Bill Belichick, head coach of the New England Patriots, is notorious for his dry, fact-filled, yet information-less press conferences. I got to thinking today, what would “BB” sound like if he was answering the kinds of questions that, say, a political candidate might get.

This was the year.

This was the year the Jets (or maybe Dolphins) would take back the AFC-East from the New England Patriots.

The Pats were rebuilding.

They had rookies at tight end. Moss was getting up there in years and you just needed to double-cover him to erase him from the game. Welker was coming off major knee surgery and couldn’t possibly be one-hundred percent. Brady looked less than sharp the season before.

They had the youngest defense in the league and couldn’t get off the field on third down, much less rush the passer. They cut ties with their malcontent “stud” linebacker, Adalius Thomas.

The team couldn’t win on the road or finish games last year due largely to many of the elder team leaders no longer being with the organization, the Patriots were now seen as “soft.” Belichick didn’t hire a defensive coordinator, he would do that job and be head coach. And the same offensive coordinator who…

The Patriots-Colts game yesterday was another classic match-up. But with a new, yet familiar, twist. Interceptions. Time was Belichick’s defense really got to Manning and he’d throw interceptions. The last few years the Pats were in “shoot-out” mode. Well, yesterday the Pats defense rose up (from a shockingly horrid fourth quarter performance) and won the game with an awesome looking interception by James Sanders. But that was the third INT for the game. It’s been a while since that happened.

Things were pretty weird after the Patriots-Vikings game last week. Yes … only a week ago. Since then Moss misbehaved his way out of Minnesota and Brad Childress demonstrated a grasp of command usually only seen in squirrels trying to get across a busy highway.

How Moss will fare on his latest team – the Titans – remains to be seen. It may be interesting to see if he lasts longer working for Jeff Fisher than Chilly is able to last as head coach of the Vikings.

Oh, and lets not forget that after the win against the Vikings the Patriots – whom some ‘experts’ declared could never get far with so many young and/or no-name players – now have the best record in the league.

Patriots return from the bye a changed team

Heading into the bye week there were a lot of questions still about the New England Patriots. The status of Randy Moss was just one of these. The growth of the defense was another.

And then … then Bill Belichick and Robert Kraft did what they always seem to do … the unexpected and unconventional. They traded Randy Moss – the jewel of the offense – to the Vikings. Then they brought back Deion Branch from the Seahawks. Oh, this was all after they traded the closest thing they had to a “franchise” running back (Lawrence Maroney) to the Broncos.

Heading into the bye the Patriots won a game which changed the 2009 dynamic – they won a tough game on the road. Now, today, they needed to defend home turf against one of the top seeds in the conference – and absorb all the change in personnel.

And a funny thing…