On his show today on ESPN 890 Mike Felger asked New England Patriots left tackle Matt Light about the team’s zone blocking scheme, or perhaps more accurately, he asked him to what extent it is zone blocking. In true Patriots fashion Light deflected the question by asking Felger about his view on what zone blocking is. Felger opted for the common explanation that in a zone blocking scheme the offensive linemen try to stretch the play outside by, as he put it, meandering outside to make blocks and have the runningback read and hit a gap as he pleases. Light didn’t exactly dispute that description but he strongly objected to Felger’s choice of words: “If you ever use the words meander and block in the same [sentence]” were Light’s specific words.

Apart from the meandering I suppose Felger’s description of zone blocking is more or less accurate. I don’t really know. I’ve heard and read all kinds of descriptions of what zone blocking is including a couple that in my opinion are contradictory.

One easy way to explain zone blocking is to say “it is what the Broncos do.” I don’t necessarily buy that. I mean, yes, they zone block, I guess, but one thing that sets them apart from what the Patriots do is that the Broncos use that dirty double-team block where the back-side offensive lineman cut-blocks the defensive lineman they’re blocking a split second after the play-side offensive lineman releases to block a linebacker or a safety. The Broncos offensive line is schematically less than half-a-second away from a chop block on most plays (chop blocks are illegal because they are considered substantially more likely to cause injuries than other most other forms of blocking). I’ve seen the Patriots do that only once this year (Billy Yates against San Diego Chargers in the second week of the season) and I hope I won’t see it again. I’m all for cut blocks but I really don’t care for chop blocks and near chop blocks.

By and large, it seems to me that the Patriots have used zone-ish blocking schemes with tackles and center Dan Koppen frequently pulling against 3-4 defenses (New York Jets and San Diego Chargers) and old-fashioned traps with pulling guards against 4-3 defenses. That’s not to say they don’t run traps against the 3-4: Yates got hurt when running a trap against the Chargers.

As Light pointed out, the blocking scheme for any given game doesn’t just depend on the formation the opposing defense favors but also its front-seven personnel. Pounding the Bills inside the tackles made a lot of sense since they have a fast but fairly light front-seven. Trying to out-flank the Chargers with zone blocking made sense since the Chargers have big guys who aren’t as easily out muscled.

For the record, I still miss the off-tackle Power-I they ran last year with so much success. This season the Patriots have used the same formation, but with sub-optimal personnel groupings and play calling. Maybe it will come back if tight end David Thomas gets healthier.

By the way, as he mentioned during the interview, Light is from Greenville, Ohio, which is pretty much just across the border from my wife’s hometown Richmond in Indiana. She actually has a few relatives up Greenville way. Serious hick country, that whole border area, just a stone’s throw north of hillbillies who cook moonshine in hollers in Kentucky. I love it. If you want to visit the area I recommend Hueston Woods outside of Oxford, Ohio, home of Miami University.

(Hey, Felger, thanks for the directions to your Back Bay parking spots!)

Boston Business Journal doesn’t want Massachusetts to license three casinos to operate in the state:

As a matter of economic policy, expanded gambling is a non-starter. The commonwealth stands to skim $600 million off the top in licensing fees, one-time revenue that quickly becomes lost when it gets absorbed into $26.8 billion budget. Then it expects $400 million per year in additional tax revenue. But has anyone counted the taxes it won’t take in when $1.5 billion — the amount gamblers will need to spend in the state annually to raise the tax expected tax revenues — is sucked out of the local economy?

That’s some odd reasoning. A one-time take-home of $600 million and an annual revenue stream of $400 will “quickly become lost” when “absorbed into [the state's] $26.8 billion budget,” while $1.5 billion will be “sucked out of sucked out of the local economy?”

Those $400 million are 1.5% of the state budget. Those $1.5 billion are less than 0.5% of the state’s gross domestic product (based on a Bureau of Economic Analysis estimate that puts Massachusetts 2006 GDP at $337.6 billion). It should be noted $500 million of the $1.5 billion is expected (or hoped) to be money re-directed from tribal casinos in Connecticut, so we’re really talking about $1 billion, not $1.5 billion, that will be “sucked out of the local economy.”

