By Tony Massarotti, Boston.com Columnist

Building a bullpen is an inexact science, they told us. Forecasting the performance of a reliever is extremely difficult. And yet, now that they are coming off a 69-93 season, the Red Sox now seem to be placing a majority of the burden on their rebuilt relief corps.

Spring training officially begins throughout baseball this week, and changes abound at the Red Sox' training facility in Fort Myers, Fla. Boston has a new manager, altered outlook, and revamped roster, the latter of which boasts a relief corps stocked from top to bottom with potentially effective arms.

The most important story line this spring? The health and effectiveness of the relief pitchers. The success of the 2013 Red Sox may very well depend on them.

Success is a relative term, of course, so let's keep this as simple as possible. The Red Sox finished 12th in the American League in starting pitching last season and really have added only Ryan Dempster to what looks like a collection of middle-of-the-rotation starters. Save for the top two spots, the lineup is a mishmash of Nos. 5, 6 and 7 hitters. The only place where the Red Sox have the chance to be truly elite is in the bullpen, where general manager Ben Cherington has added closer Joel Hanrahan and setup man Koji Uehara to a group that includes Andrew Bailey, Craig Breslow, Daniel Bard, Alfredo Aceves, Andrew Miller, Franklin Morales and Junichi Tazawa.

That's nine capable to above-average pitchers - count `em, nine - leaving little doubt as to the Red Sox' plan on the bridge back to respectability:

Stay close during the first six innings. Then try to win it in the last three.

Given the Red Sox' dilemma at the end of last season, their options were relatively limited. The Red Sox saved roughly a quarter-billion dollars in long-term salaries when they traded Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, and Josh Beckett to the Los Angeles Dodgers in August, but the free-agent market was thin. The Sox placed an obvious emphasis on protecting their minor league talent - at least those players who did not injure themselves cleaning guns - which gave Cherington relatively little of value to deal.

And so, the Sox did the logical (and smart) thing. They signed a cast of non-compensation free agents to fill out the lineup and padded the bullpen. How the latter comes together will likely determine whether the Sox are fifth-place finishers in a more balanced American League East - or whether they are contenders for one of the five AL playoff spots.

Let's repeat that, purely for clarity's sake: no one is saying the Red Sox will make the playoffs. Maybe they will. But they can certainly contend for a spot that will likely require somewhere in the vicinity of 87-88 wins. In baseball's new playoff structure, .500 baseball keeps you in the hunt.

Last year, for example, the Baltimore Orioles made the playoffs almost exclusively on the strength of their bullpen, which had both the most relief wins (32) and fewest losses (11) while finishing third in ERA. Second in all three categories? The Oakland A's, who finished 13th in the AL in batting average, 11th in OPS. The Orioles and A's were among the best in the league in both one-run games and extra-inning games, a direct result of their bullpen strength.

For the Red Sox, the real story here is the adoption of this philosophy, which flies in the face of most everything the Sox have told us during the first 11 years of this administration. Generally speaking, the Sox have preached the value of run differential, the triviality of one-run games. One-run games are a crapshoot, Sox officials told us, and good teams frequently win by larger margins.

All of that makes some sense, certainly, and it should be pointed out that the Sox built their share of strong bullpens during the last 11 seasons. Jonathan Papelbon was a force out of the Boston bullpen during his prime, and the Red Sox often backed him with at least one other reliever capable of closing games. Prior to the 2004 season - albeit after an ill-fated closer-by-committee experiment - the Sox signed righthander Keith Foulke, a previously durable closer who could pitch multiple innings at a time. He should have been the Most Valuable Player of the 2004 World Series.

Still, those Red Sox teams had it all, from deep lineups (with serious thunder in the middle) to a true staff ace. The bullpen was designed to protect leads, not keep the game close, the latter of which now seems to be the Boston objective.

Whether the Red Sox can win this way is open to some debate, though the Red Sox question is whether Sox administrators keen on sabermetrics (like owner John Henry) believe they can win this way. The evidence suggests that Henry and his ilk would prefer a different route. But when you are a team like the Red Sox coming off a 69-93 season, you make do with what you can because beggars cannot be choosers.

And you invest your hope wherever you can.

By Tony Massarotti, Boston.com Columnist

For the players, always, there have been ramifications. Some, like Manny Ramirez, have been suspended. Others, like Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds, have been denied entrance into the Hall of Fame. And others, like Jeff Bagwell and Mike Piazza, have sacrificed the benefit of the doubt because we simply know too much.

But what about the teams?

What real penalties have befallen them?

Curt Schilling is front page news this morning, not for something he did, but rather for something he said. According to Schilling and as noted by Peter Abraham in Friday's edition of the Globe, a former member of the Red Sox "medical staff" approached Schilling in 2008 about the prospect of using human growth hormone to save a dying career. Schilling's motives for disclosing the information certainly are worthy of discussion, but his admission sheds light anew on the conspiracy that was baseball's Wild West - namely, the Steroids Era.

The point: team and league officials and administrators were as much a part of this as Alex Rodriguez, Jason Giambi, Rafael Palmeiro or Mark McGwire. They just don't pay nearly the same price. The legacies of many players now will be tarnished forever, their accomplishments effectively regarded as circus acts. Sammy Sosa was a caricature and a strongman, but he wasn't much of a fundamental baseball player.

Or maybe he was just a clown.

But the teams? They skated. And this isn't solely about the Red Sox, our obvious focus here given where we live and what we love. Prior to the Schilling disclosure, former Red Sox infielder Lou Merloni once noted how a doctor addressed the team during spring training on how to properly take performance enhancers. Then-Sox general manager Dan Duquette subsequently denied the claims, the last such instance of doctor-player discussion on the topic until this one.

And then there was the matter of Eric Gagne, described by former Sox general manager Theo Epstein as a probable steroids user in an email cited in the Mitchell Report. So what did Epstein and the Red Sox do? They traded for Gagne anyway.

None of that makes the Red Sox different than any other organization in baseball during the last 20-25 years, which is precisely the problem. Throughout the game, baseball administrators, including commissioner Bud Selig, were as big a part of the issue as anyone else (media included). Years after the steroids scandal was exposed, Selig was still saying he wouldn't have done anything differently, a stance he has since softened thanks to better judgment.

We all would have done things differently, of course. Some of us would have asked more questions, pressed for more answers, been more skeptical. We wouldn't have been so helpless. If anyone connected with baseball's steroids era doesn't harbor at least some measure of regret, he or she is bordering on soullessness.

Schilling, for his part, has insisted that he has never taken performance enhancers during his career, and we would be fools to take his word for it. After all, Lance Armstrong told us the same. So did Palmeiro. Schilling's credibility is not affected by his own transgressions so much as it is by the failure of an entire era, largely because he was a member of a players' union that chose to protect the guilty more than the innocent.

Players were the last line of defense in the steroids era. Right up until the actual moment of injection, they had veto power. But the moment the needles broke the skin, they similarly punctured player integrity and credibility.

And so, rightly or wrongly, we look at Bagwell with a suspicion. Ditto for Piazza. Players are still collectively paying for their sins, and they will continue to for years and years to come.

But what of the executives and medical personnel throughout baseball? How many of them have suffered anywhere near the same fate for connection to the steroids era? For those of us in Boston, Epstein an Selig are only the easiest and most obvious names on a list that should include every owner, executive, general manager and league official in the game, among others. Brian Cashman, Billy Beane. Duquette. Mike Scioscia. Jim Leyland. Dave Dombrowski. Kenny Williams. Joe Torre. Nolan Ryan. Brian Sabean. They all probably knew something or at least suspected it, and they were all party to a multibillion-dollar fraud that heightened the popularity of the game, suckered consumers and drove revenue.

Ultimately, none of those people is guiltier than any other. But none is any more innocent, either.

And so now, more than five years after Schilling's last pitched in the major leagues, he has disclosed that a member of the Red Sox medical staff approached him about the possibility of using a performance enhancer. Are we really surprised by this?

Or are we surprised that the suggestion was just so overt?

By Tony Massarotti, Boston.com Columnist

For the Patriots, with regard to Aqib Talib, the terms make all the difference. That was true when Talib arrived here. It is true now that he is essentially a free agent. And it will be true when he stays or when he goes.

And you know what?

The Patriots are right to have their concerns.

More than two weeks removed from a season-ending defeat against the Baltimore Ravens in the AFC Championship Game - a loss in which Talib suffered a hamstring injury in the first quarter - the Patriots are already playing games with their starting left cornerback, whose reputation was spotty enough to begin with. According to a report by Mike Giardi on Comcast SportsNet New England, the Patriots are concerned with Talib's work ethic, with how he would respond under a long-term deal.

From a purely strategic standpoint, this a smart move by the Patriots, albeit a little underhanded. Both are consistent with who they are. Smearing Talib at this stage can do nothing but drive down the price for a cornerback who helped stabilize the New England secondary, no small feat given the game of musical chairs that has taken place in that area over the last two years.

By year's end, when everyone was healthy, the assignments were clear: Talib at left corner with Alfonzo Dennard on the right, Kyle Arrington in the slot, Devin McCourty and Steve Gregory at safety.

Was Talib a good player here? Sure, though the myth and reality are two very different things. According to ProFootballFocus.com, for instance, opposing quarterbacks had a 103.7 rating this season when throwing at Talib (after he joined the Patriots). That figure placed Talib 87th on a list of 113 cornerbacks to have played at least 25 percent of their team's snaps, which doesn't exactly place Talib in the neighborhood of Deion Sanders, Ty Law, Darrelle Revis or Richard Sherman.

And then there is this: in his much ballyhooed performance against the Houston Texans in the AFC divisional playoffs, Talib allowed Andre Johnson to catch eight passes (on 11 targets) for 95 yards. That's not the 10 catches and 199 yards Talib allowed to New York Giants wideout Hakeem Nicks earlier in the season when Talib was with Tampa Bay, but it's not exactly what Law did to Marvin Harrison in the in the 2003 AFC playoffs, either.

Not bad, but not great.

Here's the problem with how we view Talib here: the Patriots secondary has been so positively wretched in recent years that Talib's value to the team is inflated. Minus Talib, the Patriots are desperate for secondary help and everybody knows it. Patriots coach Bill Belichick wanted Talib badly enough to sacrifice a fourth-round pick for him in the middle of the season, a deal made while Talib was in the midst of a four-game suspension for the use of a banned substance.

As much as the Patriots' pass defense improved after Talib arrived, the actual cause and effect is debatable. At about the same time, Belichick seemed to take a more active role in the defense and New England began blitzing more. The coverage got more creative. Meanwhile, rookie defensive end Chandler Jones was out with an ankle injury, and so putting too much emphasis on any one factor would be foolish.

Did Talib's skills in man coverage allow the Patriots to blitz more? Did the Patriots have to blitz more because Jones was out? Did Belichick's involvement make a difference or did the Pats simply blitz the more vulnerable quarterbacks? All of those things were factors.

In the AFC Championship Game against the Ravens, after all, the Patriots blitzed quarterback Joe Flacco just 10 times, a game in which Talib spent the large majority of his time on the sidelines. The number against Houston in the divisional round was an identical 10, a game Talib spent chasing Johnson. On a percentage basis, the Patriots actually blitzed more with Talib off the field (against Baltimore) than him on it (against Houston).

