar On Top- Sooners Pound Puppies; Cry TimberWolf!; Soggy Classic; B's Skid Stopped by Leafs; Pats Go (1st Round) Bye Bye

NCAA HOOPS: I blame myself- almost as soon as I pointed out UConn's record breaking performance in women's hoops, they lose on the road to the #8 ranked Stanford Cardinals by a 71-59 final last week. I blame myself for jinxing them and take full responsibility- my apologies.

Still, it will be interesting to see if any men's or women's team can come close to threatening the UConn Women's record and Stanford might end up usurping Tennessee as the lady Huskies main rival.


NCAA FOOTBALL: Let's face it- it simply hasn't been that good a week for UConn on the hardwood or gridiron. The men's hoops (currently ranked #8) lost to Notre Dame on Tuesday night.

But out in the desert on the first night of 2011, the UConn football team demonstrated that mammals were capable of oviparity when the Huskies went out and laid an egg against the Oklahoma Sooners in the second half of the Fiesta Bowl.

Three years after getting blown out by another Big East team (West Virginia) and four years after Boise State's shocking upset over the Sooners in the very same Fiesta Bowl, Oklahoma started strong and finished strong against the UConn Huskies, taking a 20-10 lead into halftime.

Oklahoma got out the the early 14-0 lead when UConn CB Dwayne Gratz intercepted Sooners QB Landry Jones and returned it 46 yards for paydirt. Dave Teggart would follow that up with a 37 yard FG towards the end of the first half.

As tenacious as UConn was in the first half, they were pretty much completely absent (aside from a 95 yard kickoff return from Robbie Frey) in the second as the Sooners got two pick-6s from Huskies QB Zach Frasier for the 48-20 Sooners win.

Keep in mind that UConn still hasn't scored an offensive touchdown since the 4th quarter of their Nov 27th game against the Cincinnati Bearcats. So that didn't really bode well for a UConn team that made it to a BCS game on the basis of tie-breakers and Big East rivals screwing the proverbial pooch. While they no doubt had their moments, by and large UConn had this 'not-quite-ready-for-prime-time' feel to their lackluster performance in the Fiesta Bowl.

ELSEWHERE IN NCAA FOOTBALL: As lacking as UConn's performance in the Fiesta Bowl might've been, imagine a whole conference faring worse than the Huskies did as a team on New Year's Day. You don't have to, since there was the Big Ten's woeful results from the various Bowl games on New Year's Day:

Ticket City Bowl:
Northwestern 38- Texas Tech 45

Outback Bowl:
Florida 37- Penn State 24

Capital One Bowl:
#15 Alabama 49- #7 Michigan State 7

Gator Bowl
#21 Mississippi State 52- Michigan 14

Rose Bowl
#4 Wisconsin 19- #3 Texas Christian 21

Actually, the Outback Bowl was a little closer than the score would indicate if not for a late Penn State drive that ended in an interception being run back for a TD with just over a minute remaining in the 4th. As you might suspect, the Rose Bowl actually made for some fine viewing even for those who didn't have a stake in the outcome. Still, that's 0-4 in one day for the Big 10.


ORANGE BOWL: The Orange Bowl on Monday night featured a matchup between #5 Stanford and #12 Virginia Tech amid speculation this could be head coach Jim Harbaugh's last game as a number of NFL teams expressed an interest in his services.

In the first half, things didn't quite seem to be going the Cardinals way, with a missed PAT by kicker Nate Whittaker (one of two missed on the night), a fluky play that would've resulted in a safety no matter what and Hokies QB Tyrod Taylor making an 11 yard TD pass when it looked for all the world like he was being chased backwards and out of bounds. Still, the Cardinals would head into the locker room at the half with a 13-12 lead after Virginia Tech got a FG with 7 seconds remaining in the half.

But that would be the last time the Hokies would find the end zone or uprights. Stanford would score 27 unanswered points to take down Virginia Tech by a final of 40-12.

SUGAR BOWL: Ladies and gentlemen, there's been a Big 10 sighting! The 2011 Sugar Bowl pitted #6 Ohio State against #8 Arkansas on Tuesday night, and the Buckeyes fared much better than the rest of the Big 10 on New Year's Day. Granted that's not saying much....

Although the Buckeyes got out to a pretty commanding 28-10 lead at halftime, the Razorbacks held them to just 3 points in the 2nd half as Arkansas clawed back to make it a 26-31 game in the 4th. After attempting to bleed the clock late in the 4th, the Buckeyes decided to punt on 4th and 3 from their own 38 yard line. However, the punt was blocked, giving the Razorbacks the ball with good field position and very little time.

