Cold Hard Football Facts ranks them 7th (+3):  Last week: 20-10 win vs. Carolina. Loafing malcontent Randy Moss has seven drops in 120 targets; tough-as-nails gamer Wes Welker has six drops in 136 targets.

WEEI ranks them 9th (+3):  Randy Moss and Bill Belichick had a “good talk” following the disciplinary action that was taken after Moss showed up late last Wednesday. This is according to Belichick during his appearance on The Big Show Monday. Unlike Adalius Thomas and his coach, Moss and Belichick have a good, open line of communication, and that is one of the reasons I believe Moss isn’t dogging it or giving less than 100 percent. Also, when was the last time we heard Belichick criticize another team? There’s no way he would have done that if he thought Moss wasn’t giving his all.

The Sporting News ranks them 9th (+2):  This season has been more controversial and less successful than they planned.

ESPN ranks them 9th (+2):  After his halfhearted effort against Carolina, Randy Moss should put on a show in Buffalo.

USA Today ranks them 9th (+1):  Shaky team isn't inspiring confidence for a playoff run.

National Football Post ranks them 9th (nc):  At this point in the season, the Pats will take wins anyway they can get them—especially with the Dolphins and the Jets on their heels.

Don Banks at SI ranks them 10th (+1):  OK, time for us to all take a breath and step back from the round-the-clock Randy Moss analysis. I haven't liked the looks of his effort the past two weeks, but let's give him the benefit of the doubt because it's the holidays. We're all pretty quick to assign motives and assume we know what's going on in somebody's head, when obviously we don't. If Moss goes into the cold of Buffalo this week and has himself a big game -- no easy feat at this time of year -- all can still be forgiven in Pats-land. As I recall, Moss usually finds sufficient motivation when T.O. is lining up for the other team.

Fox Sports ranks them 10th (-1):  In the entire decade, there have never been as many player-related controversies as there have been this season. That said, Randy Moss' teammates are surely not too worried about their notorious wideout and allegations that he quits on plays. Like that's news. Let's not go overboard and take Chris Gamble's bait: Moss entered last weekend as the NFL leader in receiving yards for the season. One off game is not a Roland Emmerich flick (director of Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow, 2012 ... get it?).

Yahoo! Sports ranks them 11th (nc):  Is Bill Belichick channeling Rex Ryan – and if so, is there any way he can keep doing it?

What If Sports ranks them 11th (nc)

ProFootball Weekly ranks them 11th (nc):  Thank God for Welker.

CBS Sports ranks them 11th (nc):  They just seem off, even when they win. And now they're in a race for the division title with Miami and the Jets. They can't afford a stumble.

Peter King ranks them 12th (-1):  "This is the flattest game I've ever done,'' Tony Siragusa said from the field on the FOX telecast of Panthers-Pats. Another failed fourth-down call, Randy Moss looking like he wished he was anywhere but there, no tight end getting open, Steve Smith whipping corners ... I know there are no ugly wins, but this win was exceedingly unattractive. I'll say this: It's a good thing the Patriots have Tom Brady -- even in a season where he's been mortal half the time -- or their season would be over this morning.

AVERAGE RANK:  9.83 (+.79)

Titus Adams (left) and Adalius Thomas get all wrapped up in the 'Wrap a Pat' portion of the New England Patriots charitable foundation/Salvation Army Holiday party at Gillette Stadium yesterday.

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Adalius Thomas earned points with Robert Kraft and especially the kids, who adorned he and defensive lineman Titus Adams in gift wrap as part of the "Wrap-a-Pat" portion of the evening.  Great photos of the event here.

"It was a little crazy being wrapped up with Titus.  He's a little claustrophobic.  I'm a little claustrophobic.  I found out he's a lot more claustrophobic than I am,"  Thomas said earlier this evening.  "But it was very interesting to see the kids do that.  I don't know how much paper it was but that was a lot of paper.  I could have used some of that.  I need to wrap some gifts when I get home."

"Any time when it's about the kids, nothing else really matters.  It's a game that we're playing,"  Thomas said.  "That's truly what it is.  But these kids are dealing with the game of life, which is a lot more important than football.  You come out here, you try to put a smile on their faces, and hopefully they forget about any problems they may have or anything they may be going through.  So if you can come out and lend a hand, spend a piece of your day and give them something to remember for a lifetime, I think that's a great trade-off."

Bill Belichick talks up Bills' WR Terrell Owens and if he's still the same threat he's been in the past.