But again, if nothing else, Talib was competent, capable. After the parade of players like Darius Butler, Ras-I Dowling, Sterling Moore, and Phillip Adams that has marched through Foxborough in recent years, it's no wonder that some want the Patriots to keep Talib at all costs.

Given Talib's history, of course, that would be a far more costly mistake than letting him go.

How the Patriots can replace Talib is certainly open to debate, particularly given the fact that any notable corner on the free agent market (Tracy Porter, Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie) would require the kind of major commitment the Patriots have typically avoided. (Hence the interest in Talib at a reduced rate - nobody loves a good deal like the Pats).

Another option would be to pursue an elite safety (and another more reasonably-priced one) and move McCourty back to corner, though he is clearly more comfortable (and effective) at the former.

In the end, this much is clear: if the Patriots are going to add to their secondary this offseason, they will likely have to pay for it. And unless the price for Talib drops - or unless the Patriots franchise him - there is really just one question:

Do you want to spend those long-term dollars on Aqib Talib, or do you want to spend them on somebody else?

By Tony Massarotti, Boston.com Columnist

Paul Pierce looks energized, Jason Terry reborn, Jeff Green unleashed. Maybe it is all just a coincidence. Or maybe it has something to do with the absence of the petulant Rajon Rondo.

The Celtics held on by their oversized shoelaces for a 106-104 win over the Los Angeles Clippers at the TD Garden on Sunday, Boston nearly torching a lead as big as 19 with five minutes to go in the third quarter. And yet, when all was said and done, the Celtics improved to 4-0 since losing Rondo to a season-ending knee injury, which cannot help but make one wonder about addition by subtraction.

"It's 'The Truth,' " Kevin Garnett told reporters when asked about the late-game heroics of Paul Pierce, who rained a step-back 3-point in the kisser of Clippers defender Matt Barnes to lock down the victory with 2.5 seconds left. "He's the original Celtic. We go how he goes."

My, how quickly things change. For the bulk of this season, Garnett and the rest of the Celtics repeatedly told us how Rondo was their new leader, their soul, their heart. Now Rondo is gone and the Celtics look and sound as unified as they have ever been, regardless of what waits at the end of this season.

Here's the thing about being a fan of any team, be they the `86 Celtics or the `13 Bobcats, the '27 Yankees or the '12 Red Sox: all you can ever really ask is that they max out. Anyone with half a brain recognizes that the Celtics are in the sixth year of three-year plan. People can delude themselves into thinking that the Celtics ever had a chance at a championship this year, but the goal has always been to go as far as LeBron James (or possibly Derrick Rose) would let them.

The Celtics aren't going to win the championship without Rondo this year and they weren't going to win it with him, either. But they are now playing better team basketball than they have at any other point this season and they infinitely more likeable, a combination that makes them far more entertaining, particularly to those of us who have long felt Rondo is, well, overrated.

For those who watched the first half of Sunday's victory, here's what you say: a brilliant demonstration of team basketball that bordered on the scintillating. Ten Celtics stopped on the floor in building a 59-40 lead. All of them scored and contributed at least one rebound or assist. Nobody reached double figures. The Celtics moved the ball, played defense (at least in the second quarter), ran. James Naismith was glowing.

Was the entire game like that? No. But for the last week, the Celtics have generally given maximum effort, shared the ball, played to their potential. They look a little like the Indiana Pacers of a year ago. The most damning blow the Celtics have suffered in the last week or so has been the loss of Jared Sullinger, whose absence on Sunday was a significant reason the Clippers dominated the paint, sometimes dunked at will, generally controlled the boards.

If the Celtics missed Rondo at all in this game -- and, at times, they did -- his absence was most noticeable (and costly) in the second half, particularly the fourth quarter, when the Celtics inexplicably slowed their tempo and their offense grew stagnant. Boston simply took no care of the basketball. The Celtics turned the ball over an astonishing seven times in the fourth quarter, Pierce and Courtney Lee taking turns spitting up the ball as if each were Ray Rice.

This is why Doc Rivers wants the Celtics to push the tempo now more than ever, of course. He knows that if the Celtics get dragged into a methodical, half-court game where defenses can effectively pressure the ball, Boston is cooked.

Beyond that, ask yourself this: how many players on these Celtics have played their best basketball since Rondo's season ended? Terry looks a different player. So does Pierce. Lee and Bradley are a dynamic defensive tandem, the latter drawing a huge offensive foul on Jamal Crawford late in Sunday's game because he was simply in Crawford's shorts. All too often, players like Rondo are praised for making people are them better, but it certainly feels as if the opposite happened to these Celtics.

Rondo made them all worse.

Will this all continue? Only heaven knows. Between now and the Feb. 21 trading deadline, Danny Ainge certainly has some decisions to make, as it pertains to this season and beyond. According to a Sporting News report on Sunday, the Clippers are interested in acquiring Garnett for package that included Eric Bledsoe and the 32-year-old Caron Butler, and trading Garnett is one of the many scenarios Ainge must consider. The Celtics simply do not have any untouchables on their roster, though that has been true for years, not weeks or months.

What the last week should confirm for all of us, beyond a doubt, is that Rondo is hardly untouchable, too.

If you couldn't see that before, you should certainly see it now.

By Tony Massarotti, Boston.com Columnist

NEW ORLEANS -- In New England, where the aftershocks of defeat will last for some time, the Super Bowl still bears watching. The Baltimore Ravens are on the way out. The San Francisco 49ers are on the way in. And philosophies are being put to the test.

In the middle of it all stands Colin Kaepernick, the tattooed quarterback with the arm of a late-inning reliever, the legs of a world class sprinter, and the look of a US Marine.

Conventional wisdom will be on trial when the Niners and Ravens face off in New Orleans on Sunday, so Patriots fans take note. The NFL is changing. Or maybe it has already changed. Sunday’s game will feature running offenses, big-play quarterbacks (in a variety of styles), and hard-hitting defenses, all models for a Patriots team that has fallen short of a Super Bowl title now for eight years running.

If Bill Belichick is most guilty of anything during his time as coach of the Patriots, it is this: resisting some of the changes that have taken place in the league over a period of years. After the Patriots lost to the Indianapolis Colts in the 2006 AFC Championship Game, it was as if Belichick decided that a quarterback like Peyton Manning simply could not be stopped anymore, so the way to win was to fight fire with fire. That offseason, Belichick bought quarterback Tom Brady a toy chest that included Randy Moss and Wes Welker, and the Patriots have generally been a modern day version of Air Coryell.

At least until recently, when the Patriots clearly put greater emphasis on both a more balanced offense and a pass rush, the latter of which they addressed (in theory) with the drafting of defensive end Chandler Jones.

Making his way through a series of radio interviews on Thursday, Belichick disciple and current Atlanta Falcons general manager Thomas Dimitroff offered an array of thoughts on the ever-changing NFL. Asked to name the most important positions on the field after quarterback, Dimitroff came back with, in order, defensive end, cornerback, perhaps safety. Those three positions just happen to be the ones where the Patriots lacked playmaking ability in the AFC Championship Game against the Ravens, particularly given injuries to Jones and cornerback Aqib Talib.

The obvious question: Why has it taken Belichick so long to successfully address those areas? Until Jones was selected, the Patriots had never really drafted someone deemed to be a pure pass rusher. Belichick’s history of drafting corners has been so bad that the team had to acquire Talib during the season by trade. And the deficiency at safety has been so pronounced that Belichick had to take the one reasonably effective corner he did draft, Devin McCourty, and move him there.

Certainly, prior to the 2011 season, Belichick made an attempt to address the Patriots’ shortage of pass rushers by acquiring defensive ends Andre Carter and Mark Anderson via free agency. But the general point is that if Belichick begin molding his offensive personnel and philosophy to the air game following the 2006 season, why didn’t the same changes take place on his defense until years later?

For certain, assuming that the Patriots retain free agent Talib (or replace him with someone comparable), the defense is developing. But one of the questions now concerns whether NFL offenses are reacting, which brings us back to Kaepernick and, for that matter, similarly mobile quarterbacks like Robert Griffin III, Russell Wilson, maybe even Cam Newton.

Think about it. As the game has become more pass happy, newer, younger executives like Dimitroff have put an emphasis on positions like defensive end and cornerback. In turn, some like San Francisco 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh has drafted a quarterback like Kaepernick and then boldly entrusted the team to him despite the relatively error-free play of his predecessor, all because Kaepernick brings a dimension – namely, speed – that allows him to make plays with his legs when he is being chased by those defensive ends or when those corners have his receivers covered. (Or both.)

The Ravens? Their formula is entirely different, a more time-tested approach of physicality on offense and defense, with a strong-armed quarterback who can heave the ball down the field. The Pittsburgh Steelers won multiple Super Bowls with that approach roughly 30 years ago. If the 49ers are faster than the Patriots – and they are – then the Ravens are more physical, which leaves the Patriots somewhere in between.

Of course, the Ravens and the Niners just happen to be the last two teams to have defeated the Patriots this season – both on the turf at Gillette Stadium.

In the coming weeks and months, Belichick must find ways to defeat not just one of those teams and philosophies, but both.

By Tony Massarotti, Boston.com Columnist

Amid Terry Francona’s criticisms of Red Sox ownership, Alex Rodriguez is in the crosshairs again. But then, in modern Red Sox history, the two forever will be linked. Before the championships, before the exploding TV ratings and the pink hats with a sequined "B," let’s all remember something: the Red Sox wanted Alex Rodriguez. They had executed a trade for him. All that stood between Rodriguez and a Red Sox uniform was a contractual restructuring that the Red Sox fortunately botched, the ineptitude of Sox owners ultimately triggering a series of events that delivered Rodriguez to New York and two world championships to Boston. Here’s the point: if things had gone the way Red Sox owners wanted them to during the winter of 2003-04, there is no telling where the Red Sox would be today. In retrospect, Rodriguez and Red Sox administrators were a perfect match, two parties far more interested in image and ratings than actual performance on the field. As the Red Sox have deteriorated in recent years, we have all tried to identify a line of demarcation in Red Sox history. When did it all go wrong? In Francona’s recently released book, a finger was pointed to the winter of 2009-10, when the Red Sox signed then-31-year-old John Lackey to a five-year, $82.5 million contract despite concerns about the health of Lackey’s right elbow. “That Lackey signing flew in the face of everything Theo [Epstein] believed in,” said Mike Dee, then the chief operating officer of the Red Sox. “Theo must have been tied down to make that deal. That was all about television ratings. They were panicked about the ratings.” Maybe Theo was, maybe he wasn’t. The greater issue was the motive behind the deal. Today, we all look at that winter as the instant where the Red Sox lost their way, when they started placing too much emphasis on business and not enough on baseball. All of which brings us back to Rodriguez, the prototype for the modern fantasy player. A-Rod looks great on paper. He looks great on camera. But has never, ever been a winner or great competitor, with or without the World Series he garnered during the 2009 postseason, when C.C. Sabathia and Mark Teixeira were the focus during their first season in pinstripes. Don’t you see? Alex Rodriguez is hollow, just like the 2011-12 Red Sox were. Big salaries. Big numbers. No heart or guts. A-Rod has been a great businessman during his career, but never been as remotely clutch as David Ortiz or Manny Ramirez was. What A-Rod suggests here, in Boston, is that the Red Sox didn’t lose their way at all in recent years. He suggests they were on the wrong path from the beginning. Rodriguez has placed the emphasis on the all the wrong things during his career, which doesn’t necessarily make him a bad guy. It just makes him shallow and materialistic.

