Nextag.com rounded up some figures and shared them with members of the media throughout the web. Here are some of the facts and figures I found interesting:

• In terms of Patriots’ gear, “Tom Brady continues to be the most sought-after jersey with 8 of the top 10 selling items, followed by Wes Welker.”

• Women’s merchandise account for seven of the top ten most popular Patriots’ items sold online. The most popular item is the “Reebok New England Patriots Tom Brady Premier Team Color Jersey,” with a women’s pink jersey, the “Reebok New England Patriots Tom Brady Women’s Pink Fem Fan Jersey” coming in a close second.

• Despite the usual outcry towards pink and sparkly sports wear for women, two of the top ten Patriots items on Nextag.com are pink female jerseys. Another two have rhinestone embellishment and are in fabric and prints exclusive to women’s styles.

Big thanks to Nextag.com for sharing this data with sportswear geek me. What will I be wearing to the Super Bowl Party I’m working Sunday? Not anything Brady, but not anything Manning either. I’ll be wearing a very special outfit that will represent the two teams that would have made the Big Game…if the AFC and NFC determined their representatives based solely on the first four weeks of the season. I promise to post a photo sometime Sunday on my Twitter feed.

We’ve seen tons of stories throughout the years of athletes persevering through injury or illness to play in the most important game, meet or match of their lives, and many of them have been in the Super Bowl. In a well-done marketing move, the marketing team behind Vicks created the following info-graphic about not letting anything derail you from playing in, attending or watching the game, as well as the best NFL stories that have the healing quality of a good bowl of chicken soup.

It even gives a shout-out for one of the only New England Patriots I can root for, fellow Western New Yorker Rob Gronkowski. A recent fan survey pointed to him as the best example of the Vicks slogan, “In the NFL, there are no sick days.”

(I’m a sucker for info-graphics, what can I say?

I eventually grew up, traveled much more, even lived in a hotel for a year and a half (overflow housing at Binghamton), and realized that beloved Walden Galleria hotel was just a chain. A clean chain, a safe chain, a very nice hotel for a 14 year old on a Girl Scout trip to a large regional mall, but still…a chain.

So part of me was taken aback when Tom Brady may have taken a swipe at Buffalo hotels in a Super Bowl press conference on Wednesday. You don’t like Buffalo hotels? You specifically felt the need to call out Buffalo hotels? I’m sorry that the Rust Belt-but-still-surviving city of Buffalo doesn’t suit the taste of you, your Brazilian supermodel wife and your two small children who honestly just get excited to go swim in a hotel pool regardless of its Triple A star status.

Then the more rational, less defensive, and Boston conditioned side of me took over. He may have a point. Brady only sees Buffalo and the surrounding area during its coldest and grayest months. He’s not spending long periods of time there (unless he gets snowbound in the Hyatt in Rochester after the World Junior Hockey Championships prevent him and his teammates from lodging in Buffalo.) And the hotels around Orchard Park, much like the hotels around Brady’s home stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts, are like the ones near the Walden Galleria: generic chains or sketchy motor inns best suited for home hair dyed hookers. (Nothing against home hair dye.)

Maybe it was not the best statement to make in public. Maybe he should have picked on Green Bay. (They’re small market too. They just…market their quaintness and sausages better?) But in the grand scheme of awful remarks to make, Brady’s jab ranks pretty low.

(I wrote this post Wednesday evening, before Tim Graham of the Buffalo News summed up Brady’s remarks and Buffalo’s knee jerk reaction perfectly Thursday morning. Read his column here. Brady isn’t the first athlete to bash Buffalo’s tourism, and most likely will not be the last.)

Another note: if any Western New Yorker uses this as an excuse to root for the Giants, I will…shake my head disappointingly (I’m not good with threats.) The Giants are not New York’s horse in this race; they are New Jersey’s. They are just as inherently unlikable as the Patriots. Remember the poorly officiated and entirely devastating Super Bowl XXV? Why would you even consider rooting for the team that caused Bills fans so much heartache twenty-one years ago?

