You're completely wrong about everything because you overvalue the importance of a time out.

At the end of a game, three time outs = one first down by the opposing offense. Since the Colts seemed to be able to pick up first downs more than half the time when they wanted to, I see no justification for hoarding timeouts. Did we not all see the difficulties that the Pats' secondary had covering Reggie Wayne, Anthony Gonzalez, and Dallas Clark?

The challenge was simply bad luck. Belichick saw that the Pats had snapped the ball before one of the defenders running off the field had made it to the sideline. What he didn't know, and had no reason to expect would be true, was that this defender was the 11th, not the 12th. And why would anybody think that Indy was trying their best to keep only 10 defenders on the field?

The claim that Cassel should have taken a 5-yard penalty rather than take a time out shows that your priorities are really out of whack. It is utterly routine to take a time out rather than a 5-yard penalty. Offenses are trying to gain yardage, not lose it after all.

I agree with the general sentiment about the third time out: Belichick should have picked the FG or the short-yardage play and stuck with the choice. But I don't think one extra time out would have made the difference at the end.

Far more costly than the lack of time outs were

a) Jabar Gaffney dropping a TD pass that hit his hands perfectly

b) David Thomas getting a killer personal foul penalty that created the 4th and long at the end of the game.

When Matt Cassel is your QB, you don't hoard time outs in the hope that he'll be able to use them efficiently to run a 2-minute drill at the end of the game. We have no reason to believe Cassel can run a 2-minute drill at all. He is a below-average starting QB, and that's something the coaching staff has to keep in mind at all times.

She seems to have no grasp of the concept that her job as Ombudsman is nominally supposed to have zero interest in the circulation figures of the Post. Naturally, the inappropriateness of her remarks is matched by the amateurishness of her analysis.

Her tenure as the Post ombudsman has been consistently disastrous.

Her predecessor, Michael Getler, did a consistently good job during his tenure. He would repeatedly show how the Post's reporting would implicate the inappropriate pro-Bush bias of many on the Post payroll. Indeed, he seemed quite concerned with the notion that articles in the Post be supported by facts and standards of journalism.

Naturally, his competence tended to make conservative leaders look incompetent and dishonest. That's because said leaders were incompetent and dishonest. So the Post had to replace Getler with somebody who is saturated in right-wing bias as a replacement.

You don't "regain" the five yards from a penalty. They are gone forever.

It's like - if you are gambling, and you lose $20, and then you win $30. You are then up $10. Had you not first lost $20, you would be up $30 instead.

First downs are not so easy to make. Yesterday the Pats made 22 and the Colts made 18 in a 60-minute game. Even a five yard penalty mades it considerably harder to get a first down.

From what King writes, you would think it is easy to get five yards whenever you want. It's hard to reconcile that confidence with a Pats' offense that only scored 1 TD all day.

As often is the case with the Pats, it is instructive to look at what Coach Belichick thinks cost them the game. He's pointed out that the Pats were only 1/4 in converting Red Zone opportunities into TDs. The Colts, OTOH, were 2/2. On a day where most of the other stats were even, or slightly favored the Pats, the Red Zone success was what decided the game.

But it's cool to feel smarter than Belichick, so I can see why there has been a lot of obsessions about the timeouts today.

Obama doesn't need to "reach out to moderates". He is one himself.

I think it's high time to start a push back against the idea that Rush Limbaugh and George W. Bush represent the political "center" of the US. They never did.

He always seemed like a likeable guy before he decided to follow W's poisonous path to appeal to the hard-right wing of his party. His concession speech was eloquent and heartfelt. I had to ask myself - where was this guy for the past year???

But of course that eloquent and sensitive guy would never have won the nomination. I wonder if the GOP will purge itself of the rotten branch of the party.

Suggest they start with the Palin supporters.

Heather, you realize that the Boomers are the ones who have actually been running things for the past fifteen years, right?

The hippie crowd was never more than a small minority of the Baby Boom.