[kdog]

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I personally am planning on fading the patriots as much as possible this year..

Losing both Romeo Crennel and Charlie Weis will be very detrimental to their organization, not to mention Andruzzi who was a rock on the line, Ty Law who is still one of the leagues best blanket corners and Brushchi, who was an emotional leader on D.

Also, the patriots have a pretty tough schedule relative to the rest of the league, ive seen that report in a few places.. Id stay away from this bet, too close to call.

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Brushchi will be missed, as will Ted Johnson. Andruzzi is a solid player but easily replaceable. Ty Law essentially did not play after week 5 last year and the secondary did pretty well without him. They'll be OK there.

Crennel's replacement calling defenses is Eric Mangini, who's been in the system for awhile.Should be OK there, especially with D being Bellichek's claim to fame.

The question mark for me is replacing Weis. IMO no one in the league called a better game. You couldn't defense him by studying tendencies because he had none. Overcoming that loss could be a giant hurdle.

As far as fading them as much as possible...well, they've never been the type of team to blow teams out and as two time defending champs they will probably be saddled with some extra weight most games. I'll look at that on a week to week basis. And I do think they'll slip some this year but not to 10-6. I think over 10.5 wins for the year is the best bet on the futures board.