After reviewing the press conference transcript, I decided to decipher Belichick’s statements, and translate them into what he really wanted to say about the Bills.

Belichick said: “Chan [Gailey] and his staff have done a real good job with that team.”

What he meant: ”At least Gailey has kept his job, despite an inability to make smart decisions in the red zone for the last half of the season. He’s done better than, say, Todd Haley. So there’s that.”

Belichick said: “They do a lot of things well; they’re not penalized much.”

What he meant: “The Bills may not be penalized much, but they also make brainless mistakes and mismanage the clock. The way Ryan Fitzpatrick has handled the play clock in the last few games, you would think he never played with one in the Ivy League. So what’s worse?

“And when I say they do a lot of things well, I mean their owners haven’t drawn the intense ire of their stadium’s neighbors by trying to build a Las Vegas style casino on a stretch of road where the traffic resembles sausage being pressured into casing. So there’s that. Oh, and I guess you could give them some credit for those new uniforms. So yes, they do a lot of things well.”

Belichick said: “You have to play good football against them, obviously a lot better than we played the last time. Hopefully we’ll be able to do that but it’s not easy.”

What he meant: “You have to not have a horrific record setting yard allowing defense against the Bills. Then again, that’s the same for every team we’ve played this season. Controlling the inabilities of our defense will be key not just for this week against the potential spoiler Bills, but in the playoffs. Some question our defensive leadership and coaching, but here’s a fun note about my defensive staff: if you add up the ages of the two coaches realistically in charge of the defense – Matt Patricia and Josh Boyer – they are still roughly thirty years younger than Ralph Wilson and Marv Levy.

“But our defense can allow all the yards they want – unless Gailey uses a back besides Tashard Choice in the red zone on Sunday, our questionable defense may be able to keep the Bills at bay.”

Belichick said: “They do a lot of things well; return the ball well. ”

What he meant: “They did a lot of things well, until 17 of them ended up on the injured reserve and they subsequently tanked the rest of the season. I mentioned returning the ball well because it was the only thing I could think of to praise them on. In reality, the Bills only have one return touchdown this year, and rank 22nd in the league in that category. But they are better than we are – my Patriots are a dour 29th.”

————
Buffalo Bills fans aren’t taking Sunday’s matchup against the Patriots lightly. Northtown Automotive, the “official car dealer of the Buffalo Bills”, posted this as their weekend billboard in Buffalo.

The Northtown Automotive billboard for NFL Week 17. (From the Buffalo Bills Twitter account)

I’ll be in the Gillette Stadium crowd on Sunday afternoon, wearing Bills gear and holding my breath. I probably won’t be Tweeting (see my Gillette Stadium guide from earlier this week for why), but I’m sure I’ll share my thoughts as soon as I am able.

First off, we had Buffalo Bills punter Brian Moorman’s athletic jump of celebration onto the shoulders of kicker Rian Lindell after he kicked the game winning field goal to give the Bills their first win over the Patriots since my first week of classes in my senior year of college (2003.) Sure, the hurdle onto Lindell was a tad on the awkward side, but I assume emotions just got the best of Moorman. After all, both players were on that 2003 team, and have experienced the frustration of the Bills against the Patriots first hand.

Brian Moorman and Rian Lindell celebrate the Buffalo Bills win over the New England Patriots. (Photo: Yahoo! Sports)

Later in the day, we had the gutsy, “carry the team on my back” move by Red Sox 2nd baseman Dustin Pedroia as he tried valiantly to score against the Yankees. As he approached home, he saw Yankees catcher Austin Romine fumble the catch and he leapt over him to try to score the run.

Dustin Pedroia leaps over Austin Romine. (Photo: Yahoo! Sports)

Two games involving Boston teams, two giant leaps.

