By Tom E. Curran
CSNNE.comFOXBORO -- During Sunday's game against the Jets, a person in the press box well-versed in football statistics but seemingly a little short on football comprehension (and self-awareness) raged every time the Jets threw short of the first-down marker on third down. "They need 6, nice job throwing it 2 yards short of the sticks!" he'd sniff. You may have heard a person like this in your circle of football-watching friends (get rid of him). Or maybe you are that person (shut up, please). The fact is, you can still catch the ball and run for the first down. There's no extra credit for throwing it past the marker. But the problem is, the defense doesn't want you to get to the sticks so they wall up right there. On Monday, Bill Belichick discussed the two plays where New York came up short on third-down completions. Ian Rapoport of the Boston Herald brought up the fact that, on both plays, safety James Ihedigbo camped at the sticks, forcing receivers to make a decision. "That's always a dilemma for the receivers," said Belichick. "You can either tell the receiver to go up and get the first down and run into the defender and get covered and hope that he can find a little space where the quarterback can throw it to him. Or you can tell him to shorten his route and get him the ball and hope that he can break a tackle or spin out of it or catch it and fall forward for the first down. "That's one of those things where, it's tough offensively," Belichick added. "I know I've got to get the first down but if I run right to you, I just get covered. If I stop short, then I'm short of the first down. You see all the time the guy doesn't get the yardage. But if a guy is standing right there, do you want to run right to him and be covered? What good does that do?"
A couple other Beli-nuggets on a Monday where the Patriots' locker room was practically vacant and we were left with the (thankfully) upbeat Belichick to fill our notebooks. On crowd noise"When you're down on the field it's like a constant roar. It goes up and it comes down a little bit but it'sa constant roar. I think when you're in the stands, you hear it a little more and having been in the stands for Bruins games and Celtics games, you hear it come to life. I'm not saying there aren't different levels when you're down on the field, but when you're down on the field, 65,000 people just all talking at the same time, there's a volume of noise there directed at the field." On Albert Haynesworth"Did some good things and some things could have been better. Hadn't played in a couple of weeks so hopefully this week he can get more time on the field and build on this week's performance but I think he did some things to help us."