22.5

My friend PK offers his thoughts on the 22.5 point spread for the Eagles-Pats game:


NE 38, NYJ 14
NE 38, SD 14
NE 38, Buff 7
NE 34, Cleve 17
NE 34, Cinn 13
NE 48, Dallas 27
NE 49, Miami 28
NE 52, Wash 7
NE 24, Indy 20
NE 56, Buff 10

Those are the scores, plain and simple. If you look at the 1st 5 games of the year, then Pats -22 is an absurd, absurd, absurd point spread, given that they didn't beat the Browns or Bengals by that much.

However, from that game on, Belichick has decided that it is critically important for him to turn Brady into the equivalent of Ivan Drago. The idea isn't to win games, but to utterly humiliate you as a team and coach. That's the objective, humiliation. Even so, in those 5 games, they've covered 22 pts just twice.

I think it's probably a good spread. Right where it should be. I wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole, because the Pats have taken 2 different approaches heading into their 2 really big games this year: in Cincy, they downshifted and cruised to victory getting ready for Dallas; at home against the Skins, they decided to completely blow their wads and humiliate Gibbs.

Now, they play at Baltimore a week later, not a huge responsibility but a threatening game. Maybe they go big against the Eags, then dial it back and just try to win in Baltimore without getting hurt?