A sarcastically fun facet to being a Buffalo Bills fan living in Massachusetts? Every time the local TV stations have to find B-roll (the video footage that rolls while a reporter speaks over it) of a New England Patriots player, they use footage from a Bills-Patriots game.

Example: this morning, the local news I watch led off their broadcast with a story on Patriots safety Brandon Meriweather facing serious allegations regarding a fight at a party and a possible shooting. They used footage of Meriweather playing the Bills – which, granted was probably some of the only footage of him actually doing his job on defense. But still.

When Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was breaking out spastic moves that show he has no rhythm in South America this week, a station juxtaposed it with him throwing a touchdown…against the Bills. There are a ton of Brady touchdowns out there. He’s sort of the reigning NFL MVP. But no. They had to use the Bills footage.

I get it. The two AFC East foes play each other twice a year. There is a lot of footage to be had, especially footage in the Patriots favor. But come on. It’s becoming like the never-ending joke on Geico commercials, where the caveman is faced with the stereotype that cavemen are idiots at every turn. Bills fans in Boston have to face the idea that their team pales in comparison to the superior Patriots endlessly and at the most unexpected of moments. I wake up this morning not even thinking about football, sit up in my bed, turn on the morning news and…look! The Bills blew that coverage again. The Patriots intercepted the Bills. Ugh. This is why we can’t have nice things.

Really. All I wanted to see was the weather.

The man in front of me has a Verizon Mi-Fi card. I have been staring at this card and his MacBook for three straight hours, as he command-1-2-3s from Gmail to TweetDeck to Excel, and my iPhone and Mac keeps telling me, “Hey, there’s internet right in front of you – but it’s password protected. Haha!”

Mean, Mi-Fi. Mean, mean, mean Mi-Fi.

I’ve written one article – a piece for the Brookline Patch about the birth of Skating magazine – because all of the sources were hard copy Skating magazines from two years ago, along with one email from Ben Wright (someone I never in my life ever thought would email wanna-be journalist me, but there it was, Sunday morning in my inbox…ask my husband, I fell over in my chair) that I was able to bring up on my phone.

But can I post this piece and assure my editor that it’s done? No, because Amtrak doesn’t offer internet. Greyhound, of all means of transportation, now offers internet, but Amtrak can’t. And because I’m too chicken to ask the man in front of me for access to his Mi-Fi in exchange for five bucks. (Yes, I’m willing to pay at this point.)

There he goes again. Command 1. Command 2. TweetDeck, Excel, GMail. Mean Mi-Fi.

So while he justly hogs his internet, here are some sports related thoughts:

- Despite all of the proclamation that New England Patriots WR Wes Welker is healthy from his MCL/ACL tear, I’m concerned about his possible overcompensation on other joints, which could lead to another injury if he revs back to 100% immediately. Remember that Tom Brady’s tear was preceded to a summer of foot and ankle problems that would lead to him relying on other portions of his legs to pick up additional work – a trait true of any injury. In order to get back faster, you over compensate with other joints what that injured joint, tendon, bone, whatever was slated to do.

Thus, Welker has to get to the point where that injured leg is doing exactly what it was before – and that the non-injured leg isn’t picking up more than it’s usual share of the work. Then he’ll be truly back.

- Sadly but not completely unexpectedly, the National Lacrosse League’s Orlando Titans have closed up shop while they work out ownership issues, aka The Curse of Steve Donner. But the Boston Blazers were able to benefit by picking up well-known laxer Casey Powell. With the Blazers on the last year of their initial three year agreement with the TD Garden and with a city starting to latch onto the sport hard-core, the addition of Powell’s talent could be just the pebble to push it over the edge. With the Boston Cannons the top seed in the MLL Championships and the Blazers now with all the pieces to make a hard-core run this winter, Boston could finally be ready to accept lacrosse completely as a major sport.