Well, yeah.  Ask Jacksonville, ask Miami. He does a great job on the vertical deep routes. He's obviously big and fast and he can go up and get the ball. But he's also very good on the underneath routes, like what happened last week on a catch-and-run play where he caught the ball underneath, broke a couple tackles, and got the ball in the end zone. He's dangerous. He made a nice play there against Kansas City, but he's also made nice plays down the field. They try to get him the ball underneath. They did that against us in the first game for a 20-something-yard gain, whatever it was.

So he's a guy that can hurt you in a lot of different ways - deep, intermediate, run after the catch. He had a real nice play that got called back against Miami. He had a real nice play where he took a reverse and they had him in the backfield for about a 10-yard loss, and he ended up gaining about 10, 12 yards on the play and broke three or four tackles along the way. I think he's still got plenty of skill.

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Don't worry man, we've got your back.

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Matt Bowen (Nat'l Football Post) Defends Randy Moss' character.

So, yes, the Panthers did take Moss out of the game. And, yes, he did look lethargic on a certain number of plays. But to say that he quit on his teammates? No, I’m not buying that.

Did he play poorly? Sure he did, and just like the other members of that team, he will be corrected when they turn on the film today in their meeting rooms—but that is all that I see in play after this story has come out. And, I am going to listen to Brady and Belichick when it comes to judging his character as a teammate because, like you, I am not in those meetings, on the practice field or in the locker room with a player that still demands respect from a defensive standpoint—and causes opposing players to mouth off to the media even after a loss. Because we can’t pretend to know what is being called in that huddle, just as we can’t pretend to know what route is supposed to be run as told on the chalkboard in the Patriots meeting rooms.

Ty Warren was asked by WEEI's Michael Holley how the news about the discipline got out, and Warren replied that Adalius put it out there himself (at the 6.35 min. mark).  Warren also mentioned that fellow-late-comer Gary Guyton returned to Gillette Stadium that night to watch film.

Bill Belichick talked about what happens when a guy like Sam Aiken is out of the lineup.

If you lose a core player in the kicking game, like Sam was inactive yesterday - he’s really a starter on four teams. It isn’t always the same person that replaces him on each team, it can be a combination of different things and that was the case yesterday. That’s always a challenge on special teams; if you take one guy out, you’ve lost him on at least four teams. Sometimes if he’s involved in the field goal and field goal rush situations, it could be more than that.

It’s a lot different than on offense or defense where it’s just that position on offense or that position on defense. It rolls into multiple positions in the kicking game and then you usually don’t have the same person where you just can’t do it, you don’t have enough people. It’s just like offense: you can’t have a backup right tackle, a backup right guard, a backup center. You’ve got to have one guy that backs up multiple positions and that’s true in the kicking game, too. One guy is out, that means 'you’re in on this team’, 'he’s in on that team’, 'you’re in on another team’ and it really challenges your depth.

That’s one of the real challenging parts of being the special teams coach and even as a head coach - trying to put the roster together when you have a player like that who has a role on offense and is a core player in the kicking game. That’s a lot of jobs.

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Bill Belichick spoke to the media during his weekly Monday Presser, and here's what he had to say to reporters' persistent questions about Randy Moss.

Q: A couple of Carolina players accused Randy Moss of quitting yesterday. Do you agree with that assessment and how do you respond to that?
BB: My response would be that’s a lot of conversation coming from a team that just lost another game.

Q: To be direct, were you satisfied with Randy Moss’s effort?
BB: Look, I said the same thing about everybody on the team. Could players have played better? Could coaches have coached better yesterday? Sure. Randy Moss has been one of our most consistent players since he’s been here. His production’s been pretty good and I think you certainly see that they way other teams defend him, that they must have an awful lot of respect for him, too, which I do. We can sit in here every week and talk about somebody who didn’t have big stats. ‘So what happened this week?’ You could pick out somebody every week on the team that didn’t have big stats – somebody in the running game, somebody in the passing game, somebody on defense. Everybody can’t have high stats every week; it’s impossible. We can always pick out somebody that doesn’t have them and say, ‘What happened to them?’

Q: Are we chasing this misconception when we say, ‘Randy Moss dogged it’?
BB: You can say whatever you want. That’s your job. Say whatever you want.

Q: I’m asking the expert…
BB: I just told you that I have a lot of respect for Randy. I think he’s one of our best players. If you watch other teams defend him, watch other teams play against him, they think the same way, other than these two guys [Chris Gamble and Chris Harris] from Carolina after they lost another game. I guess they don’t think that way, but they haven’t won a lot of games now.

You know how I feel about stats. Really, stats are for losers. Final scores are for winners and that’s really what it’s about. When we had games when I was with the Giants and we couldn’t hold Gary Clark to under 200 yards pass receiving and some of those were wins. That’s the bottom line.

The media dog has it's teeth firmly sunk into the "Randy Moss is a lazy-ass receiver" bone and won't let go. 