Rodriguez was arguably the greatest free agent in the history of sports when he hit the market during the winter of 2000-01, a man who could have chosen to play anywhere. He chose Texas. He took the $252 million contract with the stadium office and otherworldly perks. He chose a team that got worse during his time there, then came to the astonishing realization that losing was hurting his profile.

And so, when Rodriguez decided that he wanted out of Texas, whom did he find as a potential savior? The Red Sox. A team that wanted someone far more marketable than the ditzy Manny Ramirez or the uncooperative Nomar Garciaparra. A-Rod had polish. A-Rod would sell. A-Rod was an indisputable brand, the kind of star who could serve as the main character on a nightly TV show.

From the start, after all, the New England Sports Network always has been the golden goose of the Red Sox operation, an ATM even now for the Red Sox (whose owner, Fenway Sports Group, owns 80 percent of the network) as Bruins ratings skyrocket. Former Red Sox general manager Dan Duquette has admitted that Ramirez was, in part, a signing designed to drive NESN ratings because the network was about to enter countless more households. More viewers meant higher ad rates, more revenue.

And it still does.

Today, once again, Rodriguez is in the midst of a steroids scandal, though that hardly makes him unique. Ramirez has failed a pair of drug tests under the Major League Baseball drug testing program. Ortiz was named on a list of players flagged under provisional testing in 2003. Performance enhancers have extended their tentacles deep into the game for a long time now, and he is really no guiltier than many others.

But as this all pertains to the Red Sox, the latest Rodriguez scandal is yet another reminder that Rodriguez could very easily have been here, in Boston, in place of Ramirez (the eventual 2004 World Series Most Valuable Player) through 2007. Certainly Francona’s book has shed more light on Ramirez’ antics, many of which caused Sox players, in particular, to roll their eyes.

And yet, repeatedly, Sox players said they wanted Ramirez on their side because they wanted his bat. Would the same have been true of A-Rod? Rodriguez’ political nature has made him a divisive force on more than one team now, a poster boy for the modern athlete. Big image. No substance. Now that the Red Sox have become the same thing, one cannot help but wonder.

Did Red Sox owners venture onto this path midway through their time in Boston?

Or were they on it from the very beginning?

By Tony Massarotti, Boston.com Columnist

As Danny Ainge admits that he is “worried,” Doc Rivers warns us about penning the “obituary.” And so even within the walls of one of the most storied franchises in sports, the debate rages on.

Just how important is Rajon Rondo to the operation of the Celtics?

Maybe now we’ll all get our answer.

And so after all of that, after all of the discussion about extending the window of the Kevin Garnett Era and the best way to build the Celtics, Rondo is the one lost to a season-ending injury, the Celtics revealing on Sunday that the point guard tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee during Friday’s devastating double-overtime loss to the Atlanta Hawks. What a truly dispiriting defeat that was. The Celtics subsequently went out on Sunday and defeated the Miami Heat without the man deemed to be their leader, and story lines were butting up against one another like sections of the parquet floor.

Ray Allen came. Rondo went. The Celtics plodded on.

Small samples and large samples are entirely different things, but the Celtics so far this season are 18-20 with Rondo, 3-3 without him. During last year’s pivotal Game 2 against the Atlanta Hawks in the first round of the playoffs, the Celtics won without their multitalented point guard. All of that has only fueled the debate about Rondo as much as it has about his position, about the value of offense defense and everything in between.

Pick a side. The Miami Heat won the NBA championship last season with Mario Chalmers at point guard. The Chicago Bulls crumbled without Derrick Rose. In the end, both those stories were more about the star player (i.e. LeBron James) on each team more than they were about the position he plays, which brings us back to Rondo and his admittedly unique skill set.

Just how much is he really worth?

On the surface, we can all make snap judgments about how Rondo’s absence will impact the Celtics. In theory, their defense could improve. Their half-court offense could suffer. Their rebounding will take a reasonably sized hit and their ball-handling an even bigger one, the latter of which could be rather ugly if and when the Celtics reach the postseason.

Now the facts: With Rondo playing a team-high 37.4 minutes per game this season, the Celtics are under .500. They rank 21st in scoring offense and 11th in scoring defense, the latter of which improved only after Avery Bradley returned. They are a relatively mediocre 12th in the league in turnovers.

By now, Rondo’s shortcomings are extremely well-known. No matter what the numbers say, and despite some improvement, he is not a particularly good shooter. He plays cheat defense and is lazy on the ball. The Celtics offense sputters when Rondo is not attacking the basket, and he seems interested in playing some nights, disinterested in others.

From the very start of this season, the Celtics have all but put up lawn signs in the campaign to anoint Rondo as their leader. Unsurprisingly, they have been inconsistent and erratic. Too often, the Celtics have looked like they are coasting, particularly on the defensive end of the floor. Paul Pierce has looked old. Kevin Garnett has played reasonably well, but often seems to be on his own, minute-managing program.

So here’s the real question: With Rondo out, does the hierarchy of the Celtics change? Are Garnett and Pierce forced to reclaim the leadership roles they ceded, thereby giving the Celtics more of the day-to-day consistency the team clearly needs? Or does everyone now take a hands-off approach, leading to an on-court disintegration that forces Ainge’s hand as we approach the trading deadline?

Fascinating, to be sure.

For what it’s worth, the Celtics went into New York without Rondo this season – he was serving yet another one-game suspension – and won. They played against the Heat without him on Sunday – and won. Pending the return of Rose in Chicago, Miami and New York currently stand as the two best teams in a weak Eastern Conference, and there is at least some evidence that the Celtics can still compete with both.

Does this mean the Celtics can beat the Heat in a seven-game series? Hardly. But that was true when Rondo was healthy, too. Nobody ever really looked at this season and expected the Celtics to defeat Miami in the postseason. Most of us just believed that the Celtics might have what it takes to beat just anybody else in the Eastern Conference.

Without Rondo, that task now is obviously more difficult. They will miss his talent. But Rondo’s leadership skills always have been in question, and the simple truth is that the 2012-13 Celtics have been disjointed and fractured. They have not often looked like a team.

Now, perhaps, they have a chance to become one.

By Tony Massarotti, Boston.com columnist

During the height of his reign, Pedro Martinez did more than just win for the Red Sox. He protected them. He saved the bullpen. He ended losing streaks. And on those occasions when the game got nasty, Martinez threw at or near opposing hitters with purpose, often in defense of his teammates.

Years later, it seems, the Red Sox are still relying on him to do the same.

And so, on the same day Terry Francona breezed into the Westin Copley to be honored by the Boston Baseball Writers on Thursday night, Pedro Martinez unexpectedly turned up, too. Stunner of all stunners, Pedro showed up earlier than the manager. Red Sox owners and executives are taking hits on all sides thanks to the release of Francona's new book about his years with the Red Sox, and yet the focus on Thursday unexpectedly turned to Pedro, who emerged as the sports lead in Friday's editions of both the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald.

Well played, Larry.

Very, very well played.

Say this for the people who run the Red Sox: They are not dumb and they never have been. They place some things (business) ahead of others (baseball), but no one ever questioned their intelligence. Bringing in Martinez to overshadow Francona is a stroke of public relations genius, and we all know the Sox place an emphasis on public relations, on all-important Red Sox brand. For a day, at least, Pedro distracted everyone from the story at hand, namely Francona's distaste for the Red Sox hierarchy that smeared his departure from the organization.

"I think your owners suck," Francona joked with new Sox manager John Farrell during Thursday's media availability, a play-to-the-crowd remark that drew loud laughs.

It was funny, of course, because it was true.

By that point, Pedro already had spoken to the media and stolen the back page, so to speak, an even more amusing development considering that Martinez did not even attend Thursday night's dinner. Red Sox officials were relatively vague when asked what Martinez' role with the organization will be, but the truth is that Martinez was there to run interference and take the focus off the owner-bashing.

As it turned out, principal owner John Henry did not attend the dinner, at which Francona was the headliner. Neither did Tom Werner. Lucchinio, to his credit, attended the event and said he has not read Francona's book (co-authored by Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy), taking a relatively high road rarely traveled by the Red Sox in the last 18 months or so.

Again, well played, Larry. Extending this feud only hurts the Red Sox. If the Red Sox wanted to continue slinging mud with Francona, they undoubtedly could. But Francona received a standing ovation from the attendees at Thursday's dinner and he will receive another when he returns as the manager of the Cleveland Indians this year, and Red Sox owners will only dig themselves deeper (if that is even possible) by continuing to joust with the most popular manager in Red Sox history.

You lost, fellas. Don't make it worse.

In that way, the presence of Martinez was a very good sign, an admission by Red Sox owners that they only way to fight Francona's popularity was with perhaps the most popular Red Sox player since ... who? During his time in Boston, Martinez had Hall-of-Fame skill and the personality to match. He was as dynamic off the field as on it. Martinez was, at once, generous, selfish, petulant, brilliant, foolish, loyal, stubborn, simple, complex. We are obsessed with him and always will be, and the people who run the Red Sox know it.

Which is why they brought him back.

And it is why they brought him back now.

By next week sometime, Francona's initial book tour will be complete. Soon thereafter, he and the Red Sox will be off to spring training. With the trade that sent Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett, and Carl Crawford to the Los Angeles Dodgers last August, the Red Sox pulled the plug on a golden era that turned very bad, very quickly. They subsequently changed managers and started rebuilding their roster, protecting both their best minor league players and their draft picks. The release of Francona's book brought us all back to the tumultuous end of the 2011 season, of an organizational fracture defined by the dismissal of their manager.

So what did the Red Sox do? They brought in Pedro, a man forever connected to the earliest years of this ownership group, when the Red Sox ended an 86-year run without a championship.

In baseball, that is the definition of stopper.

By Tony Massarotti, Boston.com Columnist

The standards in Foxborough are what they are, to borrow a phrase, and we all know that football is part logic and reason, part emotion. Logic and reason tell us that reaching the AFC Championship is a success. Emotion tells us that the Patriots were frustrating, maddening and downright disappointing on Sunday night.

Regardless, the question is always the same in the wake of a season-ending defeat.

How do they get better?

Of course, we all have theories on what the Patriots need. Assuming that Aqib Talib and Wes Welker both return, what follows is strictly one set of thoughts.

1. A safety. The Patriots began the year with Patrick Chung and Steve Gregory at the position. By midseason, Chung had lost his job to Devin McCourty. On Sunday night, Gregory looked like a guy hopelessly trying to flag down a cab in a rainstorm outside Penn Station. (Wouldn't Chung actually be a better complement to McCourty anyway?)

By contrast, the Patriots were trailing by a 21-13 score and appeared to be driving when Ravens safety Bernard Pollard rocked Stevan Ridley's world and forced a fumble in the fourth quarter on Sunday. A quarter before, Pollard was the same guy who drilled Welker (and drew a 15-yard penalty) just a few plays before Welker's huge drop on third down. The Patriots simply do not have a safety that physically changed the game the way Pollard did, and complementing McCourty with someone of the like would make a huge difference.

The good news? By the end of the season, the Patriots had corners that were actually pretty decent. McCourty generally did fine at safety. But the other safety spot was a train wreck.

2. A linebacker. Respectively, Jerod Mayo, Dont'a Hightower and Brandon Spikes were drafted in the first, first and second rounds. They all offer something. But not a single one of them excels in coverage, which is part of the reason the Patriots had such difficulty defending tight ends and running backs.

