Patriots have beaten

Dallas 12-1
Colts 10-2
Steelers 9-4
Chargers 8-5
Browns 8-5

4 division leaders. They are without question the best team ever assembled.

seriously..it wasn't even close.

I fucking hate yankees....and yes that includes Xaston and Shamdonk...but they are the best team to ever be invented.

Xas is confused because of the modern connotation associated with "yankee" currently in the north - as in a Yankee fan - as in New York.

While to you in the south, we might all be yankees, those of us who are in fact from the Boston area take great insult to being called a yankee (because of the modern relationship with the baseball team).

Not to put words into Xaston's mouth of course...

Have there been rule changes in the last couple of years that have helped the passing game?

It just seems weird to me that two of the top 4-5 teams in the league (Packers, Patriots) can win without even trying to run the ball. (Yes the Packers are running it better now, but during most of the games they won their run game sucked.)

It just feels like something has changed, and the balance of the game is off. Even if you have the very best defense in the league, that knows 100% that Brady is going to pass the ball, they can't stop it. I mean, if they made it illegal to call a running play, it wouldn't change the Patriots' offense much. That seems messed up.

Over the past few years, the passing numbers have gotten out of hand. Touchdowns, yards, etc.: all the old records keep falling. And that despite the fact that games are actually shorter, with fewer plays per game, due to the fact that they now restart the clock after a few seconds on out-of-bounds plays throughout most of the game, which they never did during the 1970s - 1990s.

Are Peyton Manning and Tom Brady really that much better than Dan Fouts and Dan Marino and Joe Montana and John Elway? Their passing numbers indicate they're in a totally different league of outstandingness ... can that be real?

No, but the drugs are far better these days.