I plan to release this week’s 1SKILLZ gameplan eventually, but the thing that has me more interested than the Patriots/Jets game this week is the one-sided trash talk that surrounds this game.  Seriously, we’re talking about a team with a brash rookie head coach coming at a team that didn’t even make the playoffs last year!  Now you know if this was St. Louis Rams head coach Steve Spagnuolo talking about the Seattle Seahawks, it might not have even been a story in Missouri or Washington, let alone reach the East Coast.  But this is the new (newest?) New York Jets, situated as the AFC representative of the media capital of the world.  And this is the New England Patriots - the team of the decade (it’s only a debate if the Steelers go through New England to win a Super Bowl this year) that has earned it’s bulls-eye under head coach Bill Belichick and QB Tom Brady.

Now, after all the Jets and Patriots have been through since Bill Parcells left New England to cook the Jets’ vegetables in 1997, the trash talk of Rex Ryan and Jets S Kerry Rhodes is tradition at this point.  Likewise, the Patriot nonresponse and allusion to the Bulletin Board has been a Belichick trademark.  It just makes too much sense!  It would be out of place if the new New York Jets did not try to establish tension!  The Patriots know the deal, that’s why they do not respond.  The Jets (Rex Ryan in particular) know the deal, and that’s why the talk is coming.  It’s the Jets’ best hope.  A win under the raised stakes creates the potential for season-defining confidence.

Of course, the Patriots are simply lazy.  They’re uncreative, unemotional, and boring for just rolling out a weekly bulletin board and letting their much more zing-worthy adversaries do all the work shooting their blurbs on it … which of course prohibits the Patriots from losing focus during the week in preparation for said adversary.  When you can’t talk smack, you only have two options: turn the other cheek, or bite back on the scoreboard.  It is in Rex Ryan’s best interests to keep talking … his Jets have yet to be bitten.  The reality is, talk is cheap because it won’t decide the outcome of the game.  The team that talks trash gets an opportunity to back it up, but can also risk losing focus amidst all the talking.  And in all honesty, no team should be offended by trash talk!  You want teams to “disrespect” you; that’s either respect in disguise or an opportunity to earn it!  A team really shouldn’t need an excuse to focus or care, but to each motivator his own.  All talk does is ensure you, the football fan, a great game, whether it is one-way or two-way trash communication.  And on that Post-It note …

-1SKILLZ