The first pass attempt from Arkansas' Ryan Mallet was incomplete- the second was picked off and the Buckeyes absolutely dodged a bullet there. Ohio State hangs on to win by the final of 31-26.

ELSEWHERE IN NCAA FOOTBALL: Here are some finals from what some would refer to as the 'lesser' Bowl games [not me, tho'- NANESB!] prior to New Year's Day:

December 30:
Music City Bowl:
North Carolina 30- Tennessee 27 (2 OT)

Holiday Bowl
#17 Nebraska 7- Washington 19

December 31:
Meineke Bowl
South Florida 31- Clemson 26

Sun Bowl
Notre Dame 33- Miami (FL) 17

Liberty Bowl
Central Florida 10- Georgia 6

Chick-Fil-A Bowl
#19 South Carolina 17- #23 Florida State 26

NFL: Not that much to report as far as the Pats are concerned. Some of the starters got some rest on Sunday's 38-7 rout of the Miami Dolphins in South Florida, sweeping the season series. This is the 8th straight win for New England and also the 8th straight game where they scored more than 30 points, finishing with a 14-2 regular season record.

Now all that's left is to wait and see who New England gets after Wild Card weekend.

ELSEWHERE IN THE NFL: Speaking of- here's the Wild Card weekend schedule:

Saturday- 1/8
New Orleans Saints @ Seattle Seahawks- 4:30 PM ET
NY Jets @ Indianapolis Colts- 8:00 PM ET

Sunday- 1/9
Baltimore Ravens @ Kansas City Chiefs- 1:00 PM ET
Green Bay Packers @ Philadelphia Eagles- 4:30 PM ET

NBA: Well....while I was watching all this football, it seemed to escape my attention that Rajon Rondo is back. He had a fairly low-key return in Sunday night's 93-79 win over the Toronto Raptors with 8 assists, a rebound and 4 points (8? Maybe not that low-key, then).

Getty images

On Monday night's game at the Garden, they got some unexpectedly stiff competiton from the Minnesota Timberwolves as Kevin Love had 24 points for the visiting T'Wolves. After trailing at halftime 47-43, Paul Pierce scored 15 of his 23 points in the 3rd quarter to help close what was once a double-digit gap before the C's went ahead and held on to win by the final on 96-93.

Interestingly, the Celtics have never lost to the Timberwolves since the acquisition of Kevin Garnett in 2007 (KG is still on the disabled list however, and did not play against his former team).

The C's have a tough one coming up Wednesday night at the garden as they'll play host to the San Antionio Spurs as they come to Beantown with the NBA's best record.



NHL: After back-to-back shootout losses against Atlanta and Buffalo (where they at least got a point for their trouble) the Bruins went north of the border to take on the Maple Leafs.

Tim Thomas had the night off and the elusive Tukka Rask got the start between the pipes for the B's instead. Although Toronto got on the board first with a Mikhail Grabovski goal, Rask turned aside 36 shots on goal- many of them coming from former Bruins teammate Phil Kessel.

Nathaniel Horton and Marc Savard would score in the second to put the Bruins up for good by a final of 2-1, snapping their 2-game slide.

The B's will next take on the Minnesota Wild at the Garden on Thursday night, 7 PM ET.

Justin K. Aller/ Getty

ELSEWHERE IN THE NHL: The 2011 Winter Classic belatedly got underway Saturday night between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Washington Capitals amid intermittent rain showers at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, PA.

The original start time of 1 PM Eastern was pushed back to 8 PM ET [might this be a sign of things to come for future Winter Classics? -NANESB!] in the hopes that the rain would clear by then. But it was a very wet Winter Classic indeed as the Penguins got out to a 1-0 lead on a Evgeni Malkin goal in the 2nd. However, the Caps would come right back with a power play goal from Mike Knuble and follow that one up with a tally from Caps RW Eric Fehr to take the 2-1 lead in the second. Fehr would provide Washington with some insurance in the 3rd with another tally to make it 3-1 Washington- the final score.

Washington's Semyon Varlamov turned aside 32 of the 33 shots he faced while Pens netminder Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 29 of 32 shots faced.

IIHF WORLD JUNIOR CHAMPIONSHIPS: Jeez- I had no idea that these were underway until Monday night when the Maple Leafs announcers were updating the score of the USA/Canada game.....which alas, the USA lost 4-1. This means that the host USA will play Sweden in the Bronze medal game on Wednesday afternoon while Canada will take on Russia in the Gold medal game at Buffalo's HSBC Arena on Wednesday night.

