Monday New England Patriots Links 2/7

This morning the Green Bay Packers are on top of the football world after beating the Pittsburgh Steelers 31-25 last night, and that officially ends the 2010/11 football season. The 2012 odds are already out, and oddly enough neither the Steelers or the Packers are the top favored teams to win it all next season. According to the Green Bay Press-Gazette New England is the early favorite and are listed at 5-1. Then it's Green Bay at 8-1 and Pittsburgh at 10-1.

Greg Bedard of the Boston Globe writes that although the Steelers lost, both teams are winners because it's the stability of both franchises - which Patriots owner Robert Kraft has attempted to bring to this region - is something that deserves to be appreciated.

Mike Reiss has an article on the outcome with a "Patriots Twist", and feels that we can now put an end to the Ben Roethlisberger - Tom Brady comparisons.

I didn't watch the game last night because I didn't want to potentially see Roethlisberger win a third ring, but apparently Christina Aguilera botched the national anthem, which has quite a few people up in arms. She inadvertently replaced "o'er ramparts we watched" with "what so proudly we watched". I've never sang in front of the entire world, so I'm not going to pass judgement.

The biggest surprise was the fact that despite all the planning and the magnitude of this game (and the fact the Cowboys finished 6-10 and weren't even in the postseason to prevent the renovations) the local Dallas CBS affiliate reported there were 400 fans who showed up only to find they didn't have any seats, while nearly 850 more had to be relocated after the fire marshall stepped in and didn't approve more of the temporary seating. NFL Director of Public Relations, Brian McCarthy, Tweeted that the affected fans will receive triple the face value for their tickets.

Meanwhile Ian Rapoport has an article on quarterback Tom Brady, who yesterday was named the NFL's Most Valuable player. The voting was unanimous for the first time in its current format, with Brady becoming the first player to earn all 50 votes. Brady said in the article that it was great to earn the honor, but it was certainly the farthest thing from his mind.

"The last thing I'll ever be thinking about was an MVP award," Brady said.

"It's really contradictory to the way I try to play quarterback," Brady said. "It's about the team. And if you're going to experience success, you('ve) got to rely on every single guy, and you win with those guys and you lose with those guys. And coach (Bill Belichick) said it best. We had a great regular season, the best of any team in the league. We just didn't have the best postseason."

Jeff Howe of NESN.com writes that Brady's 2010 was probably the best of his career, primarily because of how he helped make so many of the young guys in the offense better.

Tom Curran writes that Brady's MVP season turned during the Sunday night game against the Steelers, when Brady's went off during a heated moment, and the team came out in the second half and ran up 29 points. From that point on Brady threw 22 touchdowns and no interceptions to close out the season.

Packers & Steelers articles dominate everything else, so that's it for this morning. As I said this will be a daily entry throughout the offseason, so be sure and tell a friend that they can find all the local team headline links here every morning. You can also follow us on Facebook (the entry is listed there each morning) as well as on Twitter via @patsfans. You can also follow me on Twitter via @ianlogue.