Please note that the Governor plans to skim more than a quarter of the casino revenue, while the state budget is about 8% of the state GDP. If the Journal can think of a way to raise state revenue at a greater margin without hurting the basic functionality of the economy I’d be happy to hear about it.

The best solution would of course be to shut down tribal gambling all across America, but the U.S. Cavalry has apparently stopped answering the phone.

New England Patriots shook off a sloppy opening quarter to soundly beat Buffalo Bills 38-7.

An illustration of Patriots’ schematic superiority occurred on a 3rd & 5 situation in the fourth quarter, with the Patriots up 31-7. New England went with a shotgun spread formation, with wide receiver Wes Welker in the slot right. Bills quite reasonably loaded up with a blitz but inexplicably had an inside linebacker try to cover Welker while the safety who momentarily lined up over Welker blitzed off the edge. Get the picture: The Bills tried to cover one of the quickest players on the field with a linebacker who started the play at the line of scrimmage, in the gap between the right guard and the center. Welker ran a little short out, got the pass from New England Patriots quarterback Brady and turned upfield for a gain of nine and an easy first down. The Patriots went on to score on the drive. And yes, right tackle Nick Kaczur picked up the blitzing safety with ease.

A 1st & 10 play later in the quarter when Buffalo had the ball illustrated the Patriots’ personnel superiority. Inside linebacker Junior Seau was up on the line of scrimmage, showing every sign of blitzing, in the gap between the right guard and the right tackle. The positioning of the tackle rather clearly indicated that he ws locked in on Patriots’ left end, making it the responsibility of Buffalo’s lone runningback - rookie Marshawn Lynch, I believe, to handle Seau. Instead, the rookie turned outside to help the tackle, giving Seau a clear path at Bills quarterback who had to throw the ball away. Recall the tremendous blitz pick-up Patriots runningback Kevin Faulk made against San Diego a week earlier in a similar situation.

New England used its third starting offensive line combination of the season: Left tackle Matt Light, left guard Logan Mankins, center Dan Koppen, right guard Russ Hochstein, and right tackle Nick Kaczur. Hochstein filled in for the injured Stephen Neal. Last week Billy Yates started for Neal, with Hochstein taking some a few snaps throughout the game and then bunch of them after Yates had to leave the game with an injury. I don’t know if head coach Bill Belichick felt Yates was too banged up start today or if Hochstein was the better of the two in the last game, against San Diego, or if his style is simply better suited for taking on the Buffalo Bills.

Bills play a 4-3 defense with an aggressive defensive line. Patriots countered by running a lot of trap plays where either of the guards pulled inside, usually to take on linebacker. Mankins and Hochstein both had a field day tracking down and roughing up Bills defensive players. Things got so out of hand that even fullback Heath Evans picked up nine yards running behind Mankins from Patriots’ one-yard line.

The Patriots generally used a more traditional style of blocking than the fruity zone blocking they employed against New York Jets and San Diego Chargers. Patriots linemen did a good job of sometimes peeling off double-team blocks to pickup a linebacker trying to fill gap, sometimes maintaining double-team blocks that pushed defensive linemen well off of the line of scrimmage.

I think Maroney benefited from the more direct style of attack. Rather than having to read for a gap, Maroney pretty much just had to follow either Hochstein or Mankins to daylight and that seemed to suit him just fine.

Back-up tackle Ryan O’Callaghan took a couple of snaps at tight end but didn’t get into rhythm.

On Patriots’ second drive in the second half Mankins had to abort his pull right when tight Kyle Brady (it could have been David Thomas, but I’m pretty sure it was Brady) uncharacteristically whiffed a block on the Bills’ left defensive end. Mankins made a heads up play engaging the end while linebacker he was probably intending to block, Angelo Crowell, (who had long afternoon) missed the tackle.

The match-up between Light and Buffalo defensive end Aaron Schobel got quite a bit of attention before the game, which was only natural since Schobel is very good and Light has at times struggled against him. This time around Light won, and he won big. You’ll probably hear a lot of people tell you that Light got a lot of help from tight ends and runningbacks, but that’s simply not true. Light went one on one against Schobel almost the entire game and he won virtually every time. Schobel did get half-a-sack on a play-action near the goal line on the play before Gaffney’s touchdown. That was pretty much Schobel’s lone shining moment.

