Tom Brady may have long hair that was knocked by none other than 16-year old bowl-haircut pop sensation Justin Bieber. He may have a new scruffy beard to go with it. He may have a bad reputation for leaving his girlfriend Bridget Moynahan, also the mother of his child, and for marrying supermodel Giselle Bundchen, and for playing on the squad that was caught taping other teams' practices a few years ago. And, for a man with three Super Bowl rings and the all-time single-season TD passes record (50 in 2007), he had a poor last playoff showing back in January against the Baltimore Ravens. He's also nowhere near this year's most talked about quarterback (that honor is shared, in part, by guys named Favre, Vick, Kolb, McNabb, Brees, Manning, Manning, Roethlisberger, McCoy, etc...).
Tell you what: the man is still a winner.
In the first and third quarters of last night's big AFC rivalry game against the Pittsburgh Steelers (a 39-26 New England victory), Brady had the Patriots looking every bit as good as they did during their legendary 18-1 2007 season, when their offense was downright explosive and their only hiccup was a Super Bowl loss to the New York Giants. Brady was 30 of 43 for 350 yards passing, tossing 3 touchdowns and scoring one on a three-yard keeper. After said keeper, on the possession after the Patriots were forced to punt and a furious Brady chewed out teammates on the field and on the sideline, he spiked the ball vehemently, looking thoroughly pumped.
A week after a dreadful showing in a 34-14 loss to the two-win Cleveland Browns, the Patriots rocked the high-running Steelers in Pittsburgh, led by Brady and rookie tight end Rob Gronkowski, who caught all three Brady touchdown passes, becoming the sixth rookie tight end since 1960 to have 3 TD catches in one game). The Steelers' secondary was a joke during the game, their defense barely got a hand on Brady all night, star receiver Heinz Ward left the game with neck pain after an ugly first quarter collision, and before he finished 30 of 49 for 387 yards and 3 touchdowns, Ben Roethlisberger spent most of the first three quarters watching his teammates drop passes that hit them in their hands in the end zone.
"We made big plays when we needed to make them," Brady said. "It's an exciting game for us in this locker room. We haven't been this happy in a long time. We're pretty good when we execute the right way."
It was the first matchup of multiple Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks since 1985, when the Oakland Raiders and San Francisco 49ers faced each other, sending Jim Plunkett out against Joe Montana. And the New England victory improves the Patriots' record to 7-2, while Pittsburgh slips to 6-3.
Speaking of the 49ers, San Francisco beat the St. Louis Rams in overtime in one of yesterday afternoon's later games, winning 23-20. The Dallas Cowboys finished off their first strong performance in almost two months by beating the New York Giants, 33-20, and improved to 2-7 (yikes). The Seattle Seahawks beat the Arizona Cardinals 36-18, and the scheduled Monday Night Football game sends the Philadelphia Eagles to Washington to play the Redskins, for Part II of the newfangled Michael Vick/Donovan McNabb rivalry.
Today, baseball's Rookie of the Year awards will be handed out. The favorites are Buster Posey of the World Series-winning San Francisco Giants in the NL (by a whisker over Atlanta outfielder Jason Heyward) and an expected head-butting between Detroit outfielder Austin Jackson and Texas Rangers' closer Neftali Feliz in the AL.
Some other interesting news: in NCAA women's basketball, The Connecticut Huskies kept their remarkable 78-game winning streak alive with an unholy beatdown of Holy Cross, 117-37, and 80-point margin of victory that would surprise me if it didn't start up that debate about the kindness of running up the score that usually surfaces after games like this. And, on the men's side, defending national champion Duke (and #1 ranked team entering this season) smashed Princeton, 97-60. I'm not as big a fan of basketball as football or baseball, especially not college (at least I know the names of players in the NBA), but I'll try to keep you updated on big happenings.
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