Originally Posted by Willie55

How do you get old and have too many departures at the same time? If the Pats were keeping the likes of Vinatieri, McGinest, Ted Washington, and so on and so on, then I would agree that they are getting too old. But having these departures that Carter speaks of allows the Pats to get younger by replenshing through the draft and free agency.

Originally Posted by PatsDeb

as one of his 5 Bold Statements about this year in the NFL, despite the debacle last night:

"3. Miami is the beast of the East.

I'm not concerned about what happened Thursday night. Who's going to go into Pittsburgh and win in that situation? The Steelers' defense is a bad matchup for a lot of teams. Look at what it did to Cincinnati and Indy's offenses in the playoffs and both of those teams' offenses have to be in the top five in the league.

My only concern about the Miami Dolphins is the running game. Will they get enough help from Ronnie Brown? I like him. I think he's a good runner, but the issue is that offensive line. Is it good enough to help Brown get four yards a carry?

But when you look around the AFC East, who's going to knock the Dolphins off? The Patriots? You still have Tom Brady, but that team has had too many departures and is starting to get old. Besides, look at Miami's schedule. The Dolphins have a real light schedule.

As for anyone saying Daunte Culpepper can't read zone defenses, they know nothing about football. After playing with him, I can tell you that he's a smart guy who has no problems reading defenses. All quarterbacks throw balls into coverage. On one of the interceptions in Thursday night's loss, he had a defensive lineman flash in front of him and the ball sailed into the secondary. On Joey Porter's pick, that was just a great play by the defense. And defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau has been able to get his defenses to do that since he's been in the league. "

Keep making excuses Chris - we'll see you in the playoffs.

EDIT- Forgot to say this is on "NFL on Yahoo! Sports"