- Dear Gwinnett Gladiators: Where are you? What’s going on? Why haven’t you signed anyone in a while? Are you okay? Are you in limbo because of the Syracuse Crunch’s new affiliation? Say something, anything? Did those evil Florida Everblades kidnap you and have you tied up in a closet? Love, Your Concerned Fan in Mass.

Not an iced coffee, but an example of how much both my cat and I run on Dunkin'. And why it's weird to go in there as a Bills fan.

Sunday morning, I woke up earlier than usual, and decided to take advantage of this extra time and do laundry. I got ready, threw on my Buffalo Bills sweatshirt, Bills earrings and jeans, and beat the crowd to my local Allston laundromat by all of five minutes. I snapped up my three washers, started my laundry, and headed over to the Dunkin’ Donuts across the street. This is the DD’s where one of the employee’s routinely refers to me as “Ms. Cinna-mina-mon”, after the morning I was more dead to the world than usual and couldn’t say cinnamon to save my life. (Because I live on a small cinnamon iced coffee with cream and sugar. If this is not drank in the morning, than my day will be largely unsuccessful.)

Being 8am on a Sunday morning in Allston, Massachusetts (aka college party central of America), my usual swamped Dunkin’ Donuts was dead. One person in front of me getting a Coolata, one person at the doggie window getting something equally as complicated, so my Bills clad self waiting patiently in line, ready to order my iced cinnamon when it was my turn.

Someone else entered the Dunkin’ Donuts and got in line next to me. He cleared his throat and then stifled a laugh. I snuck a glance. This young man was wearing a new but fashionably antique-y looking Pat-the-Patriot-sporting New England Patriots sweatshirt.

I snapped my head back just as it was my turn to order.

“May I please have a small iced cinnamon coffee with cream and sugar?” The worker went on her way to prepare my coffee, and I moved down to the cash register.

The worker that had been helping the customer at the doggie window came back to the main cash register, turned to Pat-the-Patriot, and asked, “How can I help you?” He ordered a medium coffee of some sort, but while he was saying his order, she looked at me. Then looked back at him. Then looked at me again. Then Pat-the-Patriot looked at me. Feeling stared at, I looked at them.

The Dunkin’ Donuts worker, a young girl who is friendly with everyone that has ever walked into that store, pouted in my direction. “I’m so sorry,” she said, hurrying off to get Pat-the-Patriot’s coffee.

I looked down at my Bills sweatshirt. “Oh,” I said. “That.”

Pat-the-Patriot nodded.

I thought about a smart comeback, but it was 8am on a Sunday and I had not yet had coffee. I couldn’t think of anything quick enough. Luckily, my coffee was ready, I paid my worker – who didn’t give me two glances, because she sees me a good four times a week, and grabbed a straw and was on my way.

Being a fan of a team other than the home team – especially when said team is more unlucky than Brian Urlacher trying to play an entire season – is a never-ending study in sociology. As long as I choose to wear Bills wear outside my own home, I’ll experience these uneasy interactions.

******

Quotes actually said to me this week from friends, colleagues and family who know I’m a Bills fan:

“After that fumble, I immediately thought of you and laughed.” – a colleague

“Hi, how are you? Are you…okay?” – my future mother-in-law

“Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.” – a comment on my Facebook wall

“Being a Bills fan must be like getting up in the middle of February, looking out the window to find a freak snowstorm, knowing you still have to go to work, and not having your car start. Every single day.” – a local news anchor on Tuesday morning.

Dan Marino was both loved and hated in my household growing up.

Picture my family’s house in 1993 – which, if you know the house I grew up in, is easy to do, because it is a complete and total shack that you don’t know how people live in it, let alone how it’s still standing – and the characters inside. My mom, the Jim Kelly devotee; my little sister, the Dolphins fan because she liked aquatic animals at the time; me, the Steve Young obsessed 49ers fan; and my dad, amused that he lived with three women obsessed with professional football, although it was all his fault that we did. (My little brother wasn’t born yet.)

