Heard Russ Francis (the "All World" TE whose mouth and reputation were always bigger than his game IMO, but that's a post for another thread. BTW if he was truly "All World" why isn't he in the HOF?) being interviewed on ESPN radio in NY last night. He basically threw Brady (and the Pats for that matter) under the bus in true Peyton fashion. Said Brady is "rattled", will struggle all year because of nobody to throw to, the running game will go nowhere because of that, yada, yada, yada. On the surface and taken individually, some of his points have merit. But I think he totally disregarded the team's resiliency and their ability to focus on one game at a time. The NY host was already putting the Jets in the playoffs with a 9-7 record and these 2 had the Pats finishing behind the Jets and Miami in the AFC East. Of course that's based on Pennington's "amazing" performance against the Titans (of all teams..."Chad is BACK!) and Miami's "gutsy" performance in losing to the Steelers ("Dante is going to be a force in this division") Paraphrasing, he thought Seymour was going to sulk all year because of Branch, the offense would struggle for points and that the Pats had basically reached the tipping point where they've just lost to many parts to be competitive anymore. Uh huh. Well Russ, I'll take this team over any other in the AFC East and take my chances with Brady and Belichick figuring things out.
