The only real suspense left in the NFL is what will happen this coming Sunday when the undefeated Patriots play the surprising playoff-bound Giants. I call the Giants surprising because it's been a while since I've seen a team able to overcome such pitiful quarterback play and win. Trust me, Eli Manning is no Peyton, and he never will be.

Every NFL analyst believes that the Giants shouldn't play to win. They believe that Tom Coughlin should sit his starters because the playoffs are more important. I get the logic. It's even more understandable, because even if the Giants play to win, they have a ridiculously small chance of winning.

What the NFL analysts fail to understand is that a Giants victory is exactly the kind of momentum their team needs to roll into the playoffs. The Patriots understand this concept, and that's why you can be sure that Bill Belichick is playing to win and set the records.

Which records?

The Patriots need 6 more points to break the current record for most points in a season. Tom Brady needs to throw 2 more touchdowns and Randy Moss needs to catch 2 more touchdowns to break their respective records.

Against the Giants, it's eminently doable. Although, I'm a lifelong Pats fan, I have nothing personal against the Giants, because quite honestly, they are not a New York team. They are just a misnomer. They play in New Jersey, so they and they are really the New Jersey Giants.

But if I know Tom Coughlin at all, you can be sure that he's going to try and win this weekend's game. And that's one of the reasons I like Coughlin. When you have a chance to make history by blocking a team from going undefeated, you chomp at the bit for that opportunity. When you have a lot of confidence in your pass rush (and the Giants have good reason to be confident, just ask Donovan McNabb), you look to hit Tom Brady hard and often.

Do I want the Pats to win? You bet. But I want the Pats to win by playing against the other team's best. I guarantee one thing: if the Giants sit their starters to save them for the playoffs, they have absolutely no chance of winning the Super Bowl.

So, Giants, are you going to man up and play, or are you going to hide on the bench? Time will tell.

Merry Christmas~!!!!!!! 

As the year winds to a close, here are a few resolutions that I'm going to try.

First, the negative affirmations:

1)        I will not use steroids.

2)        I will not write a personal check for illegal drugs

3)        I will not jump on Miami Dolphins bandwagon if they go to the Super Bowl next season

4)        I will not let my dog Ballboy eat up the winning Whiffle ball from the City Championship game.

5)        I will not mention how curling and poker are not sports.

6)        I will not rub it into other people's faces when the Patriots win this year's Super Bowl, the Celtics win the next World Championship, and the Bruins shock everyone by taking the Stanley Cup.

7)        I will not rub any "flaxseed oil" into my thighs and then wonder why I suddenly have superhuman powers.

8)        I will not inject anyone in the buttocks with anything except gamma-globulin

9)        I will not become the head football coach at Arkansas, even though that position might become available in the very near future.

10)    I will not go to the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008 unless I have a full U.S. Military-approved chemical warfare suit. Supposedly the air is toxic.

11)    I won't exercise, because I don't want my gases contributing to global warming

Now, the positive ones:

1)      I will watch the Beijing Olympic Games, as long as I can still see the athletes through all the smog.

2)      I will continue to spell-check my blogs before posting.

3)      I will do my best to leave more comments at other people's blogs.

4)      I will smile and try to be happy when Tim McCarver and Joe Buck are brought back next year for the ALCS and NLCS baseball games.

5)      I will smile and wish for world peace in the best tradition of my favorite sporting event: the Miss Universe Pageant.

6)      I will eat less and give up my dreams of becoming the World Hotdog Eating Champion.

7)      I will eat my Wheaties

8)      I will start referring to myself in the 3rd person to see if DivineSwine can become a household name.

9)      I will finally learn how to play Canasta

10)  I'm going to be the best blogger I can be.

Boston is one of the most storied cities in the world. It's pretty much the center of excellence in pro sports these days. I don't need to tell you about the champion Patriots or the Red Sox, but I might need to tell you about the New England Revolution pro soccer team who lost in the Major League Soccer championship this year, and have been perennial contenders for the league championship. And of course, the NBA is buzzing about the revived Celtics who are running roughshod over their NBA opponents.

