The Sports Weekender

Karma who? Pats win—and almost everybody else loses, the C’s split a pair of ugly road games, and Peyton Manning has time to take Tony Romo on a Caribbean Cruise in this edition of the weekender.

If you’re a Patriots fan, your very first thought when you woke up this morning—after, do I really have to come to work—was: How did I get so lucky? A win over the Jaguars, followed by yesterday’s unlikely turn of events in which both the Colts and the Cowboys met their demise.

Be honest. When Dallas Clark failed to secure a pass that he otherwise catches 99 times out of 100, you exhaled. Talent-wise, the Chargers probably have more than the Colts, especially on defense, and they are theoretically a dangerous team.

In reality, their quarterback and All-World running back are likely to be “questionable” for this Sunday’s game. And I’ll take my chances with Philip Rivers (er, Marmalard) instead of Peyton Manning any day of the week. Oh, and they’re still coached by Norv Turner.

Bill Belichick-Turner? Turner-Belichick? Gee, who do you like in that matchup?

Ultimately, there were two things that stuck out about yesterday’s Colts-Chargers game. One, when the ball is in his hands, Antonio Cromartie is in Deion Sanders territory. Thankfully, Cromartie is not quite in Neon Deion’s range as a cover corner (but he’s getting there). Two, the Colts sure have lost a lot of playoff games they were supposed to win, which will make those endless Peyton Manning commercials kind of amusing for about a week, and then they will just be relentlessly old. Cut that meat! Cut that meat!

Perhaps Manning can console himself by taking a little trip with Tony Romo, whose over-exposed excursion with Jessica Simpson clearly affected Patrick Crayton’s ability to catch passes that were right in his hands. The Cowboys are schizophrenic, but they were also dangerous. Not anymore.

Bill Simmons called it a couple of weeks ago: Pats and Packers in the Super Bowl. Brett Favre will stand for all that is good and right with America’s Game—he throws passes underhand!—while the Pats will be cast as representatives of the dark side. So, that will be fun.

And, of course, the Chargers big win gives us a chance to revisit the infamous Cut the Lights Out moment from last year’s Chargers-Pats playoff game.

While the Pats were taking care of business, the Celtics let one get away against the Wizards on Saturday night. Again, it’s that time of the year, but what was truly disturbing was the C’s complete lack of offensive rhythm without the injured Rajon Rondo.

The prevailing thought was that the Celtics were still short a veteran big-man. Now, a sure hand to come off the bench at the point might not be such a bad idea, and the best guy out there (there aren’t a lot) is probably Gary Payton.

Payton was a legitimately great player. You can even make an argument that he is one of the most underrated great players of all time. About a month ago, Payton made some noise, through his agent, that he would be more than happy to sign up for another run. The C’s weren’t interested then, and they should think long and hard about being interested now.

Still, they have to deal with the fact that Tony Allen is not in any way, shape, or form a point guard, and that Eddie House, whom we all love, is best in small doses.

The C’s have three games this week, starting with a rematch with the Wiz tonight, BC has a big one Wednesday against Miami (no, really) and the Pats will keep us busy all week.