The truth is that no one knows what's going on with Moss - how he feels mentally and physically - except the people who know him best and are involved in his daily life.  Moss doesn't talk with the media (gee, I wonder why) but that doesn't stop writers from speculating and conjuring up some pretty distasteful scenarios - he quit on the team; he's getting back at Belichick for sending him home; his feelings were hurt and he can't concentrate; he's the same-old-Moss that 'plays when he wants to play'; he's jealous of Welker getting most of the receptions; he's bringing down the team; he's fragile...etc...  What is clear is that none of them are willing to give the future Hall of Famer the benefit of any doubt.

If Randy Moss truly were a locker room cancer, a dogger, or a guy that doesn't give it his best shot during practices and games do you really think Belichick would be keeping him on the team or be defending him so vigorously?  Are he and Tom Brady so blinded by Moss's raw talent that they can't see what appears so blatantly obvious to every single media member from here to Oakland?  Personally I don't think so and will err on the side of his teammates.  I think the reporters should lay off a bit, step back, and maybe rethink the running storyline it has pursued since Randy Moss came to New England - unless they're the ones too stubborn, too pouty, or too lazy-ass to change.

Kevin Faulk runs in untouched for a first half TD.

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Peter King (SI) You've got to like Tom Brady trying to put the pressure for the Patriots' performance down the stretch on his shoulders.

"Put it on me,'' he said over the cell phone on his way home from Foxboro on Sunday evening. "That's where I want it -- on me.'' You asked for it, you got it. We talked for maybe 15 minutes, and I'd have thought he'd be exasperated by a few things -- Moss, how poorly they were playing across the board the last month, the fourth-down-conversion problems, the Adalius Thomas fiasco. But no. Brady was ridiculously optimistic. "It's like a heavyweight fight,'' he said. "A boxing match. We just gotta keep fighting. We're not the same team as we were last year or the year before, but I haven't lost faith in us at all. It's just that our margin of error is so small.'' Whereas in 2007, Brady had a couple of professional receivers, Donte Stallworth and Jabar Gaffney, as his third and fourth wideouts after Moss and Welker, now he's got the green Aiken and Julian Edelman (who's been hurt consistently).

New England's 8-5, a game ahead of the Jets and Dolphins, with the Bills, Jags and Texans on the schedule to finish up. Not too hard, not too easy for the old Patriots, but for these Patriots, where everything comes hard? "We're 7-0 at home,'' Brady said. "We just put up 470 yards of offense against a good defense in Miami. We got the best coach in history. Shoot, once the playoffs start, if we're fortunate enough to make them, anything can happen. We were 18-0 and didn't win the Super Bowl. You never know. Don't lose faith in us.'' When I got off the phone with him, I thought: That's what he's going to say to his team this week.

Tom Brady shares what he was saying to Randy Moss on the sidelines.

Yeah, I mean, it's frustrating as a player when you're - you know, he was frustrated in himself and the situation and it's just something you've got to fight through. He keeps fighting through it and you have those days where it's not all great, but you keep lining up and you keep going up. You've just got to keep fighting. I think that's the message I always try to convey to everybody. I mean, if you're a quarterback, you throw picks, you throw bad balls. If you're a receiver, you drop balls. If you're a running back, you fumble balls. You know, it's just part of the process and it's about making the next one a good one and not making the next one another bad one because you're a little bit down in the dumps.

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Wes Welker YAC-ing it up in Miami.

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Wes Welker selected to the inaugural USA Football/NFLPA "All-Fundamentals" Team.

USA Football, the sport's national governing body on youth and amateur levels, and the NFL Players Association have selected wide receiver WES WELKER of the New England Patriots and 25 other NFL players to the inaugural USA Football/NFLPA "All-Fundamentals" Team. This 26-man roster honors the NFL's most fundamentally-sound players who also commit themselves to service in their communities.

This honor recognizes Welker as an example for youth players – particularly wide receivers – to emulate due to his ability to properly catch the ball with his hands.

In addition to his fundamentally-strong play, Welker does exemplary work in his hometown of Oklahoma City. The six-year NFL veteran created the 83 Foundation, which provides underprivileged children of Oklahoma City to reach their full potential through values and mentoring relationships gained through football.

Adam Kilgore explains why Adalius Thomas will not be cut this year.

The Patriots are responsible for $4.4 million in guaranteed bonuses for Thomas each of the next two seasons, a total of $8.8 million that counts against the salary cap if Thomas is cut.

But the league is currently scheduled to operate without a salary cap in 2010, which alters the ramifications. Cutting Thomas, according to league sources, would force the Patriots to add all of the additional $8.8 million of Thomas’s bonus to this year’s salary cap. That makes releasing him prohibitive.