Many of you may think that getting tickets to any Boston pro sporting event is as easy as buying a Nintendo Wii. Actually, the Wii is easier to purchase.

But yesterday I went to the new Boston Garden (officially known as the TD Banknorth Garden) to watch a Boston Bruins hockey game. It's been almost 20 years since I went to my last one. Part of the reason is that the Bruins have played mediocre to horribly for much of that time.

Truth be told, getting a ticket at the Boston Garden used to be the most difficult ticket ever (about 20 years ago), but both the Celtics and Bruins have fallen on rough times. Now that the Celtics are looking like a championship team, tickets to their games have become tough to get.

That leaves the Bruins who sit tied for second in the Northeast Division of the Eastern Conference. In a nutshell, they're a top NHL team.

They're also the greatest secret in Boston entertainment. It's far easier to get a Bruins ticket than for any other pro sporting event or musical in Boston. No joke.

So, on a nice Saturday afternoon, I sat in the balcony and happily watched the Bruins lose to the St. Louis Blues 4-1. Usually I can't stand losing, but this was different. I expected to go there and see a mediocre game, after all these were the Bruins.

What I saw was an amazing game played by both teams. Had Bruins captain Zdeno Chara not single-handedly lost the game for them with his slow play and terrible decisions, the Bruins might well have won the game.

I single out Chara because the guy looks huge on the ice. He's 6'9" and the tallest player in the NHL. When the Bruins signed him, I was curious how such a tall guy would function in a game that is dominated by shorter and quicker players. After watching him, he was exactly what I expected: tall, gangly, and a bit slower than everyone else. Maybe he had an off-game, but he repeatedly made decisions that lost the game.

Aside from an anemic power-play unit, the rest of the game was fantastic. The slow and boring play of Bruins teams in the past was replaced with a team that has sharp and creative passing. They easily could have scored 4 or 5 more goals had Blues goalie Manny Legace not played a great game.

But the score was irrelevant. What was far more important was the highly skilled level of play exhibited by the Bruins, the countless scoring chances that they put themselves into through aggressive forechecking and imaginative passing, and the moments where the new Garden sounded like the old Garden (despite the fact that only 60% of the seats had a body in them).

That's right, 40% of the seats were empty. Whole sections around the Garden were empty. But here's the wonderful thing about the new Garden, the sightlines are fantastic. Even the seats at the top of the arena have a fantastic view of the game.

I remember the new Garden sounding too quiet several years ago when I went to a Celtics game with my cousins. Maybe the Garden made some changes to its acoustics, because it sounded amazing at times yesterday. I've been to many a sold-out game at the Patriots Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, MA, and never did I hear it sound as loud as the Garden was yesterday.

So, if any of you are in Boston this winter and looking for great sports entertainment at a reasonable price (my balcony seat was $36.50), go to Causeway Street and catch a Bruins game. You won't regret it, and even better is that no advance purchase is needed.

Some poor misguided souls think that Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling should have kept his mouth closed instead of speaking out against Roger Clemens alleged steroid use and calling on Clemens to exonerate himself. Schilling deserves a lot of credit for breaking the "wall of silence" formed by other active and retired MLB players.

If Sen. Mitchell's statement that the large majority of MLB players have been and are performance enhancing drug-free and that they are all complaining about players they know who have been using steroids and HGH illegally to gain an edge, then that large majority should start opening their mouths and calling for strict action.

So, I applaud Schilling's stance.

However, his logic is completely flawed.

For those who missed it, Schilling said that Roger Clemens should give up his 4 Cy Young Awards and greater than 150 victories since 1997 if he doesn't clear his name from alleged steroid use in the Mitchell Report.

Let's imagine (and I use the word "imagine" fairly liberally) that Clemens is 100% innocent and never used steroids. How is he supposed to prove that he never used steroids? Did Clemens happen to take his own personal sets of urine and blood samples since 1997 and store them, so that now he can provide them to MLB in order to clear his name?