The Patriots were quite sloppy in the first quarter. In spite of getting the ball on Buffalo’s 35-yard line after the defense had recovered a fumble by Bills starting quarterback JP Losman forced by a sneaky Ellis Hobbs on a blindside corner blitz, the offense failed to score a touchdown. On 1st & Goal from the seven yard line Kaczur failed to block a defensive end who looped inside, resulting in runningback Laurence Maroney getting stopped for a loss of one. On second down Brady didn’t see an open Welker and instead threw an incompletion intended for wide receiver Jabar Gaffney, who was pretty well-covered on the play. On third down Brady failed to connect with the also covered wide receiver Randy Moss. Field goal kicker Stephen Gostkowski

Kaczur made a note-worthy play on drive in the second quarter that ended with a fumble by Brady on Buffalo’s one-yard line. On the fifth play of the drive Brady hit wide receiver Donte Stallworth for a gain of 28 yards off a play action fake. Maroney did a good job picking up a blitzing defensive back, and Kaczur did a nifty job of first blocking down to the inside, then quickly shuffle right to block a blitzing linebacker. Kaczur gave him a good push and then stayed on him enough to keep Brady from getting sacked.

Patriots scoring plays:

1) On 2nd & goal from Buffalo’s 8, tightend Ben Watson ran a simple short out, got the ball from Brady and turned upfield for the score that put Patriots ahead for good, 10-7. Buffalo linebacker Angelo Crowell was caught looking into the backfield, lost track of Watson

2) Brady fired perfect strike right to a slanting Randy Moss who was covered man-to-man. Moss caught the ball cleanly for a three-yard touchdown to put New England up 17-7. The Bills gambled with an all-out blitz that was picked up by the blockers. The touchdown capped a six-play 48-yard drive. The key play on the drive was a 20 yard pass over the middle to tightend Kyle Brady. The play preceding the touchdown was a spectacularly failed off-tckle right where fullback Heath Evans was dropped for a loss of one. For whatever Kazcur more or less tackle tightend Brady rather than blocking a Bill, leaving gap for Bills linebacker DiGiorgio to shoot through and tackle Evans.

3) Brady hit a wide open Jabar Gaffney in the end zone for a four yard touchdown, making the score 24-7. The key play on the drive was a 45 yard bomb to Moss that moved the ball to Buffalo’s 23-yard line.

4) Sammy Morris banged the ball into the endzone from four yards out to mke the score 31-7. The run was set-up by a play that Belichick probably doesn’t cre too much for: Brady fired a pass over the middle to Welker, who, after getting corralled at the end of a 26-yard gain, lateraled the ball to Moss who advanced it another 11 yards before getting pushed out of bounds.

5) New England’s last score was a beauty. On 2nd and inches Brady rainbowed a pass down the right sideline where Moss hauled it in and sprinted into the end zone. 38-7.

Stats fest:

Brady completed 23 of 29 passes for 311 yards, four touchdowns and no interception.

Moss had 5 catches for 115 yards and two touchdowns.

Welker had 6 catches for 69 yards.

Maroney ran 19 times for 103 yards, Morris 12 times for 46 yards.

I predicted that New England Patriots late round 2007 draft picks Mike Elgin and Clint Oldenburg would end up on practice squads this season, I just didn’t think that they both would be snagged by the poorly coached New York Jets after getting dumped by the Patriots. But that’s what’s happened. Elgin was added to the Jets practice squad only couple of days after the September 2 training camp roster reduction. On September 20, Jets added Oldenburg as well. Oldenburg is bigger of the two, but Elgin has good skills. Both of them may have a shot at making the team’s 53-man roster next year, depending on how they progress and what kind of blocking schemes the Jets decide to use.

Below is a picture of Elign (#60) and Oldenburg (#76) as Patriots during a pre-season game. Oldenburg remains number 76 with the Jets, but Elgin has switched to #64.

On Friday’s episode of the podcast PFW In Progress Fred Kirsch reported that the National Football League sent out a memo on Thursday that in strict terms prohibit teams from having their cheerleaders warm up and stretch outside the visiting team locker room.