MLB: Free agent and former Red Sox and Mariners 3B Adrian Beltre and the Texas Rangers have reached a preliminary agreement on a six-year, $96 million contract pending a physical late on Tuesday.

Campbell's Bitter Sports Chowdah Update- Bruins Be-Devil NJ, Rangers, Panthers; NHL Official's Damning E-Mails Unearthed; Fish Squished

NHL: It's been quite the week for the Bruins so far, both on and off the ice.

On Thursday night, the Bruins won their third straight game of the week after shutting out the Florida Panthers 4-0 at the Garden. Tukka Rask got his first win and first shutout of the season, stopping all 41 shots faced and Milan Lucic had a natural hat trick, scoring the first three goals on the night.

This would be the Bruins second shutout of the week, when Tim Thomas shut out the slumping Devils by a final of 3-0 on Monday night. On Wednesday night, the Bruins managed to survive a late rally by the NY Rangers- including a minute and a half of a Ranger's 5 on 3 man advantage late in the 3rd- to hold them off with Thomas stopping 24 of 36 shots faced and Mark Recchi getting what would turn out the be the game-winner just one minute and 10 seconds into the third. Boston won that one by a final of 3-2 on Wednesday night.

The three wins puts the Bruins back in 2nd place in the Northeastern conference (and 4th overall in the conference)- two points behind Montreal and four points ahead of Ottawa. The Bruins next game will be on Saturday night against the LA Kings at the Garden.

ELSEWHERE: For those of you who thought NHL Senior VP and Director of Hockey Operations Colin Campbell was a vindictive douche with an axe to grind, some e-mails that were presented to an Ontario Labor Relations Board in a hearing for former NHL official Dean Warren have substantially backed up your claims.

Edmonton blogger mc79hockey has the specifics in which Campbell sought to pressure or sanction officials who made calls against his son Gregory Campbell (then of the Florida Panthers, now with the Bruins) back in 2007, and reveal a long-standing grudge against Marc Savard, whom Campbell coached when both were with the NY Rangers.

Perhaps even more damning is Colin Campbell's decision to let Pittsburgh's Matt Cooke off without a suspension after a cheap shot against Marc Savard last season in which Savard received a concussion and had to be taken off the ice on a stretcher. Separately, neither one of them is incriminating, but with Campbell's e-mails seeing the light of day now his inaction against Cooke seems to only be explained by some sort of grudge against Savard [the fact that Savard and Gregory Campbell are now teammates will make the next several weeks interesting, imho- NANESB!]

Without addressing the e-mails that were made public on Sunday, Campbell defended the e-mail correspondence to officials as 'typical hockey dad venting'.

Speaking of Marc Savard, head coach Claude Julien has stated that he could start practising with the team shortly, but isn't expected to return to the lineup until at least December.

NEW JERSEY: Former Habs, Bruins, Leafs and New Jersey Devils coach and Gatineau, Quebec detective Pat Burns passed away from cancer at a Sherbrooke, Quebec hospice on Friday. Besides coaching in the Junior leagues, Burns was the recipient of three Jack Adams awards and was at the helm in 2003 when the New Jersey Devils won their most recent Stanley Cup trophy.

NBA: Not quite as busy a week for the Celtics as it's been for the Bruins. With that said, the C's are 1 for 1 this week with the bench doing most of the heavy lifting in Boston' 114-83 win over the Washington Wizards on Thursday night.

Boston will next play host to the Oklahoma City Thunder at the Garden on Friday night.

NFL: More Thursday night action, although unlike last week, I think the phrase 'action' is a tad charitable as the Chicago Bears came into Miami and completely shut out a depleted Dolphins team, winning by a final of 19-0.

While I Was Away Sports Chowdah Update- Sox Put Away For The Winter; Pats Celebrate Diversity, Rout in Miami; Uh-Oh and Two- BC Stumbles After Bye

Hey there everybody. Just because the last couple of weeks have been forgettable as far as New England sports have gone doesn't mean that I've suddenly forgotten about them. As a matter of fact, I got to see some of the train wreck against Baltimore firsthand at Fenway two weeks ago. If I were the kind of person to drop names, I could say that I attended the game with reigning Miss USA (and Ground Zero mosque opponent) Rima Fakih, documentarian Ken Burns and radio host Howie Carr. Of course, if I was 100% honest, I would mention that while my seats were good (by the Pesky Pole), they weren't that good, so I missed out on the VIP treatment.