For what it's worth, opposing quarterbacks this season completed 68.5 percent of all pass attempts to the tight end against the Patriots. That's a big number. The Patriots certainly tightened things up in the red zone once McCourty moved from corner, but Ravens tight end Dennis Pitta caught five passes (on seven targets -- 71.4 percent) for 55 yards and a touchdown on Sunday.

In this area, Patriots coach Bill Belichick seems to have some choices. Tavon Wilson was a surprise second-round pick because, in theory, he is a hybrid linebacker-safety who can cover the tight end. Rob Ninkovich is a hybrid defensive end-linebacker who is good on coverage.

Whatever the solution, the the Pats have to get better at this.

3. A defensive lineman. Maybe the solution is in house, but the absence of Chandler Jones, who played only in goal-line situations Sunday, left the Patriots without much of a pass rush, particularly on the interior. Jonathan Fanene was supposed to help with this, but the Patriots cut him in training camp. Maybe Myron Pryor can be the guy. Or Kyle Love. Or Armond Armstead, the former Southern Cal defensive lineman whom the Patriots signed on Tuesday out of the Canadian Football League.

The point is this: a year ago, Vince Wilfork dominated the Ravens. This year, in two games against Baltimore, Wilfork was virtually invisible. The Ravens offensive line manhandled the Patriots in this game and the Patriots got no rush against Baltimore quarterback Joe Flacco.

Certainly, a healthy Jones will help. The combined absence of him and Talib was a huge blow to the Patriots defense. But finding a more consistent, complementary player for Wilfork on the inside wouldn't hurt.

4. A big wide receiver. Minus Rob Gronkowski, the Patriots are vulnerable to physical play from opposing secondaries. Wes Welker is tough, but he's small. Both Brandon Lloyd and Aaron Hernandez can be muscled. For whatever reason, Tom Brady never so much as attempted a pass to a tight end other than Hernandez in this game.

For all of the concern about Torrey Smith, he caught just four passes on nine targets on Sunday. Meanwhile, the more burly Anquan Boldin had five catches and two touchdowns. Interestingly, Belichick had Talib matched with Boldin early in the game, which should tell you plenty.

The point? The Pats could use a guy with Boldin's size and hands. When Gronkowski is out, Brady lacks a big target to whom he can throw in traffic. Nobody is saying the Patriots need All-Pro players at every spot, but the absence of more physical players on both sides of the ball is apparent.

5. An offensive tackle. Sebatsian Vollmer's contract is up, but let's assume the Patriots bring him back. As Globe football writer Greg Bedard noted, Vollmer had a tough night on Sunday against the Ravens. Nate Solder did fine overall, but he, too, has shown vulnerability at times. Both players are young and may still improve, but Vollmer also has had some history of injury.

At the start of this season, the offensive line was a problem. Against the Ravens on Sunday, the Patriots couldn't run and really couldn't throw. The Patriots appear to have a good complement of backs, but the inability of any offense to perform against more physical defenses usually starts with inadequate line play.

Beefing up the depth on the offensive line certainly wouldn't hurt.

By Tony Massarotti, Boston.com Columnist

The Baltimore Ravens saw the trepidation, the uncertainty, the confusion. And what they sensed most from the Patriots in the darkness at Gillette Stadium on Sunday night was something we have not witnessed for a very long time.

Fear.

And so it ends this time the way it has ended many times before in recent years, with the Patriots succumbing to a tougher, more physical team in the late stages of the NFL postseason. The most glaring difference this time was that the Patriots wilted on their own field in a 28-13 defeat that saw them bleached by a 21-0 score in the second half of the AFC Championship Game, the Ravens rocking New England's world so repeatedly that the Patriots seemed stripped of their will.

No excuses this Monday, Patriots fans. No talk of Rob Gronkowski's arm, of Aqib Talib's hamstring, of Chandler Jones' ankle. Baltimore has had more than its share of issues this year. The Ravens still came into Foxborough on Sunday, shook the Patriots' hands at the coin toss, then punched New England squarely in the face.

And the Patriots just took it.

"They're a good team," Patriots quarterback Tom Brady told reporters following Sunday's defeat. "They’re a good defense and they kept the pressure on and we just didn’t really stand up to the challenge."

Nice summation there.

We just didn't really stand up to the challenge..

Period.

New paragraph.

The injuries? Of course they were a factor. They always are. They were a factor in the divisional playoffs, too, when the Patriots dismantled the Houston Texans by a 41-28 score despite the early loss of both Gronkowski and running back Danny Woodhead. In mid-game, the Patriots seamlessly transitioned and smacked the Texans around anyway, largely because New England was the tougher, more confident team.

So this time the Patriots lost Talib and, later, Stevan Ridley, the latter courtesy of a bone-jarring collision with safety Bernard Pollard, who is racking up knockouts in this state as if he were Rocky Marciano. Four years ago it was Brady in the season opener. Last year it was Gronkowski in the AFC Championship. This year it was Ridley, who was knocked so loopy that he literally gave away the football.

As for Wes Welker's well-documented drop on third-and-8 at the Baltimore 25-yard line in what was then a 13-7 Patriots' lead, it came three plays after Pollard was flagged for a helmet-to-helmet hit on - you guessed it - Welker, resulting in a 39-yard Patriots gain that was part Brady-to-Welker (24 yards) and part yellow flag (15 yards). Were the penalty and drop connected? You be the judge. But it certainly appeared as if Welker peeked to see if there was another train coming his way.

Amid it all, some of those most glaring examples of trepidation and panic came from none other than the coach and quarterback, each among the accomplished men in history at his trade. For all of the talk about how the Patriots "moved" the ball against the Ravens in the first half, the Patriots got inside the Baltimore 34-yard line just three times in the first three quarters - when it was still a game - and all three produced points.

On two other occasions, however, Belichick punted once from the 35-yard line (on fourth-and-9) and once from the Baltimore 34 (on fourth-and-8). Field goal attempts were admittedly out of the question because of a strong wind in the Patriots' face, but remember: this is the same Belichick who went for it on fourth-and-13 from the New York Giants' 31-yard-line in Super Bowl XLII.

Five years later, Belichick is now playing field position and trying to win a war by just sitting in a foxhole.

Brady, meanwhile, looked like a rattled Matt Schaub in the closing moments of the first half, though he alone was not to blame. With 34 seconds remaining in the second quarter, Brady completed a short pass near the right sideline to Aaron Hernandez, who could have easily stepped out of bounds near the Baltimore 10-yard line. Instead, Hernandez tried to turn upfield and score, costing the Patriots a timeout. The blunder only grew in magnitude when Brady scrambled and slid on the next play, eschewing the Patriots' last timeout( which they were presumably saving for a field goal attempt) in hopes of spiking the ball. Brady ended up burning the timeout anyway ... with four seconds left.

And so, instead of having two shots at the end zone against a stingy Baltimore defense, the Patriots had to settle for a field goal and a 13-7 lead when they might have been up by two scores.

"I thought we could get up there, or we wanted to try to get up there and clock it and have time to run a play - and have the timeout to kick the field goal," Belichick explained.

Countered Brady, " Well, we had one timeout left so we were trying to save that for the field goal. I would have loved to get the touchdown there, but we settled for the field goal to go up, whatever it was, 13-7 at the half. We felt pretty good about where we were at halftime, but we just didn’t come out in the second half and execute very well."

No, guys. You botched it. Plain and simple. You screwed up.

Beyond all of that, perhaps the greatest indictment of the Patriots came following the game, during Brady's (very) brief question-and-answer session with reporters. More than anyone, of course, Brady, and, for that matter, Belichick knows what championship football looks and feels like. The Patriots won three Super Bowls in four years because they were tougher, more disciplined and more poised than the opposition, and the Patriots in this game were none of those.

Reporter: After the season opener, you said the toughness of the team is defined by being able to run the ball when they know it’s coming. Do you feel that you guys were able to do that tonight? There were a lot of third-and-2 and second-and-2 [situations] where you guys were in shotgun and throwing it.

Brady: I'd have to see the film, but whatever we did, we didn't execute very well. The name of the game is execution and if you don’t execute well against a good team, like I said, you're not going to come up on the winning end.

Don't bother with the film, Tom. As if you really need to. We saw it and you know it.

You all looked scared.

Tom Brady is possibly the greatest quarterback of all-time because of his laser-like focus. (Stephan Savoia / AP photo)

By Tony Massarotti, Boston.com Columnist

The metamorphosis of Tom Brady has taken place on the surface and beneath it, and it is still ongoing now. Brady has gone from a sixth-round draft pick to arguably the greatest quarterback of all-time, from a game manager to an elite passer, from just one of the guys to the neatly-pressed cover boy, the GQB who comfortably stands in the fashion world and then effortlessly slides back into the pocket.

Along the way, one thing has remained constant for the incomparable quarterback of the New England Patriots.

His desire to win.

"He started winning playoff games the first year he really got a chance to participate in them," Patriots coach Bill Belichick told reporters last Sunday after the Patriots defeated the Houston Texans to advance to this Sunday's AFC Championship Game against the Baltimore Ravens. "Tom is a great competitor. He had a great week of preparation, as he always does for every game, but especially the playoff games. He’s our leader and we all follow him. ...There’s no quarterback I’d rather have than Tom Brady."

There's no quarterback I'd rather have than Tom Brady. How many times has Belichick said this now? Excluding the 2008 season in which Brady suffered a season-ending injury in the first quarter of their first game, the Patriots now have been to the AFC title game a remarkable seven times in Brady's 11 years as a starter. That is a completion percentage of 63.6. With a win against the Ravens on Sunday at Gillette Stadium, Brady will become the first quarterback in history to play in six Super Bowls, the kind of achievement that says a great deal about Brady's ability and even more about his never-ending pursuit for excellence.

The latter, of course, is what ultimately separates the greatest of the greats. Particularly in the modern world of sports marketing and multimillion dollar contracts, winning has become almost secondary. From Anna Kournikova and Michelle Wie to Alex Rodriguez and even LeBron James, there has often been a lot more energy invested in branding than winning, which certainly speaks to our culture as much as it does to each individual athlete.

But Brady? Brady won his first Super Bowl at the age of 24. He won another two years later, then another the year after that. And while the seven full seasons since have failed to produce a championship, Brady now has taken the Patriots back to the AFC title game for the fourth time in the last seven years, a period during which his competitiveness has waned little, if at all.

Peyton Manning, by contrast, has been to just three AFC Championship Games in his career. Manning will never have to answer the question as to why he didn't win a championship, but he should have to answer as to why he has not won more. Ditto for the supremely talented A-Rod. And while that may be some reflection on the ability of athletes like Manning and Rodriguez to perform under pressure, it may also be some commentary on their real desire to make a journey each has already made.

None of that makes Manning or Rodriguez different. Quite the contrary. It makes them normal. Few things are as rewarding as they are the very first time, because the thrill is often in the chase.

All of this brings us back to Brady, whose first championship was more extraordinary than most. Short of a 19-0 season, nothing can ever replicate the euphoria that accompanied the Patriots win over the St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI. And yet, Brady keeps returning to this point with all the energy of a first-timer, which speaks to his desire, discipline, professionalism and sheer competitiveness.

When any player gets to this stage, getting up for the game is easy. But players like Brady find ways to stay focused for the November games against Buffalo, too, and we are as likely to see an eruption on the field or sidelines in those games as we are now.

