Media day has come and gone and the home stretch for the Sunday everyone is waiting for has arrived.
As usual, it produced a Nostradamus-wannabe that's proved to mean a lot of nothing year in and out.
Plaxico Burress is this year's Super Bowl loud mouth, predicting a final score of 23-17, with the Giants as victors.
On one side, what's so wrong with throwing a prediction out there? If you don't think you can win the game you shouldn't be playing in it and, quite frankly, it provides entertainment and something for fans to talk about.
On the other hand, I don't think giving "the Hoodie" or Tom Brady or anyone else on this New England team any more motivation than they already have is a great idea.
Two previous players have done so...and we all know those outcomes. In the other 16 games in which predictions weren't made, the outcome was the same as well so who's to say it makes any difference?
It was obvious that Tom Brady especially took offense to Anthony Smith's guarantee that the Steelers would be the team to put a stop to the season of perfection when Brady went to seek out Smith and let him know what he thought about it in the end zone following a Pats score.
Brady says all the right things and even had a smirk when he was asked of the prediction Burress made. When told of the prediction, Brady responded, "What was the score? We're only going to score 17 points? Is Plax playing defense? I wish he would have given us a little more credit for scoring points."
Following that—a slew of politically correct responses.
Tom Brady is a very competitive player. I promise you, regardless of what he says further on the subject, like "the Giants are a great team" and "they should be confident being the NFC champs"—those comments are simply lip service.
To me, Brady's initial remarks seemed to be a taste of what he really thought about it. But with the way Belichik runs that team that's about as far as a Patriot can go with a response.
Burress has since attempted to downplay the prediction as no big deal—simply entertainment. Truly, that's really all it is to some, but I can promise you the Patriots don't find it entertaining in the least.
There is a lot of pride in that squad and for anyone to disregard the records they've broken offensively is simply giving them more reason to prove themselves. I can promise you Mr. Caughlin is far from ecstatic over his wide receiver's need to entertain—regardless of how many times we have to hear about how much he has changed and what a players' coach he is now.
What was truly entertaining on media day however, was hearing Strahan address his own mouth. Obviously he knows what's going on in there and someone actually asked him about it.
"It fits me," said Strahan. "I went to the dentist and had x-rays and everything, but it just wouldn't be me [to fix them]."
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