Proving his innocence would require a plausible alibi. What possible alibi could he possibly have that would definitively clear him. There is only one that I can think of: he's allergic to anabolic steroids. If true it would mean that he's allergic to himself.

The point is this: there is absolutely NO WAY that Clemens can prove his innocence.

Look, I hate Clemens as much as the next Bostonian. The guy was a prolific liar and one of the most selfish players imaginable. But fair is fair, and if Clemens were really sharp, he would post this reply on some major sports network:

"Dear Curt, thanks for the free press. You know how much I enjoy being the center of attention. By the way, I'll prove that I am and have been steroid-free as soon as you definitively prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you also have been steroid-free. Look forward to your reply. 

Hugs and Kisses,

Rocket."

People have been creaming Rich Rodriguez on this blog site for breaking his contract and leaving West Virginia University (WVU). Many have even compared him with former Falcons coach Bobby Petrino. But Rodriguez's case is noticeably different than Petrino's.

First, Rodriguez is not and does not have the reputation of being a journeyman coach going to his next greener pasture. Second, he played at West Virginia and actually showed a lot of loyalty to his alma mater. Third, although he signed a contract, it's now come to light that certain terms were violated.

Let's look at the list of broken promises in his contract that ESPN.com reported on yesterday: 

1. Allowing players to keep textbooks for resale.
2. Waiving a $5 charge for high school coaches to attend WVU games.
3. Having authority over distribution of sideline passes.
4. Having authority to allocate funds from the 1100 Club for coaches.
5. A committment to increase pay for his assistant coaches.
6. Additional money to pay graduate assistants.
7. Hiring an additional recruiting assistant.

Some of you may think that he's being ridiculous. Let's look at some of these points:

1)      Allowing players to keep textbooks for resale

- idiotic NCAA rule. It actually discriminates against players. Do students on academic scholarships also have to give back their textbooks at the end of the semester? What if a player wants to keep a book because he/she may need it as a reference for future classes in the same area? Obviously this isn't an NCAA rule, because other schools allow their players to keep their books. I suppose that for many football players at elite programs like Florida State, their "used" books would have high resale value because they can be sold "as new".

2)      Waiving a $5 charge for high school coaches to attend WVU games.

- some of you may think that with all the money Rodriguez is making, he could easily pay that $5 fee for all high school coaches who want to go to WVU games. That's not the point. The point is that Rodriguez was trying to do something symbolic to form a closer connection with high school coaches and WVU. Not to mention that this is a great thing to do if any of those coaches have a blue-chip recruit in the future or know of a sleeper that isn't being heavily scouted by the other top-tier schools.

3)      Having authority over distribution of sideline passes.

- on this one, I disagree with Rodriguez and any other football coach who has or wants similar control. The sidelines should be strictly for players, coaches, trainers, school officials, and maybe an occasional charity kid. Rodriguez's wife has no reason to be on the sidelines with her husband, unless that's what they consider "family time". The fact that Rodriguez negotiated this for her is ridiculous. Also, what happens if she needs to go to the bathroom? Just a mess all around.

4)      Having authority to allocate funds from the 1100 Club for coaches.

- this is something that probably should have been an ongoing joint venture between the WVU athletic department and Rodriguez. To give any coach 100% control of such a fund is just inviting trouble. What would stop him from using money from that fund to buy new cars for all his coaches? On the other hand, I don't think he's out of bounds to ask for a greater say in using the money to help defray costs for his coaches.

5)      A committment to increase pay for his assistant coaches.

- this is a clear case of a head coach doing what he's supposed to be doing: taking care of those below him (and when I talk about people below Rodriguez, I'm not talking in the literal sense, which therefore excludes prostitutes and call girls).

6)      Additional money to pay graduate assistants.

- again, you can't fault a guy for taking care of the people he leads

7)      Hiring an additional recruiting assistant.

- in today's highly competitive world of college football, a large recruting staff is necessary. My guess is that the current WVU recruiting assistants are working incredibly long hours.