None of this means Brady is perfect. (He's not.) But as many athletes age, life inevitably and invariably gets in the way. Relationships. Marriage. Children. Those complexities steal from our energy and focus, and the large majority of us have little choice but to adjust our standards, modify our expectations, simply set the bar lower.

What we learn is that winning isn't as important as we thought it was, a process we often write off as "maturing."

In the case of Brady, maybe he simply has not grown up yet. Or maybe he just does a far better job of managing those pressures, be they on the football field or at home. As quarterback of the Patriots, Brady's greatest assets always have been his smarts and his focus, not necessarily in that order. Quarterbacks are targeted from all sides, all the time, and Brady always has been more adept than most at processing the information, keeping his eyes fixed on the target, never losing sight of the objective.

On Sunday, he takes the field with a historic sixth Super Bowl appearance at stake.

He will do then what he has unfailingly sought to do.

He will try to win.

By Tony Massarotti, Boston.com Columnist

The Red Sox lost our trust a long, long time ago, and whether they can reclaim it is the story of the 2013 season. Terry Francona is now in Cleveland, and his depiction of the Boston organization cements every perception we have of a dysfunctional Red Sox hierarchy.

In the highest offices at 4 Yawkey Way, baseball and business have been mixed with seemingly no regard for the toxicity. There has been no separation of church and state. Francona and, for that matter, Theo Epstein, are both us letting us know that Red Sox owners regard the team as merely some incarnation of "The Truman Show," the principal players serving as nothing more than pawns used to drive the almighty Nielsen.

"They told us we didn't have any marketable players, that we needed some sizzle," Epstein told Globe columnist and writer Dan Shaughnessy in "Francona," the former Red Sox manager's soon-to-be-released memoir on his Boston years. "We need some sexy guys. Talk about the tail wagging the dog. This is like an absurdist comedy. We'd become too big. It was the farthest removed from what we set out to be."

And so there it is. Damnation. Condemnation. Internal proof that the Red Sox were forcing business wants on their baseball needs purely in the name of greed.

Bam.

We all know how this works by now, particularly in this day and age of professional sports, where the motto is the same from the NHL to the NFL to the turnstiles that now block Yawkey Way: sell, sell, sell. Sports are business and business is sports. But the idea is to market the product, not the other way around, and what the Red Sox did in the final years of Epstein and Francona is the baseball equivalent of tabloid journalism: they wrote the story only because someone came up with a catchy headline.

So welcome to Boston, Carl Crawford. Like Greg Brady, you are the new Johnny Bravo. Nobody cares whether you can really play or are worth the money. You look good on TV. The suit fits.

There are, of course, multiple layers to this story, some of which have more lasting effects on the Red Sox than others. Based on the first excerpt of Francona's book that appears in Sports Illustrated, there will be no hint of friction between Francona and Epstein, whose relationship also had been strained by the time both left the Red Sox in the exodus that took place at the end of the 2011 season. Maybe Francona also treats Josh Beckett with kid gloves. Francona always wanted to manage again, after all, and jabbing his players or general manager would set a bad precedent if and when he worked with either group again.

Francona knew this during his time in Boston and he surely knows it now, so let's not be fooled. The owners alone did not make his final days in Boston tumultuous. But Francona regarded the clubhouse and baseball operation with a level of sanctity during his time with the Red Sox, and to break that trust now would hurt his standing in his current clubhouse and organization.

He has never, ever been a fool.

Beyond that, if it is possible, Red Sox owners are losing even more credibility. In the wake of the 2011 disaster, owner John Henry made an unsolicited, impromptu appearance on 98.5 The Sports Hub and said, in no uncertain terms, that Crawford, for one, was "a baseball signing" and not some transparent sham designed to boost television ratings. We all thought that to be disingenuous then, but there was something about the nature of Henry's actions that made him more believable.

This wasn't Henry sitting before a microphone in the dog-and-pony shows that press conferences have become. This wasn't scripted or scheduled. This was Henry sitting in a room and addressing his fan base directly at a time when the Red Sox were vulnerable, a man speaking from his heart as much as that is possible for any team owner in this age.

Or so we thought.

So how are we supposed to believe Red Sox owners now when they tell us they have no intention of selling the team despite reports to the contrary?

At the moment, after all, Epstein is telling us that the Red Sox lacked "sizzle," that the team paid $100,000 for a marketing research study to determine why its television ratings had dropped 50 percent from 2007 to 2010. Francona is telling us that owner Tom Werner suggested the club win "in more exciting fashion." Shaughnessy disclosed a portion of the marketing study indicating that women are "definitely more drawn to the 'soap opera' and 'reality-TV' aspects of the game," the kind of sky-is-blue observation that simultaneously makes one wonder how the Red Sox are blowing their money and exactly whom they are marketing to.

Score another one for the lady in the obnoxious pink hat.

Whether or not the Red Sox truly have realized the error of their ways is open to debate, though the early signs indicate they have. The Red Sox cut bait with Adrian Gonzalez, Crawford, and Beckett in August, getting out from the anvil that was roughly $250 million to a group of players that was unmotivated, unproductive or both. There seemingly has been an emphasis on rebuilding the Boston baseball operation from within. The Red Sox are still trying to sell us, to be sure, but the marketing campaign does not seem to have corrupted the baseball decision-making, which is really the biggest issue.

Of course, the Red Sox have little choice at the moment. They won just 69 games last year. The real test may come in a year or so, when the Red Sox have crept back to mediocrity and their popularity is on the upswing, when team owners see the potential for more rapid financial growth and the story does not fit the headline.

"Our owners in Boston, they've been owners for 10 years," Francona said in his memoir. "They come in with all these ideas about baseball, but I don't think they love baseball. I think they like baseball. It's revenue, and I know that's their right and their interest because they're owners - and they're good owners. But they don't love the game. It's still more of a toy or a hobby for them. It's not their blood. They're going to come in and out of baseball. It's different for me. Baseball is my life."

Maybe you are wearing a pink hat today. Maybe you are not.

Either way, ask yourself this:

What is baseball for you?

By Tony Massarotti, Boston.com Columnist

Tom, meet Ray. Ray, say hello to Tom. Oh wait. That's right. You guys already know each other.

And so the road to the Super Bowl runs through New England once again. Or maybe it's the road to Ray Lewis' retirement. Or maybe it's both. The Patriots and Baltimore Ravens will face off in Foxborough on Sunday for the right to go to the Super Bowl. For the second straight year, it's an intersection of arguably the greatest offensive player of his era and the greatest on defense.

Tom Brady vs. Ray Lewis. Patriots vs. Ravens. Our way vs. their way.

"I think the two best teams are in the [conference] finals," Brady told reporters following Sunday's 41-28 victory against the overmatched Houston Texans at Gillette Stadium. "Baltimore certainly deserves to be here and so do we, so it's very fitting."

Indeed it is. And if history is any indication, Sunday's final showdown will be far closer than the 10-point spread that experts have placed on the meeting. (The Patriots are favored.)

The specifics? The Patriots and Ravens have played six times since the start of the 2007 season, the year that marks the beginning of New England's aerial escalation. The Patriots have won four and the Ravens have won two, the teams splitting a pair of postseason meetings. Last season's game produced a 23-20 New England win after then-Ravens kicker Billy Cundiff snap-hooked a measly 32-yard field goal as time expired. In Week 3 of this season, the Ravens claimed a 31-30 victory when rookie kicker Justin Tucker (who kicked a game-winning 47-yarder in overtime at Denver on Saturday) barely squeaked through a 27-yard field goal as time expired.

In six games covering more than 24 quarters over six seasons, the Ravens have scored 149 points. The Patriots have scored 144.

Oh, and then there's this: Arguably the two worst postseason games of Brady's career have come against the Ravens. In the wild-card round in January 2010, Brady posted an atrocious 49.1 quarterback rating - the lowest of his postseason career - in the Patriots' 33-14 loss. Brady's second-worst rating in 23 career playoff games was the 57.5 he posted ... in last year's game against the Ravens.

All in all, Brady has seven touchdown passes and eight interceptions in his last six games against Baltimore. He has completed just 59.7 percent of his passes. He has been sacked 15 times. His aggregate rating is a Sanchezian 75.0.

Brady turned in a strong effort against the Ravens in September, but generally speaking, against the Ravens, the most successful quarterback of his era (and among the three the greatest of all-time) plays like a cross between second-year Tennessee Titans quarterback Jake Locker (a 74.0 rating this season) and Miami Dolphins rookie QB Ryan Tannehill (76.1).

Don't shoot the messenger. That is what the numbers say.

Throughout the NFL, much has been made of the deterioration of the Baltimore defense this season, but don't expect to hear much talk of that from Foxborough this week. Thus far this postseason, the Ravens defense has shut down rookie phenom Andrew Luck and the Indianapolis Colts - Indy got inside the Baltimore 18-yard line once two weeks ago - and sufficiently stifled the great Peyton Manning. Though Denver scored 35 points in Sunday's 38-35 overtime loss to the Ravens, the Broncos scored two touchdown on special teams, meaning the offense produced just 21 points in more than five quarters against the Baltimore defense.

In its final three possessions, Denver never got past its own 39-yard line.

In the end, maybe Lewis and the Ravens won't be quite good enough to beat Manning and Brady in succession, on the road. Maybe Baltimore quarterback Joe Flacco will prove to be the weak link. Maybe Tucker will ultimately crack the way Cundiff did. But most everything in the recent history between these teams points to a physical, tightly contested affair because that is the way most every game between the Patriots and Ravens has played out in recent years.

In the one instance of a blowout - the 33-14 outcome in January 2010 - Baltimore won the game.

On Sunday, when Brady suggested "the two best teams are in the finals," he wasn't just paying lip service. Over the last five seasons - a period that coincides with Flacco's arrival in Baltimore - the Patriots (60-20) and Ravens (54-26) have the two best records in the AFC. That is essentially a difference of one win per year.

In "A Football Life," the NFL documentary of Patriots coach Bill Belichick that chronicled the 2009 Patriots season, Belichick speaks highly of the Baltimore operation, of how the Ravens are in it for the long haul. Belichick and Brady sing the praises of Baltimore safety Ed Reed. In subsequent years, we have seen similar footage of Brady expressing a similar respect for Lewis.

Now it all comes full circle again in Foxborough on Sunday, where Lewis will trot on and off the field from the visiting sideline for a final time. Reed's contract is set to expire at the end of the year. These Patriots and those Ravens clash for one final time, for the right to claim superiority of the AFC, for the right, one more time, to play in the biggest game in sports.

Gentlemen, no introductions are necessary.

By Tony Massarotti, Boston.com Columnist

We all believe the Patriots are better than the Houston Texans. We all believe the Patriots will win. But two days before the Patriots and Texans face off in a divisional playoff, one cannot help but feel we are succumbing to arrogance.

And by now, we should know better.

I am guilty of this, too, course, and my head, heart and instincts tell me that the Patriots will defeat the Texans on Sunday by something along the lines of a 31-23 score at Gillette Stadium. Most of the predictions I have seen fall into the same neighborhood, and finding any level of cynicism or skepticism over the Patriots' chances this week is an exercise in futility.