O Captain My Captain! AP/Jim Rogash Photo

One had the feeling that missing out on October baseball in New England was inevitable once it was announced Youkilis was out for the season (or Pedroia, or Ellsbury or when the Sox dropped a bunch of game against division opponents or....take your pick). They were technically still in it until screwing the pooch against Baltimore and the White Sox, but they managed to play tough against the Yankees, taking two out of three at Yankee stadium the last weekend in September before hosting them for the season finale this past weekend.

John Lackey went seven and 2/3rds innings against the Yankees on Sunday and got plenty of run support thanks in no small part to homers by JD Drew and Jed Lowrie. Lowrie was 2-3 with two homers and 3 RBI while JD Drew went 1-4 with 2 RBI. Lowrie's 2 run shot broke a 2-2 deadlock in the bottom of the fifth before Ryan Kalish put an exclamation point on a 3-run 6th inning by stealing home to give the Red Sox a 7-2 lead. Daniel Bard would come on after Rich Hill couldn't get a batter out in the top of the 7th and Papelbon would close out the game, giving up a run in the process.

I got to catch the game on TBS Sunday afternoon and while the win didn't help the Red Sox secure anything, the loss cost the Yankees the AL East pennant as Tampa Bay rallied to beat Kansas City that afternoon for their regular season finale.

It was a good game considering there was nothing to look forward to the following week. Mike Lowell already announced his retirement effective Sunday and we're left to speculate about the futures of longtime Sox like Jason Varitek, Tim Wakefield or Big Papi. There's also the matter of free agents like Adrian Beltre and Victor Martinez.

Boston finishes the season with an 89-73 record, which might've been good enough for a postseason berth in seasons past, but only gets them third place in the AL East behind Tampa and the Yankees.

ELSEHWERE IN MLB: The first round matchups are set for the Division series, all but one of which will get underway tomorrow afternoon.

Rangers at Rays: 1:30PM ET
Reds at Phillies: 5:00PM ET
Yankees at Twins: 8:00PM ET
Braves at Giants: 9:30PM ET (Thursday)
[All Games broadcast on TBS]

With the Padres 3-0 loss on Sunday, we narrowly missed having a series of one-game playoffs to determine the national league wild card winner and NL West winner, since the Padres a game out of the NL Wild card and two games out of the division.

NFL: Wow....the first half was a real snoozer, but New England got creative in second half down in Miami on Monday night.

All the Pats offense had to show in the first half was two Gostkowski field goals, but as soon as the second half kicked off, it was clear that variety is the spice of life. To get things started off, Brandon Tate returned the kickoff 103 yards to paydirt to put the Pats up 13-7. But things were just getting started, as Patrick Chung blocked Miami's punt on the ensuing Dolphin's possession, giving New England the ball at Miami;s 25 yard line, which in turn made the Pats made it a 20-7 game with a 12 yard TD run from BenJarvus Green-Ellis.

The Dolphins came right back to make it 14-20 game after Chade Henne found Ricky Williams to just shy of the 9-minute mark in the third. New England responded with that with a 4+ minute drive capped by a Brady pass to RB Danny Woodhead for a 27-14 game.

If that didn't break it open, then the blocked field goal attempt run back 35 yards by Kyle Arrington for a TD. The exclamation point came when safety Patrick Chung intercepted a Chad Henne pass and ran it back 51 yards to make it 41-14 New England. Tom Brady went 19-24 for 153 yards with a touchdown. It was kind of a slow night for Moss and Welker, but that was more than offset by special teams plays from Chung and Tate.

It was so bad that the special teams coordinator for the Dolphins was fired the following day. No, really....he was. So the Pats make it two wins in a row against AFC East opponents (last week's game against the Bills turned out to be more of a nail-biter than this one) and head into the bye with a 3-1 record.

NCAA FOOTBALL: Speaking of byes, the BC Eagles have yet to win a game since their weekend off a few weeks back. Granted they weren't playing Kent State or Weber State, but had instead graduated to Virginia Tech and Notre Dame as opponents. Boston college has scored no more than 13 points in the last two games after getting shut out by the Hokies on Chestnut Hill by a score of 19-0 and this week to the Notre Dame Fighting Irish by a final of 31-13. The 2-2 Eagles will travel to Raliegh this weekend to take on the NC State Wolfpack.

UConn has had it a little better than BC, managing to beat the Buffalo Bisons 45-21 and the Vanderbilt Commodores 40-21 at East Hartford. The Huskies will travel to Piscataway, NJ to take on the Rutgers Scarlet Knights before getting the following weekend off.