The tactic is “distracting and inappropriate and to be stopped immediately and teams will be monitored” according to Kirsch (I think he was more or less quoting the memo). Patriots Football Weekly scribe Tom Casale instantly recalled an anecdote about former Patriots wide receiver David Givens telling him how Redskins cheerleaders had been stretching in front of him and distracted him to the point where he couldn’t concentrate on what he was supposed to do last time Patriots played Washington down there. Patriots lost.

Kirsch denied that Patriots use their cheerleaders in that fashion.

Speaking of New England Patriots cheerleaders…

Correction to a post from Wednesday (yesterday) night: New England Patriots do have an offensive lineman on its practice squad, contrary to what I claimed. Dan Connolly was added to the squad on September 12. Connolly is listed as 6-4, 318. He entered the league in 2005 and was signed by Jacksonville Jaguars. He played tackle in college at Southeast Missouri State but was switched to guard by the Jaguars. He’s never started in the NFL but did play in four games in the 2005 season, including against the Patriots in an AFC Wild Card game at Gillette Stadium on January 7, 2006, when New England won, 28-3. Connolly spent the 2006 season on Injured Reserve. I assume Patriots beast of a tight end Kyle Brady, who played for the Jaguars 1999-2006, has vouched for Connolly.

New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick grew up at the U.S. Naval Academy, where his father was an assistant coach and scout for decades. Now, if Belichick were to run some kind of spy program, which he should and hopefully does, don’t you think he’d be more likely to model it after GRU, KGB, Mossad, Stasi or some other top notch intelligence service rather than President Richard Nixon’s Mickey Mouse operation? Yet one constantly runs into comparisons between Spygate and Watergate, and Belichick has frequently been described as some semi-deranged, paranoid, and, as they say, Nixonian character.

A proper comparison would be “Macaca,” the devastatingly effective video that a Democratic operative shot of a Republican candidate in Virginia last year, with the only difference that the NFL prohibits doing the kind of video taping Belichick did, presumably to offer the League’s dimmer bulbs - Edwards, Turner, Childress -some protection from the added pressure of having to code signals. But I guess if one has one’s head up one’s Beltway then everything is Watergate and “Nixonian.”

New England Patriots’ 2-0 start has provoked virtually insane conversations about the likelihood of Patriots going undefeated this season. I guess the reasoning is that since Patriots have won two big victories another 17 are practically in the bag already (Bill Belichick’s take: “That’s so ridiculous.”). I’d worry more about the next game, against Buffalo Bills, than about the team’s minute chances of going undefeated. Patriots have five interior offensive linemen on the 53-man roster: Dan Koppen, Stephen Neal, Logan Mankins, Billy Yates, and Russ Hochstein. Three of them - Neal, Hochstein, and Yates - have already lost playing and practice time because of injuries.

In the first game Patriots started tackles Matt Light and Nick Kaczur along with Mankins, Koppen and Neal. In the second game Yates replaced the injured Neal. Hochstein took some snaps and then finished the game after Yates left injured. There’s nobody on the team right now to step in after Yates and Hochstein. Brian Barthelmes is gone. Gene Mrczukowski is with Miami Dolphins. This year’s draft picks Mike Elgin, Clint Oldenburg, and Corey Hilliard (who all played tackle in college, although Oldenburg and Elgin got plenty of playing time during the preseason as interior linemen) have been cut and - let’s be honest here - none of them are nearly as good as Yates or Hochstein to begin with. There’s no offensive lineman on the practice squad [Actually, that's not true. Patriots added Dan Connolly on September 12. ]. I don’t think back-up tackle Wesley Britt has much if any experience playing interior lineman. The offensive linemen situation is not a crisis one going into the game against Buffalo, but all it takes is another man down and there you are. I don’t think Tom Brady will be throwing many touchdowns from behind, say, Chris Patrick.

I think the offensive line situation may already have affected Patriots’ play calling. I think back-up tackle O’Callaghan played fewer snaps as tight-end against San Diego than he did in the first week against the poorly coached New York Jets because of the overall injury situation on the offensive line. Not so much in the first half, where the game plan clearly was to spread out the Chargers and pick them apart, but perhaps in the second half, when it was more a matter of ball control and clock killing.