By chance, have you read Dan Shaughnessy's Friday column? In this era of Boston sports, Shaughnessy serves as our Prince of Darkness, a most sarcastic, cynical, and skeptical voice of gloom. But ask Shaughnessy about the Patriots' chances against the Texans on Sunday and it's as if he's spent the last 10 days in a isolated mountain cabin with nothing but an Anthony Robbins DVD set.

"No matter how much I study and prepare," Shaughnessy wrote, "I cannot come up with a scenario that has the Houston Texans defeating the New England Patriots Sunday night."

Holy smokes. Not even a single scenario from the Vincent Price of Boston sports, a man who is part Scrooge, part Grinch, part Glum? We'll never make it. We're doomed. Is there no one we can rely on anymore?

Let's make something clear here: if the Patriots play poorly on Sunday, they will lose. A mediocre effort might similarly end their season. The Houston Texans have their share of issues, to be sure, but professional sports - and football in particular - can be a cruel reminder that nothing should ever, ever be taken for granted.

So the Patriots defeated the Texans by a 42-14 score in Week 14. Big deal. As we all know, the Patriots defeated the New York Jets by a 45-3 score late in December 2010, then lost to the Jets in the divisional playoffs. Patriots head coach Bill Belichick reminded everyone earlier this week that football games are like snowflakes - each one is different - and one can only hope Belichick is privately pounding his players with memories of the Jets loss two years ago.

This Patriots team is the youngest of Belichick's tenure in New England, after all. Stevan Ridley has no real history of playoff success, Chandler Jones has no postseason experience. Ditto for Dont'a Hightower. Aqib Talib has never played in the postseason. Steve Gregory has one career playoff win on his resume. Nate Solder has never had to protect Tom Brady's backside with the season on the line.

And someone like Shaughnessy can't think of even a single scenario in which the Patriots lose?

How about something like this: Ridley fumbles, as he did in the playoffs last year. Brady throws an interception, as he has now done in five straight postseason games. Gregory blows an assignment or misses a tackle, as he did with some regularity earlier in the season. Hightower looks lost, as he has from time to time. Jones disappears. (He has not had a sack since Week 8.)

Now, are all of these things likely to happen? No. But the 42-14 blowout over Houston in Week 14 was not likely, either, and another blowout is even less likely given the outcome of the first game.

Certainly, the Texas have their own issues in this game, not the least of which is quarterback Matt Schaub, whose implosion at Foxborough in Week 14 has sent him spiraling. Beginning with his wretched performance against the Patriots, Schaub has thrown one touchdown pass - that's one - in his last five games. The Houston defense has shown great vulnerability against the pass over the course of the season and the Patriots shredded the Texans in Week 14 without tight end Rob Gronkowski.

Still, the Texans won 12 regular season games this season and claimed a 13th in the wild-card round of the playoffs. Defensive lineman J.J. Watt can alter a game by himself. The Texans defeated Denver, Baltimore, and Indianapolis during the season, and their team is more resilient than many think. Last season, with third-stringer T.J. Yates at quarterback, the Texans won in the wild-card round and nearly won at Baltimore in the divisional round, which speaks to the Texans' resolve.

And yet, many of us continue to sit here, two days before kickoff, showing little respect for the Texans or little thought of defeat.

Isn't at least some level of skepticism healthy?

And when did we become so cocky, so downright arrogant, that we ignored the first rule of sports.

There is a reason we actually play the games.

By Tony Massarotti, Boston.com Columnist

Not so long ago, election into the Baseball Hall of Fame had an entirely different feeling and meaning. Candidates would sit by the phone and await the potential call to Cooperstown. The players were the story.

Now, somewhat sadly, Judgment Day is far more about the voters, particularly when, for the first time since 1996, there is a chance that not a single major league player will be elected into the Hall of Fame.

In my case, the names you're looking for this Wednesday are, in alphabetical order, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Edgar Martinez, the only three names I checked on the annual Hall of Fame ballot I submitted last month. That was it. This is the 10th year in which I have had the right to vote for the Hall of Fame, and I have no doubt that my voting history will be called illogical or inconsistent (or both) by any range of people for any assortment of reasons.

In many cases, those critics will make compelling arguments. But let me tell you why I now vote the way I do.

* Before we get to the obvious issues surrounding the Steroids Era, let's begin quickly with Martinez, who is on the ballot for the fourth year and was named on just 36.5 percent of the ballots in 2012. (A player must be named on 75 percent or more of all ballots for induction.) The primary argument against him is that he was a designated hitter, which is obviously to say that Martinez did not field a position.

So why did I vote for Martinez? Precisely for the same reason, at least in part. The DH has been in existence for 40 years now, and yet no true DH has ever been elected to the Hall of Fame or been elected as the Most valuable Player. Let's hope the voting members of the Baseball Writers Association of American (BBWAA) someday call this what it is - discrimination - and I admit that the decision to vote for Martinez is, in part, political.

Here's the other reason: he was a great DH, arguably the best that has ever held the position. As a hitter, he was highly skilled. Martinez had career totals of .312/.418./.515 and he walked more than he struck out. For chunks of his time with the Seattle Mariners, Martinez batted behind both Alex Rodriguez and Ken Griffey, serving as the No. 4 hitter in a mighty Seattle lineup. He won the Silver Slugger Award five times. He twice finished in the top 10 of the MVP voting, no small feat for a DH on teams with Griffey and Rodriguez.

Can we please stop with the nonsense that DHs are somehow less than whole? The Mariners used Martinez as a DH because they could. There are plenty of players in the Hall of Fame whose defense hurttheir respective teams and who would have better off at DH. Harmon Killebrew. Ted Williams. Willie Stargell. The list goes on.

As for the argument for and against the other players on the ballot, the Steroids Era has triggered a wide range of philosophies about cheating, statistics, voting consistency. All of them have holes. Subscribing to any one of them is simply wrong and short-sighted, and here's at least some attempt to explain why.

* Cheating. Many voters see steroids users as violators of the famed "character" clause, that portion on the Hall of Fame ballot which suggests that a player's integrity is to be weighed when making a decision. On many levels, this is a load of garbage. For starters, voters earn their right to cast ballots based of having watched major league games for a period of 10 consecutive years or longer. This hardly makes people qualified to judge a person's character. Second, there are undoubtedly cheaters (Gaylord Perry), steroids users (your guesses are as good as anyone's) and scoundrels (Ty Cobb) inducted at Cooperstown who hardly pass the character test.

We're talking about baseball players here. Not Papal candidates. Further, there is simply no way to know who used and who didn't during an era when use of performance enhancers was so rampant that the game was corrupted beyond belief.

During the height of the steroids saga, the Major League Baseball Players Association (or the players' union) resisted testing. In the process, the MLBPA protected the guilty. Now, years later, the MLBPA wants us to judge players individually because it better serves them? Sorry. The MLBPA chose its path a long time ago. We have to assume that many (if not most or all) players cheated. Such was the culture at the time. If players lack credibility, that's not our fault and not our problem.

* Statistics. In baseball history, certain numbers and milestones have had obvious value. Three thousand hits. Five hundred home runs. Three hundred wins. None of them mean a darned thing anymore. In 2004, during a season in which he turned 40, Barry Bonds had .362/.609/.812 totals. He walked 232 times and still hit 45 home runs. That is a complete and utter joke. Bonds was at the top of the list of players who made a complete mockery of the game, but that is only because he was the best talent. He was hardly alone.

Can anyone really say that Rafael Palmeiro's 569 home runs put him in the same class as, say, Mickey Mantle (536)? Please. Anyone who saw Palmeiro play knows that he was a very good player, not a great one, rarely the best player on his team. Ditto for Craig Biggio and his 3,060 hits. Sammy Sosa (609 home runs) was a knucklehead who couldn't run the bases or play defense. Mark McGwire (306 was a home run in the last six years of his career) was a better version of Dave Kingman.

So why a yes on Bonds and Clemens? Because they were the best, most complete players at their positions during the era. Bonds ran well, hit for average, hit for power. Clemens threw innings, amassed strikeouts, limited walks. Both were generally quite consistent. Throwing away all numbers are measurements, Clemens and Bonds passed the eyeball test every single time, which is why they should get in.

Of course, neither will.

* Voting consistency. Fans and critics love top look at a voter's history (mine is below) and pick it apart. How could vote for Player A and not vote for Player B? Why did exclude Player C one year and include him later? Many of the criticisms are legitimate. But as it applies to the Steroids Era, voting inconsistencies will get worse.

And if that bothers you, so be it.

Somewhere along the line, there is every chance that Mike Piazza or Jeff Bagwell will get my vote. Right now, I have little choice but to look at them skeptically. (Again, the MLBPA sacrificed the right to be innocent until proven guilty.) Bagwell hit for virtually no power in the minor leagues and finished with career totals similar to those of Juan Gonzalez, who is not in. Piazza was a 62nd round draft pick -- the 62nd round doesn't even exist anymore, for goodness sake -- who turned into one of the greatest power-hitting catchers of all-time.

Do people really expect us to take guys like that at face value now? Sportswriters are dumb. But we're not that dumb. (OK, debatable.) Maybe there will someday be reason to believe that Bagwell and Piazza were clean. But given the damage that players did to their own game during the Steroids Era, they cannot honestly expect us to grant them the benefit of the doubt.

That's why they call it a union, guys. All for one and one for all.

As for some like Curt Schilling, who draws obvious interest in Boston, he is among the toughest of cases. Schilling was a very good pitcher during his career, be never won a single Cy Young Award during a time when many of his contemporaries when several. Clemens won seven Cy Youngs. Greg Maddux won five. Randy Johnson won four and Pedro Martinez won three. Tom Glavine won two. Putting Schilling in Cooperstown with that group seems terribly unfair to the others, who were simply better than he was.

Before anyone points to Schilling's postseason success, which was considerable, he falls into a familiar class. His career wins and postseason totals put him in the same neighborhood as David Cone, David Wells, even Andy Pettitte. The first two aren't in and Pettitte shouldn't be. All were good pitchers. All were clutch in big games. But all are more like Jack Morris than they are Clemens, Maddux, Johnson, Martinez or even Glavine.

The bottom line?

We shouldn't loosen standards on the Hall of Fame because of the Steroids Era.

We should tighten them.

* With all this in mind, here's my Hall of Fame voting history (players who were elected to the Hall that year are in bold):

2004: Andre Dawson, Dennis Eckersley, Paul Molitor, Jim Rice, Ryne Sandberg, Bruce Sutter.

2005: Wade Boggs, Andre Dawson, Jim Rice, Ryne Sandberg, Bruce Sutter.

2006: Andre Dawson, Jim Rice, Bruce Sutter

2007: Andre Dawson, Tony Gwynn, Jim Rice, Cal Ripken

2008: Andre Dawson, Rich Gossage, Jim Rice.

2009: Andre Dawson, Rickey Henderson, Jim Rice

2010: Roberto Alomar, Andre Dawson, Barry Larkin, Edgar Martinez

2011: Roberto Alomar, Barry Larkin, Edgar Martinez

2012: Barry Larkin, Edgar Martinez

2013: Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Edgar Martinez

By Tony Massarotti, Boston.com Columnist

No more talk of revenue splits, maximum contracts, pension plans. No more talk of variance. No more talk of revenue sharing and opt-out clauses. No more talk of the hills we will die on.

Hockey is back, folks.

And here in Boston, let there be no doubt we have missed it.