On that Sunday afternoon, I believe we had just watched a Bills 1pm loss, and my mother was livid. The Dolphins were up with a 4pm game against the Browns, and my sister had brought her stuffed animals out into the living room so that she could play with them while watching the game.

My mother stepped down into the kitchen from the living room, and I was sitting on the arm of the couch. She turned to me and, in her unmistakable Canadian accent (which comes out in all Rochestarians when they’re either excited or angry), said, “I guess all I can wish for is for Dan Marino to get hurt. If he got hurt, and was out for the season. That’s the only way this is going to end well.” She then turned and went into the kitchen to do dishes.

My dad and I sat on the couch, while Megan sat on the floor in her little Dolphins sweatshirt that my Uncle (a Jets fan – talk about a family with schizophrenic team allegiances) had given her. We were all barely paying attention to the game – I was watching while doing homework on my lap, I believe my dad may have been reading Issac Asimov, and my sister, never one to pay attention to any sport on TV despite her amazing athletic ability, was playing with the before-assembled stuffed animals.

“And Marino is down.”

All of our heads snapped up and looked at the TV. Dan Marino was on the turf, in obvious pain. Withering not unlike Brady did this past Sunday afternoon, there was no doubt in our minds that Marino had suffered a serious injury.

My dad and I were quiet, until I realized that the water in the kitchen was still running. “Mom…” I called.

My mother turned off the water and came over to the living room with her dish rag in hand. “Yes?”

I gestured to the television set. “You wanted Dan Marino to go away?”

My mom looked at Marino being helped off the field. She was silent for a moment, and then turned to me. “Oops…I didn’t mean to hurt him. I didn’t know I had that kind of power.” And with that, my mom scurried off to finish the dishes.

“Mom, did you hurt Dan Marino?” called out Megan.

“I didn’t mean to!” yelled my mother from the kitchen.

My sister gasped with drama befitting of a seven year old.  “But I lllll-i-i-ike the Dolphins!”

“I am not a witch! I did not hurt your quarterback!” Mom called back, while she continued to wash the dishes.

Megan pouted, grabbed the stuffed polar bears and seals, and stormed off into our bedroom.  And with that, Megan was done with football. Her tenuous like of the sport faded away. To this day, the only football she ever watches is the Super Bowl, and only because everyone around her is watching it and/or because she’s working at the pizza place that evening and has to time orders to halftime. (Insert gratuitous plug for Pontillo’s Pizza in Rochester, NY here.)

While my mother does consider Halloween her favorite holiday and Salem, Massachusetts a cool place to visit the rare times she gets to visit me, I highly doubt that she is any type of witch or spellcaster. But the timing of her comment and Marino’s injury was uncanny. So when I was speaking to my dad on the phone a few weeks ago and forecast that either Brady or Randy Moss would be hampered by a serious injury this season, he recalled my mother’s comment. “You aren’t going to do what your mom did to Dan Marino, are you?”

I laughed. “Of course not, Dad. As much as the Pats annoy me, Brady’s too hot. I couldn’t do it to him.”

Fast-forward to Wednesday evening. My father calls. “I’ve been telling all the guys at the tool shop that you called it. My daughter called it. How did you know Brady was going to get hurt?”

“I have no idea, Dad.  He did miss the entire pre-season, and he’s thirty-one.  Something was bound to happen.  I just didn’t expect it in week one.”

“You didn’t say anything like your mom said about Marino, right?”

“No, Dad.” I reassured him.  “Of course not.” And we continued on about the Bills supreme performance against the Seahawks, and how we hadn’t seen the team look that dominating in years.  It was like watching another team.

Before we hung up, my dad asked again, “You sure you didn’t say anything about Brady? Anything?”

“No, Dad, we aren’t quarterback witches.  If I was, wouldn’t I have said something about Troy Aikman for like six years back in the 1990s?”

“Very, very true.”