[The official NFL so-called game book for the September 9, 2007, game between New England Patriots and the poorly coached New York Jets undercounts the number of snaps O'Callaghan took as eligible receiver. Immediately after publishing this post I got this nagging feeling that maybe I was wrong about the number of offensive plays O'Callaghan was in on against the poorly coached New York Jets. When I looked it up the game book said two snaps, compared to eight against Chargers. Fortunately, I still have the Jets game on DVR, so I just manually counted the plays until I had tallied a number that corresponds with with my theory. I do it all for you, dear reader, all for you.]

Too bad for San Diego Chargers they don’t have NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell in their lineup, because he’s the only one so far this season who’s been able to put a dent in the New England Patriots.

The much anticipated game between San Diego Chargers and New England Patriots turned out to be a one-side affair. While the Chargers put up much of more of a fight in the trenches than the poorly coached New York Jets did a week earlier, it didn’t do them much good as New England abused Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers, and San Diego’s secondary, and runningback LaDanian Tomlinson, and Chargers coaching staff and everybody else associated with the Chargers.

Right guard Stephen Neal was out with an injury (supposedly a shoulder injury, but who knows) so highly capable back-ups Billy Yates and Russ Hochstein filled in, with Yates as the starter. The line wasn’t quite as tight against Chargers as it was against the poorly coached New York Jets, but then again the Jets aren’t nearly as good as the Chargers. New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady took shots from all directions, though really only once from each direction and he often got near-perfect protection and certainly got good enough protection enough times to pick apart San Diego’s secondary.

Both Jets and Chargers repeatedly saved themselves from giving up long runs to New England runningback Laurence Maroney by basically outrunning the blockers downfield and make tackles after 5-10 yard gains rather than getting beaten square at the line of scrimmage and potentially giving up the long run. If Light, Mankins, Koppen et al can hold their blocks for a little longer beyond five yards downfield Maroney will be able to break some long runs. Of course, as long as Light, Mankins, Koppen et al shove defenses five yards downfield Patriots won’t need any long runs. And keep in mind that a) the Chargers have a tough and talented front seven and b) the Patriots didn’t use back-up tackle Ryan O’Callaghan nearly as often as they did against the Jets.

Charger inside linebacker Stephen Cooper made an excellent play on an off-tackle right on 1&10 from San Diego’s 13 in the second quarter when he stopped Sammy Morris for a gain of two yards (a short two, if you ask me). Patriots offensive linemen and tightends were hat-on-hat, yet Cooper managed to slip through to make the tackle. How did he do it? Cooper, who was the backside inside linebacker on the play lined up close to the line of scrimmage and then tracked the play until he found Maroney’s gap, which he quickly stuffed. The playside inside and outside linebackers were well blocked and unable to help him. It was a solid play by Cooper and it illustrates the level of competition New England’s offensive linemen were up against.

It seems to me that Yates is a good deal better at run-blocking than pass protection, while left tackle Matt Light, left guard Logan Mankins, center Dan Koppen, right tackle Nick Kaczur, and Neal are all more or less equally good at both. That’s not to say Yates is bad at pass protection. If he were he would have been shipped out of town. But he does seem to have a run-pass skill gap and it will be interesting to see how that plays out over the season, if at all (having Yates on the field didn’t hamper the Patriots opening drive, which was no-huddle, spread-offense, all pass). I think Hochstein is a bit better at pass protection than run blocking.

Patriots made several really good and even great plays. Let’s start off with the scoring plays:

1) Tightend Ben Watson got wide open in the corner of San Diego’s end zone after wide receiver Randy Moss threw Chargers coverage scheme on the play into disarray simply by running a shallow crossing pattern. 7-0.

2) Wide receiver Randy Moss sliced open the seam in Chargers zone defense for a 23-yard touchdown pass from Brady. 14-0.

3) Inside linebacker Adalius Thomas picked off a short pass from Rivers on 3rd&1 intended for wide receiver Malcom Floyd and returned the ball 65 yards for a touchdown. As has been pointed out by just about everyone, hardly any of the Chargers made up any ground while chasing Thomas. Maybe Thomas really is that fast, maybe the Chargers just quit on that play. 24-0.