More than eight months have passed since the Bruins skated off the ice following a 2-1 defeat to the Washington Capitals in Game 7 of their first-round playoff series, and the B's have barely been on our minds since. Tim Thomas withdrew to Colorado shortly after the season, and Bruins executives subsequently tied up loose ends with contract extensions for Milan Lucic, Brad Marchand, and Tyler Seguin all before the league began its latest (un)civil war.

But within 8-10 days, the Bruins will be back on the ice. And their return should hit us all like a blast of 5-hour energy, particularly during a relatively barren winter sports season.

Take a good look around, sports followers. Short of the Patriots, there hasn't been much to get excited about. Even then, Patriots standards make the regular season schedule feel like a list of weekly house chores: do the dishes, put in the laundry, take out the trash. Then go out and wallop the Bills, Jets, and Dolphins, all with the intention of getting the best possible seed in the playoffs.

Since the start of September, really, that's pretty much been it. The Celtics have been an enormous disappointment, unlikeable and seemingly apathetic, at least until Friday night against Indiana. (Have they now remembered that defense is mandatory?) Meanwhile, the Red Sox have spent the large majority of their time erasing the mistakes of last winter, from Bobby Valentine to Mark Melancon to Andrew Bailey.

At the moment, we have no idea if the Red Sox are any good. What we suspect is that they will not be nearly as bad or as dysfunctional as they were a year ago, which is only the very first, small step on the road back to championship contention.

The Bruins, by contrast, would have (and will) come into the season with championship aspirations, something that should be true for years to come, even in the absence of Thomas. Prior to injuring his groin last season, Tuukka Rask had a 2.05 goals-against average and a .929 save percentage. Had the Bruins made it past the Capitals, Rask might have been ready to return for the second round of the playoffs.

Instead, the Bruins joined the rest of the league in hibernation, an absence that has extended for far, far too long.

Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs was a lead dog in the latest NHL war against the players, and maybe Jacobs feels like a bigger man now that the owners have won another seven percent. Whatever. But the most loyal Bruins fans have been stripped of at least some joy by their owner yet again, and this latest deprivation comes at a time when the Bruins should be thumping their chests at or near the top of the NHL mountain.

Think about it. More than any other team in town, the Bruins are built for the long haul. The Patriots have had an extraordinary run of success, but Tom Brady is 35. The Celtics are in the sixth year of a three-year plan. The Red Sox are rebuilding from the inside out, having failed to win even a single playoff game since 2008.

But the Bruins? The Bruins were the Stanley Cup champions in 2010-11, a wonderful blend of youth, experience, speed, toughness, skill and resolve. To some degree, we all gave them a pass on last season because they were still celebrating a championship. But coming into this year, the Bruins were again among the best teams in the NHL, further fortified by yet another coup from the glorious Phil Kessel trade - defenseman Dougie Hamilton.

And so what happened? The NHL ordered a lockout. The game stopped. The Bruins' owner was among those who ordered the players off the ice, even at a time when the Bruins project to be among the greatest forces on it.

Ugh. Talk about biting off your nose to spite your face. If the Red Sox got locked out, we might not care. But the Bruins?

The good news, of course, is that there will be a hockey season, albeit a shortened one, and that Bruins players ultimately suffered less than the fans who support them. Most fans don't give a darn about the winners or labor wars between owners and players - nor should they. We all understand the societal value and place of sports, and we know what they mean when it comes to emotional and psychological well-being of individual fans and the entire community.

So fine, the owners got more revenue, the players got longer term limits and the game will have some measure of labor peace for eight years. That last item is really the only one that fans should care about. During that span, the Bruins should be able to take the ice without interruption from their owner or anyone else, which is really all anybody wants.

Assuming no further glitches in the coming days - and that means the expected ratification of the new collective bargaining agreement by players and owners - hockey will return on either Jan. 15 or Jan. 19.

And then, finally, we can all turn our attention back to the ice, where we begin by asking the most obvious question.

Can the Bruins win another Stanley Cup?

By Tony Massarotti, Boston.com Columnist

When it comes to handicapping, particularly in the NFL, everybody has a system. Anyone with half a brain knows that none of them really work, which means your guess is as good as anyone else's.

Here in New England, the ramifications of this week's playoff games are simple: if the Houston Texans win on Saturday, they be returning to Foxboro on Jan. 13. If the Texans lose, the Patriots will face the winner of Sunday's game between the Baltimore Ravens and Indianapolis Colts.

As such, here are one person's thoughts on the first-round matchups as we enter every football fan's favorite month on the calendar:

CINCINNATI AT HOUSTON
Time: Saturday, 4:30 p.m.
Line: Houston by 4 1/2
Overview: My, how the mighty have fallen, eh? When the Texans came into Foxborough on Dec. 10, they were 11-1. Wide receiver Andre Johnson called it the biggest game in Texans franchise history. Houston subsequently got shwacked by a 42-12 score and then dropped games to Minnesota (23-6) and Indianapolis (28-16) in Weeks 16 and 17.

While Matt Schaub was hurt late last year, now seems a good time to mention that the Texans lost their final three games of the 2011 season, too.

The Bengals, as we know, are headed in the opposite direction. Cincinnati went 7-1 in its final eight games, dropping only a 20-19 decision to Dallas that was decided on a final kick. The Bengals finished the season ranked fifth in the NFL in total defense and have budding talents at both quarterback (Andy Dalton) and wide receiver (A.J. Green).

OK, so it's not an upset if everyone is picking it. But Houston couldn't possibly look more ripe.

The pick: Cincinnati 23, Houston 20.

MINNESOTA AT GREEN BAY
Time: Saturday, 8 p.m.
Line: Green Bay by 7 1/2
Overview: The fantasy geeks all love Adrian Peterson - and he is a tremendous talent - but it's been a long time since a running back led a team through the playoffs. Peterson has averaged 204.5 yards in two games against the Packers this season, which is a silly number. One must believe that Green Bay will gear up to stop him, which could put the game in the hands of Christian Ponder.

And does anyone really believe Ponder can beat Aaron Rodgers in Green Bay?

The Packers are of obvious intrigue entering this postseason because their talent is elite. They have playmakers on offense and defense. The Packers missed the chance for a bye by losing at Minnesota last week, but the only real question in this game seems to concern the margin or victory. Next week will be a different question.

The pick: Green Bay 34, Minnesota 10.

INDIANAPOLIS AT BALTIMORE
Time: Sunday, 1 p.m.
Line: Baltimore by 6 1/2
Overview: Quick, name the two ripest teams in the playoffs. Houston and Baltimore, right? Wrong. As much as everyone wants to write off the Ravens, who lost 4 of 5 to end the season, Baltimore is still a veteran, physical team playing at home. The Indianapolis defense allowed an average of 5.1 yards per rush this season and Ray Rice is still one of the best backs in the league.

Are the Ravens a Super Bowl threat in Ray Lewis' last season? No. But they're better than Indianapolis.

As for the Colts, they have been one of the truly great stories in the league this year. Nonetheless, Indianapolis is the only team in the playoffs with a negative point differential this season. Andrew Luck had just a 72.5 rating outdoors and, short of fading Houston in Week 17, the Colts didn't beat a team with a winning record after Week 5.

The Colts are a once again a team to be reckoned with for years to come, but their 2012 season is all but done. The Ravens are coming to Foxborough next week.

The pick: Baltimore 27, Indianapolis 14.

SEATTLE AT WASHINGTON
Time: Sunday, 4:30 p.m.
Line: Seattle by 3
Overview: The Year of the Rookie QB comes to a head in Washington, where Russell Wilson meets Robert Griffin III. Quite a story, eh? Once upon a time, it was preposterous to suggest that a first- or second-year quarterback could lead his team to the playoffs. This year alone, there are six in the postseason.

Here's a stat for you: thanks to a defense that allowed fewer points than any unit in the league, the Seahawks led the NFC in point differential. Seattle also won its last two games on the road. No one is suggesting the Seahawks can win three straight road games to get to the Super Bowl, but Pete Carroll has built an imposing team in the Northwest.

As for the Redskins, Griffin is hobbled by a knee injury. The cold weather and an attacking defense are not likely to help. America is in love with RG III, but Seattle looks like the more balanced and physical team - albeit not by much.

The pick: Seattle 24, Washington 20.

By Tony Massarotti, Boston.com Columnist

'Tis better to be lucky than good, as the saying goes. Although in the NFL, it is best to be both.

And the Patriots certainly qualify.

Partly through their own doing, partly through the ineptitude of their competition, the Patriots will be standing by patiently when the NFL playoffs open on Saturday, just as they have been for so many of the last 12 years. Sunday was only the latest example of New England's tried-and-true formula. First, with everything to lose, the Houston Texans went out and lost to an Indianapolis Colts team that really had nothing to gain. Then the Patriots went out and did what the Texans could not, taking care of business against the Miami Dolphins to secure the No. 2 seed in the AFC and an all-important bye in the first round of the playoffs.

Possessors of the top seed in the AFC entering Week 17, the Texans did not merely open the door for the Patriots on Sunday -- they put down a runner, they accepted the Pats' coat, hat, and gloves, too. Bill Belichick and his players then calmly and confidently strode through, proving an adage that has delivered the Patriots to at least the divisional round in eight of the last 11 seasons.

Ninety percent of life is just showing up.

Which is apparently too much to ask of a team like the Texans.

Or even, say, the New York Giants.

Slightly less than a year ago, lest we forget, the Giants defeated the Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI, albeit off a 9-7 regular season. Nonetheless, a title is a title. The Giants were 6-2 midway through this season while the Patriots were 5-3 -- the Texans were 7-1 -- and New York loomed over the potential playoff field like a skilled, seasoned fighter still in the prime of his career.

Know what the Giants did? They fell asleep, going 3-5 the rest, losing two of their last three games. The Texans were 11-1 before they came into Foxborough and got their doors blown off, that defeat not nearly as revealing as the subsequent confidence crisis that produced two more defeats in the next three games.

The Patriots, by contrast, were seemingly on the way to a similarly dispiriting loss against the San Francisco 49ers when they decided to, you know, rally through Week 16 and 17, something that ultimately earned them a vacation week while both the Giants (out of the playoffs entirely) and Texans (hosting Cincinnati on Saturday) are trying to figure out, to varying degrees, exactly what went wrong.

Um, guys?

The last 10 percent of life becomes much more difficult -- or downright impossible -- if you don't take care of the first 90.

For the Patriots, the last 10 percent makes all the difference in the world, of course, which speaks to the pedigree of the Belichick Era. Since they have been paired together, Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady have been to six conference championships and five Super Bowls. And yet, the last seven seasons (and counting?) have failed to produce a Super Bowl title, which has left all of us wondering whether the Patriots have quite what it takes for the last 10 percent.

Over the last seven weeks, since the addition of defensive back Aqib Talib to the Patriots secondary, New England has ranked fifth in the league in defense based on points allowed. On third down, the Patriots have ranked 10th. Those are significant improvements over where the Patriots were prior to the addition of Talib, when the term "Patriots defense" too often seemed an oxymoron.

Beginning in the divisional round of the playoffs, those improvements should not be overlooked. In early December, after a huge Jerod Mayo sack stalled a Miami Dolphins drive and forced a field goal, the Patriots opened the month with a 23-16 win at Miami that featured an impressive, game-ending field goal drive that consumed most of the fourth quarter. Two weeks ago in Jacksonville, a game the Patriots won by an identical 23-16 score, the Patriots made a pair of fourth-quarter interceptions deep in their own territory to preserve the win. Miami and Jacksonville went a combined 9-23 this season, to be sure, but the Patriots showed at least some capacity to win the kind of game they have too frequently failed to win.

