Brandon Meriweather named AFC Defensive Player of the Week

Brandon Meriweather has received the honor (or is it honour when you play in England?) of being this week's AFC Defensive Player of the Week. Tom has already won Offensive Player of the Week twice this year, but he's just Tom, so we expect that.

Meriweather had a very good game against the Bucs, with two interceptions in the first half, one returned for a TD. He's shown glimpses of this before, but it's nice that it seems to be coming together for him. Also, since he plays in the secondary, this marks a considerable improvement from last season (he's a safety, not a corner, but still, what a change from last year).

What I remember was last season, Belichick turned to him during one of their games and gave him a run-down of what to do. The next play, Meriweather went out and made an interception. It was great, and also great to see that he's continuing this level of play.

Oh, and in case there are any lingering doubts about the overhaul of the D, check out this stat:

Points allowed
3rd (14.0 per game)
Last week: 3rd (15.1 per game)

Bear in mind that the two teams ahead of us, Denver and Indianapolis, have played one less game, and that Indy has the most ridiculous easy schedule, like, EVER (no, I'm not whiny/bitter).

Who was worried about our defense again?

Defense wins championships

Before anyone leaps on the 'Brady is washed up and done' wagon, let's recall that the Pats were playing one of the strongest defenses in the league today and still came up on top. They won 27-21. Now ideally, it would have been nice to do better, of course, particularly on the last drive. But we did enough to win.

And it's important to bear in mind that the reason we did enough to win is that the defense came up with a giant stop on the last drive, stopping the Ravens four times when they started at 1st and goal. We had the people in place ot make these crucial plays. This team is definitely our strongest in years - forget about 2007, that was precisely when we needed our defense to come up big and they didn't make the needed plays.

Also, Brandon Meriweather was fabulous today. He got one interception and almost came up with two more. Great job by the D all around.

Pats 48, Miami 28

Ahhhhhhh, much better. This is a relief on many levels:

1) We didn't get destroyed by the wildcat play. *golf claps*

2) We won against a division rival whose schedule is relatively easy for the remainder of the season.

3) We got over 500 yards again (two weeks running), but this time won the game.

4) Randy Moss got three touchdowns. *loud up and down cheering*

However, in Also Important News, the Jets soundly beat the Titans, 34-13, lending credence to my new theory that Mangini has sold his soul to the Devil. So the Jets are now 8-3, we are 7-4, Miami is 6-5, and Buffalo (after destroying Kansas City) is 6-5. As Bill will undoubtedly remind us in this week's press conference, there are still many games to go and we need to just take them one game at a time and etc, etc, etc. You could actually make a good Mad Lib out of it:

"Well, today we played against a ______ (adj.) team. There were some ________ (adj.) moments and there are certainly many areas where we can _________ (verb). Next week, we'll be playing another _________ (adj.) team that is playing as ______ (adj.) as any other team in the league. We will just take it _____ (number) game at a time, because it ____ (verb, cong. 3rd person sing.) what it _______ (verb, cong. 3rd person sing.)."

I'm curious to see which SD will show up tonight (and for that matter, which Indy team). Peyton threw 12 interceptions against SD in two games last year. Twelve. To put that into perspective, and choosing a quarterback at random, Tom Brady threw for eight total during the regular season of 16 games. Eight.

Observation: Brandon Meriweather was consistently 3-5 seconds behind all plays for most of the game. However, during the fourth quarter, Bill was seen on the sidelines talking to him. Next drive Merriweather comes out and gets an interception. Bill, KEEP TALKING TO HIM!