So for the next month at least, Thomas will remain a Patriot.

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Adalius Thomas was dumbfounded at being sent home yesterday, and has no idea what Belichick was thinking. No idea? Really?

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Adalius Thomas was the first of the infamous four late Patriots to talk to the media about yesterday's disciplinary measure taken by the head coach.  He was clearly agitated by it and professed to be "dumbfounded" at the heavy consequence of being nine minutes late on a snowy New England morning. 

As he said separately to Albert Breer, "I mean, I could've been in a ditch. They really don't give a damn. Hey, as long as you aren't in that meeting, they really don't give a (bleep)."

There was a lot of talk about the weather, how the forecasters get it wrong half the time, how he thought it might rain instead of snow, and how once he was stuck this wasn't the Jetsons where he "jump up and fly."  Hey, we've all been held hostage on the road somewhere when we were supposed to be somewhere else.  It happens.  But certain situations are more important than others and for the the team this was one of them.

What A.D. failed to mention to reporters was what Belichick told the team on Monday, the last time they were in the building before their day off Tuesday.

It's going to take more commitment for us to get where we need to go.  More film work. Coming in a little early.  Leaving a little later.  Not running out of the building.

Forget about only being nine minutes late, Thomas should have been in there an hour early.  He must have said something to the effect of "I just do what I'm told" a dozen times, but that's not true.  He was told to come in early just two days ago and didn't make the effort to ensure that he would be.

Thomas' purpose in talking with the reporters was to clear his name, but all it did was make me realize that I liked him better when he kept his mouth shut.  I don't regret giving him the benefit of the doubt amidst the criticism aimed at his under-performing years in New England, but you'll now find me firmly lodged in the official "he's a bust" camp.

He can sack everyone in his path from here to Miami in February but it would still be too little too late to make up for his lousy attitude.  He talks about being a professional, but is that what you'd call tweeting his friends in other clubs around the league about what happened inside the locker room?   A.D. can tell himself he's a professional all he wants but actions speak louder than words - and his words have done him in enough without them.

As if that wasn't enough, he wanted to make sure reporters knew that he isn't to blame for the Patriots poor pass rush either.  It's the fault of he coaches and defensive schemes in case you were wondering.  He's "just an indian, not the chief" and has to roll with whatever plays are called.  Sheesh.  While the bus is rolling, might as well throw everyone underneath it.

Here is the complete transcript of Adalius Thomas' Q & A with the media.  You can listen to it here.

Tom Brady leading by example, shows up at Gillette after the birth of his son.

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Albert Breer notes the players are getting the message, from Tom Brady and Bill Belichick.

"I think it would’ve been laid down at any time of the year, regardless of whether we lost. That’s not acceptable here," linebacker Tully Banta-Cain told me, after I presented him with the news of the day. "That’s Bill’s deal, and I think in general, everyone’s sense of urgency is a little higher now. We’re in that part of the season where it’s a four-game season. "The antennas are way up. I think if anything it just brings the sense of urgency up even higher."

"Even more guys are coming in, watching more film," Banta-Cain continued. "We’ll see what we can do in practice today, and I think everyone’s got that gameface on right now. They’re not waiting til Sunday to put it on. I think Tom is a guy we definitely look to for that type of leadership, and I’m pretty sure everybody will respond to it."

Tom Brady was asked about overcoming adversity, showing fight and if the team can do it over the next 4 weeks.

Well, I think a lot of it, you know, you've got to bring awareness to what we, as leaders, and what our coach thinks are issues on the team - issues that we face as a team, individually, collectively. It's not about playing hard on Sundays. I mean, we do that. That's three hours a week that you have to show up and really commit yourself to. I don't think that's too much to ask of anybody and guys do that. It's not like we think we're not fighting out there in the game. I think what coach tells us and what I was alluding to was probably more of just the other six days of the week. We've got to make the commitment to each other. And if it's Monday and it's Tuesday and coach wants us to come in on Monday and work or stay for a two-and-a-half-hour practice on Wednesday and Thursday, then with no bitching and complaining, just doing the job.

I think at times we all feel a little bit sorry for ourselves an you're beat up and you're tired and you're sore and it's the end of the year and you go, ‘Why is he doing this?' But in the end, you're either gaining ground on a team or you're losing ground, and I always prefer to be gaining ground and getting ahead and staying ahead over the course of the week through walkthroughs, through meetings, through post-practice film, through you're film study on Tuesday, through all of the treatment that you've got to do. There's a lot that goes into it. I think that if we can keep adding that 10 percent, 20 percent, whatever it may be - probably everyone's got to look at themselves differently. I know what I need to add, and that's obviously what I need to commit to do for myself and for this team.

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