Prior to the Miami win, after all, the Patriots were 2-7 in their last nine games when scoring 23 points or fewer points. Their only two victories during that span came against Baltimore in last season's AFC Championship Game (when Baltimore kicker Billy Cundiff missed a a potential, game-tying 32-yard bunny to end the game) and against Dallas last season (when Cowboys coach Jason Garrett all but sat on his hands despite a chance to run out the clock). Tighter, lower-scoring games have been the Patriots' demise in recent years, largely because they could only win games with their offense.

Prior to the first Miami game, the Patriots' defeats this season followed a similar pattern. Arizona shut them down. Seattle shut them down. In the loss to San Francisco, New England was down 31-3 before the Niners backed off some. All three clubs succeeded by playing New England aggressively and physically, and the Patriots defense was not imposing enough to win what was left.

Whether this group is truly different is certainly open to debate, though the Texans certainly made things easier by shrinking in December. Houston will get another chance in New England if the Texans win on Saturday, but the Patriots have not lost to an AFC opponent at home this year. A Houston defeat would mean a Foxborough visit for either Baltimore or Indianapolis, the former of whom has an aging and fading defense, the latter of whom got throttled at Gillette earlier this season.

What happens after that is obviously anyone's guess.

But wherever the Patriots go now, it will have far less to do with how lucky they are, and far more to do with how good.

By Tony Massarotti, Boston.com Columnist

Football's answer to the Red Sox resides roughly 200 miles to the south, partly in New York, partly in New Jersey, completely in disarray. The J-E-T-S are a joke, joke, joke, and there may no greater thing for New Englanders to celebrate come holiday season.

Joy to the world.

The Jets are done.

So puff out your chests, Patriots fans. Gang Green has gangrene. Head coach Rex Ryan arrived in New York vowing never to kiss Bill Belichick's rings, and he may now leave New York kissing Belichick's feet. Sexy Rexy and the Jets appear headed for a complete dismantling that could begin within hours of the conclusion of the 2012 regular season, and New York now looks like nothing more than a pothole during Belichick's 12-year journey over the AFC East.

Slightly more than a year ago, like the 2011 Red Sox, the Jets were 8-5 and seemingly positioned for a playoff spot. Then they self-destructed in a season-ending losing streak marked by dissension, infighting, turmoil and finger-pointing. New York's answer to its problems came in a man whom most everyone else regarded as a potential problem, the kind of lightning rod who translated into media attention and in retrospect, undue hype.

The Red Sox had Bobby Valentine. The Jets had Tim Tebow.

When you get right down to it, what's the difference?

Each was a bill of goods.

In the case of Tebow, he is hardly to blame for what has befallen the Jets. Like Valentine, Tebow was the pawn in an internal struggle between ownership and on-field operations. One side wanted him and the other did not. In the end, he has become a symbol of everything that is wrong with the Jets, of the kind of organizational dysfunction that can eat at a franchise from within.

And now, just like the Red Sox, there is talk of the jets selling off parts, of trading away Tebow and the wildly overpaid Mark Sanchez, who might be the Jets' equivalent to, say, John Lackey.

In recent Patriots history, we all know the story of The Border War. In these parts, the Jets were largely irrelevant until Bill Parcells broke from Patriots owner Robert Kraft and took over the New York operation. Subsequent spinoffs centered around Belichick and Eric Mangini, the Belichick protege who turned on his mentor. Mangini gave way to Ryan, the kind of rebellion a teenager makes under the weight of overbearing parents.

When the Jets hired Mangini, they told the world they wanted to be more like the Patriots. When they hired Ryan, they told world they wanted to be nothing like New England.

For a time, of course, the Jets played as if liberated. Ryan went 3-2 in his first five meetings against Belichick, one victory coming in the divisional playoffs at Foxboro Stadium. The Jets went to two consecutive AFC Championship Games while the Patriots failed to win even a single postseason game. The team were both 5-3 when the Patriots traveled to the Meadowlands last season for a Week 10 matchup, New England in a relatively fragile state while the Jets had won three straight.

And then, precipitously, everything flipped.

In the time since, beginning with a 37-16 win in New York, the Patriots have gone 20-5 while the Jets have gone 9-13. The gap between the teams now feels as big as it did before Parcells left New England. The Patriots have played in one Super Bowl and look at least as capable this year as any other NFL team, and the Jets are now prepared to cut tied with both Tebow and Sanchez, perhaps Ryan, maybe even general manager Mike Tannenbaum.

Seven or eight months from now, we can only wonder if the Jets and their followers will be talking about a bridge year.

And so now, presumably, Tebow will be gone from New York as quickly as Valentine was from Boston, their roles in the failures of two franchises indisputably clear. Neither man caused the problems on his team. But in some way, shape or form, each made it worse. And lest there be any doubt, neither Valentine nor Tebow deserves as much blame as the people who imported them, the kind of detached decision-making that cannot help but make you wonder whether the people running the franchise had any clue at all.

What happens to the Jets from here is anyone's guess, and the Patriots clearly have their own issues to worry about at the moment. New England has two regular season games remaining on its 2012 regular season schedule and the Patriots are currently the No. 3 seed in the AFC. The playoffs might very well begin in two weeks. The Border is now nothing but a memory, and Ryan looks like simply another man who tried to take at Belichick.

Happy Holidays, Patriots followers.

The New Year may or may not bring another trip to the Super Bowl, but you are far, far better off than the Jets.

By Tony Massarotti, Globe Staff

Five questions on the please-pardon-our-appearance Red Sox as we close in on the end of what was a miserable 2012:

5. What does the lineup and bench look like right now?

With the reported addition of Stephen Drew - and assuming the Mike Napoli mess gets sorted out - the Red Sox seemingly have filled all of the major holes on their positional roster. Drew may have been a bit of a surprise addition given the presence of Jose Iglesias, but the Red Sox have nothing other than money to lose on that one-year deal.

As such, allowing some latitude, the projected starting lineup and roster look something like this:

STARTING LINEUP
Jacoby Ellsbury, cf
Shane Victorino, rf
Dustin Pedroia, 2b
David Ortiz, dh
Will Middlebrooks, 3b
Mike Napoli, 1b
Johnny Gomes, lf
Jarrod Saltalamacchia, c
Stephen Drew, ss

BENCH
Davis Ross, c
Ryan Kalish, of
Pedro Ciriaco, if
Jose Iglesias, if
Ryan Lavarnway, c
Mauro Gomez, 1b

ROTATION
Jon Lester, lhp
Clay Buchholz, rhp
John Lackey, rhp
Ryan Dempster, rhp
Felix Doubront, lhp

BULLPEN
Alfredo Aceves, rhp
Andrew Bailey, rhp
Daniel Bard, rhp
Mark Melancon, rhp
Clayton Mortensen, rhp
Koji Uekhara, rhp
Andrew Miller, lhp
Franklin Morales, lhp
Craig Breslow, lhp
Junichi Tazawa, lhp

Yes, there are 30 names there, including 15 pitchers and 15 positional players. The pitchers should not a surprise because most teams will carry a surplus into camp. The positional list is admittedly liberal, allowing for people like Mauro. Whether you think the Red Sox are competitive is certainly debatable, but some of the extra pieces lead to additional questions, like:

4. What exactly does the future hold for Jose Iglesias?

If the Drew signing sounds any alarms, they should be between the ears of the soon-to-be 23-year-old Iglesias, whom the Red Sox signed out of Cuba three years ago. In three minor league seasons, Iglesias has a career OPS of .626. In the big leagues, he's 10 for 74 (a .135 average) with 18 strikeouts and a .413 OPS. If Iglesias is legitimately 23, there's still time for growth. If the Red Sox have questions about that age, they may be ready to move on.

Think about it. The Red Sox are essentially rebuilding. Now would be the time to play someone like Iglesias and to start getting some answers. Prospects Xander Bogaerts and Deven Marrero are both playing shortstop in the minor leagues. Bogaerts may not project as a shortstop in the majors - many teams will draft an excess of players in the middle of the diamond - but it's getting close to decision time on Iglesias, assuming the Sox haven't made one already.

Is he nothing more than utility man at this stage? Or are the Red Sox positioned to package Iglesias with people like Ellsbury and/or Saltalamacchia in a deal for pitching?

3. What gives with Ryan Kalish?

Kalish made his major league debut on July 31, 2010, and his inaugural big league season was quite respectable. In 53 games, Kalish batted .252 with a .710 OPS and 10 stolen bases while playing all three outfield positions. The Red Sox made it quite clear at the time that they regarded Kalish as a better outfield prospect than Josh Reddick, whom they subsequently traded to the Oakland A's for Andrew Bailey. Some people in the organization even compared him to a young Trot Nixon.

Injuries have set Kalish back some, of course, and he missed considerable chunks of the 2011 and 2012 seasons. Other than switch-hitting, shouldn't he be capable of giving the Red Sox something close to what Shane Victorino will give the Red Sox in 2013? Kalish will be 25 next spring. The clock on him is now ticking louder than ever. Any complaints on the Victorino signing should have nothing to do with the money - the Red Sox still have plenty. But why isn't Kalish getting a shot?

2. Do the Red Sox have something big up their sleeves?

Do the math. At catcher, the Red Sox currently have a group that includes Ross, Lavarnway and Saltalamacchia. Iglesias looks like he's getting squeezed from both ends (the majors and minors) at shortstop. Kalish is being bumped by Johnny Gomes in left and Victorino in right. At various points during the offseason, the Sox have reportedly had trade discussions involving Ellsbury, Bailey and others.

Individually, all of those pieces may have limited value. Ellsbury is a free agent at the end of 2013. Iglesias hasn't hit. Kalish has been hurt. Saltalamacchia and Lavarnway are regarded as below-average defenders. But put an combination of them together - throwing in a pitcher perhaps - and the package might be significant enough for the Red Sox to add a starting pitcher.

Obviously, no team builds a 25-man roster during the winter. The goal is to build a group much deeper than that with the idea that there will be injuries, mishaps, failures. But the Red Sox' short-term depth is far less of a concern than the long-term, and the Sox might be wise to sacrifice some lesser, short-term talent for a bigger, long-term gain.

1. Is Texas a trade partner?

The loss of Josh Hamilton to free agency seemingly leaves the Rangers with a significant hole in their lineup, and there has long been speculation that the Rangers would be players for Ellsbury if and when Hamilton departed. The most publicized scenario has a featured a swap of Ellsbury for shortstop Elvis Andrus, who seems destined to be replaced by wunderkind Jurickson Profar, a shortstop regarded as the best prospect in the Texas system.

Remember, too, that the Rangers traded Michael Young to the Philadelphia Phillies. The Rangers have said publicly that they intend to give an opportunity to their prospects - corner infielder Mike Olt is projected as a power hitter - and the Rangers might be telling the truth. They may even be inclined to go with outfielder Leonys Martin in center field.

Still, Ellsbury to the Rangers is an obvious fit, even if only for a year. The Rangers have a deep roster and strong farm system, and the Los Angeles Angels' acquisition of Hamilton upped the ante in the American league West. Minus Hamilton and Young, the Rangers also might have the money to give Ellsbury the money he will command on the free agent market next fall, though that obviously could dissuade them from making a deal for the player now.

After all, why give up the prospects, too?