 Are any of these points enough for Rodriguez to leave WVU? It depends. If you're Bobby Petrino, then they're not, because Petrino clearly did not care for either his players or his assistant coaches. He only cared about himself. So Petrino could never use a similar argument to get out of a contract.

However by all accounts, Rodriguez is a caring guy who clearly has a strong vision of how a program should be run. I have a hard time with coaches who get everything and still break their contract when a better job comes around. However, this case feels different.

I have no ties with Rodriguez or WVU, but I know that nothing engenders long-lasting bitter feelings more than broken promises. For a school, a coach breaking his contract is viewed as treason. WVU's Board of Governor's stated that they have increased Rodriguez's pay by 70% during his time coaching at the school, but when you have a coach with a record of 60-26 in 7 seasons, high BCS rankings and 2 bowl wins, Rodriguez probably deserved that pay raise when compared to other coaches with similar accomplishments. So, I'm not sure that this is solid support that WVU went "to the ends of the earth to keep the coach".

From Rodriguez's viewpoint, WVU breaking promises that seem relatively simple to keep could be viewed as a classic "bait and switch".

Part of the problem is that schools like WVU need the money that the football program generates to fund their other non-revenue producing sports, which in WVU's case is just about every other sport. So, to balance the books, WVU needs to generate as much money from its football program while keeping costs to the football program at an absolute minimum.

I understand that. However, they shouldn't make promises to spend money for the football program that they have no plans on allocating.

For any of you who have been given promises from large organizations, signed contracts, and then had the contract violated repeatedly, you know that big organizations do such things because they can. In WVU's case, they probably felt very secure in breaking promises to Rodriguez and still keeping him because he had a $4 million buyout penalty for leaving early to coach at another school. In any event, the Michigan boosters will pony up the $4 million, so all Rodriguez is trying to do is to save a bit of money and make WVU look bad.

Let's assume that all the allegations are true (because WVU has not denied any of them), and we believe Stephen Goodwin, chairman of WVU's Board of Governors, who said, "There are some very minor issues that [Rodriguez] raised with the administration...but he clearly was looking for an excuse to leave - he looked last year, and again this year."

It's clear that there is a major disconnect here. And it's not hard to see why.

WVU probably thinks, "Hell, we've paid this guy a lot of money, so why is he complaining?" But Rodriguez may be thinking, "How can I say that we're a team when I get a big raise and my assistants don't and are still scraping to get by? How can I run a successful program without the necessary personnel? How can I build a successful network with high school coaches so that they can feed me their top players when my school is perceived as being so cheap as to charge underpaid high school football coaches $5 for tickets to our home games? How do I convince my players that we win and lose as a team when they are being nickle-and-dimed for their textbooks?"

Maybe WVU perceives these broken promises as "minor", but we all know that one person's "minor issues" can be another person's festering wounds. Also, for the great majority of the list of broken promises, they were things which require no NCAA approval and could have been done immediately.

What the whole thing smacks of is people in the WVU administration who never got over the fact that Rodriguez was a player there. This is the reason why a lot of people are advised not to teach in a place where you were educated: the teachers have a hard time understanding that their former pupil is now an equal.

The other possibility is that a lot of people in the WVU administration were a bit conflicted about Rodriguez. On one hand they enjoyed the success he had at WVU and the revenue that it brought the school. But on the other hand they were jealous that Rodriguez was probably getting paid more annually than the entire Sociology Department. I've learned time and time again that jealousy breeds obstructionism.

As for Goodwin's comment that Rodriguez had been looking to leave last year and this year, here's a question I would ask him: if you knew that he was trying so hard to leave, then why did you sign him to a new contract? If you know that he really wants to leave, then you have only two choices: a) let him leave, b) address and find solutions to the reasons he wants to leave. WVU did neither.

I think that Petrino is an opportunistic coach without any loyalties, but in Rodriguez's situation there are enough things supporting his character that ring of a stand-up guy. So, maybe the best thing was for both Rodriguez and WVU was to part ways and hope that WVU will learn to be a bit more proactive in keeping its promises.