While we're talking about football . . .

A paper I delivered at last fall's Southern Conference of the Modern Language Association (Or "Scum-lah," by common parlance) dealt with the incredible hypocricy associated with the notion of the football "team." No one team has embodied the idea of "the team" as my beloved New England Patriots; but at the same time, no one approaches the Patriots for cold-heartedness once a veteran becomes one step too slow or one dollar too expensive. I thought then (and wrote then) that only Tom Brady and Adam Venitieri's jobs were safe (these two, after all, are the only two Patriots from three Lombardi trophies who will join Brian Belichek in the Hall of Fame), but since then Venitieri has left, over a measly million dollars, and to the hated Colts yet. So I suppose these words, since revised, are as prescient as ever. Here they are .