Sad, Pats fans? Forget about Brady, and come join Robert Royal and the best fans in football.

I can’t believe it.  I just heard Cris Collinsworth say he “now likes Buffalo in the AFC East this season.”

What the littlest tap on a shin can do to an entire NFL division.  After the absolutely wimpiest knock on a leg since my little brother ran into my leg with his Big Wheels when he was three years old, the entire AFC East, and to some extent, the entire NFL, seems to be turned on its head.  Tom Brady is injured, the Patriots don’t have the dominant defense they once did (thanks free agency and old age), and thus this marks the end of the world.  Well, maybe not, but you would think it was the way the local Boston stations are covering Brady’s injury as I type.  “A disapointing start to what was to be another dream season for the Patriots,” led off Channel 7′s late news.  Wow, Channel 7, I didn’t know that the season’s result was predetermined.  Usually a team has to play games to determine if a season is a “dream season.”

Now Channel 7 has opened a viewer poll asking if the hit on Brady was a dirty hit.  It was according to half the guys in the sports bar where I was watching the game this afternoon and some of the Pats players.  I massively disagree.  It wasn’t a dirty hit.  If you would like to see some dirty hits, why don’t you watch some of the hits the Pats defense routinely puts on opposing quarterbacks?  Those hits that don’t ever seem to get called, because the Pats bring in way too much advertising and promotional item money for the NFL for them ever to be penalized.  It was a fair hit on Brady, and I’m sorry he got injured.  But Brady wasn’t going to be infallible forever.  As I said a few days ago, either Moss or Brady was going to go down this year.  They are too old and have gone too long without a major injury not to have something like this occur.

Two of my three stars of the Bills-Seahawks game - Brian Moorman and Rian Lindell.

Because of Brady’s injury, the steamrolling the Bills did over the Seahawks this afternoon is being overlooked as much as teenage me was by guys.  I ventured out to a local sports bar with NFL Sunday Ticket to watch the slate of 1pm games this afternoon, meaning I actually got to see the Bills game.  As usual, I was the only Bills fan in the room – there were quite a few Eagles, Dolphins, Jets and Steelers fans there.  As always, the Bills held true to Marv Levy’s mantra that special teams can be the key to winning a football game, as demonstrated by the stellar performances of Roscoe Parrish, Brian Moorman and Rian Lindell, my three stars of the game.  (On a random note, is anyone else as intrigued with the name Rian as I am?  Why isn’t this name as popular as Aiden and Connor?  I don’t get it.  It’s Irish, has a unique spelling – don’t those two qualities define half of the top baby names these days?)  The defensive unit kept Seattle from converting third downs, and made Matt Hasselbeck’s afternoon miserable.  Trent Edwards looked shaky and nervous through the first quarter, but settled down soon afterwards. It’s obvious that he works much better with his offensive line then JP Losman ever did. My only concern is his timing in the pocket – he overthrew or kept the ball too long a handful of times this afternoon.

I am always proud and impressed with the level of dedication of Bills fans.  At the end of the first quarter, the skies in Buffalo opened up, and it appeared that sheets of rain were falling down upon Orchard Park.  The majority of fans stayed glued in their seats – not budging, not heading for the concourse.  They stayed and celebrated everytime the Bills scored.  High-fiving, body slams, player leaps, screaming – it was wonderful!  The sound of the game wasn’t on at the bar, but you didn’t need to hear the noise to know the level of excitement in Ralph C. Wilson Stadium today.

Unlike Cris Collinsworth, I am not ready to declare the Bills AFC East Champions just yet.  I think the Jets are going to get better as Favre gets more acquainted with his receiving corps.  I think the Dolphins will have an improved running game, and that will make them a threat all season long.  And I know – unfortunately – the Patriots will never go away.  But they will be muted, muffled, and not the dominant force of previous years.  And that’s good news for us Bills, Jets, or Dolphins fans.