Quick Thinking: Familiarity Breeds Contempt

Nine games into the season and the New England Patriots are still a complete mystery.

And not the good kind.

Mystery follows every team, dear readers. The good ones provide nervous moments as fans try to guess which player is going to step up and make a game winning play. But, here in Patriot Nation, we're stuck with hoping against losing plays.

Will it be our porous secondary? Our shaky kicking game? Or the offense that seems to stall with an incomplete pass at someone's feet in a game's critical moment when a first down or score will all but end the contest?

Ya, I don't know either.

Regardless of who which unit lets us down, though, I get the sense our Patriots are void of any mystery at all. We're simply more of what we've been in previous years: a team good enough to win but not quite good enough to win when it counts.

And I'm tired of knowing how the story ends.

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Quick Thinking
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-- Rumor has it the Red Sox "want to make a big splash" in the free agent market.

--  That kind of chatter reeks of desperation.

-- And inevitable disappointment.

-- The New York Jets are losing altitude at an alarming rate.

-- Where's Ted Striker when you need him? #80smoviereference

-- Or Roger Murdock, for that matter.

-- Speaking of the Los Angeles Lakers, how do you pass on a coach with 11 titles for D'Antoni when Kobe's window is closing faster than Tim Tebow's quarterback career.

-- If this NFL season has taught us anything, it's that Tim Tebow is to quarterbacking what Tyrannosaurus Rex would be to wide receivering.

-- Give it a minute.

-- BOOM! 

-- ...goes the dynamite.

-- Hey, Mr. Talib, I hope you can bring the same kind of Blast to our secondary as your surname brought to hip-hop.

-- Kweli!

-- Quote of the Week is awarded to my boy Mr. Octavio who said the following to a young lady sitting next to him at a bar the other night, "Hey, if I turn into a zombie during the Zombie Apocalypse, the first thing I'm gonna eat is your titties."

-- It's also my nominee for the Most Original Pick Up Line of All Time Award.

-- Some men's jeans are touted because they have crotch gussets.

-- Like as a selling point.

-- When's the last time you heard a girl say, "Hey, nice jeans. Love those gussets."?

-- Exactly.

-- And you ladies wonder why so many of us guys are fashionably challenged.

-- You get knee high boots, skinny jeans and yoga pants.

-- We get fucking crotch gussets.