4) Moss’s second touchdown catch was quite similar to the first one in that Moss simply ran straight ahead, leaving the coverage eating dust. But while the first touchdown came down the right hashmark out of a spread shotgun formation at the end of a drive that until that point had used power formations and personnel, the second one came out of a power set with O’Callaghan, Brady and Watson lined up to the right and Moss split left. Moss sprinted down the sideline and for some reason the Chargers left him uncovered. 31-7

5) Sammy Morris skipped into the endzone over the backs of Light, Mankins and fullback Heath Evans who had driven their respective defenders into the ground. 38-14.

Now for the plays that stopped San Diego’s drives:

1) San Diego’s very first drive was stopped cold on the very first snap when Rosevelt Colvin picked off a Rivers pass.

2) San Diego’s second drive ended when Randall Gay wrapped up Chargers masterful tightend Antonio Gates a couple of yards shy of first down. Gay also had a nice pass break-up on the preceding play. On the third-down play, Colvin failed to bring down Gates with a no-arms missile-style tackle. That’s bad tackling in my book.

3) San Diego’s third drive was rolling along nicely until Colvin sacked and stripped Rivers and nose tackle Vince Wilfork recovered the loose ball.

4) San Diego’s fourth drive was stopped by back-up defensive lineman Santonio Thomas and safety James Sanders on 3rd&1. Thomas stood up and shed tightend Brandon Manumaleuna while the Chargers’ left offensive tackle had to block down on Thomas who was right up on the line of scrimmage.

5) San Diego’s fifth drive ended with Thomas’s pick. The play was set-up by magnificent pass coverage by cornerback Ellis Hobbs on first down and a combo tackle by Junior Seau and Eugene Wilson on Gates on second down.

6) San Diego’s sixth drive got off to a good start with Tomlinson carrying the ball but ended when a heavy pass rush forced Rivers to dump the ball to runningback Michael Turner who was brought down by a great open-field tackle by Sanders short of the first down. Rivers was almost sacked on the play by Warren who fought his way across the pocket from right to left - seen from Chargers’ perspective - before lunging at Rivers to force the dump off.

Chargers got their offense on track in the second half, scoring touchdowns on back to back possessions, bringing the score to 31-14. They put themselves in a position to make it a two-score after the forced and recovered a fumble by Hobbs on a kick-off return, but were shut down by Patriots’ pass rush. First Vrabel blew right through the generally ineffective Manumaleuna’s block to sack Rivers for a loss of ten yards, then Colvin sacked Rivers for another 10 yards and on 3rd & 30 Rivers half-heartedly threw the ball away as the screen play the Chargers were trying to set up was corralled even as it was developing.

Chargers’ last drive ended with Rivers underthrowing Tomlinson.

Then there was this grab bag of other plays:

- On Patriots opening drive Kevin Faulk made a crucial blitz-pick up when Yates stepped to his right and left a lane open for a Chargers pass rusher (the aforementioned Cooper). Faulk’s block gave Brady time to hit Wes Welker over the middle for 34 yards. That block illustrated three of Faulk’s qualities: His fine understanding of football, his quickness, and his blocking technique. Somewhat worryingly, Yates made an anemic and ineffective block against a delay blitz on the same play. I should stress that I don’t know who Yates should have blocked. It could be that he was supposed to help Kaczur. It just seems a bit odd that that would have been the case.

- On New England’s third drive Welker badly outfaked a Charger defender and raced ahead for a first down on 2nd & 15. The move was quite similar to one Welker made against the Jets, but that time three defenders quickly converged on him and closed all lanes. This time around Welker got an opportunity to go one-on-one and he took the ball to the sticks. He made the kind of play that will force opposing defensive coordinators to worry about how to cover and contain him.

- Welker made a slightly less spectacular but still quite nifty catch-move-and-run earlier that drive for 11 for yards. Welker ought to stop spiking the ball after every dadgum catch he makes, partly because it looks ridiculous and partly because he is going to draw a penalty sooner or later.

- Tightend Kyle Brady made a sweet block on Shawne Merriman on the backside of a running play. Merriman was trying to chase down the play but Brady, running alongside, lowered his shoulder and ploughed the San Diego linebacker into the dirt. Brady is a beast.

- Wide receiver Donte Stallworth showed good hands and toughness when he hung on to the ball for a first down in spite of getting nailed the moment he made the reception. He made a similar catch in the fourth quarter.

- Moss continued to show that he’s not only an almost uncoverable big-play receiver but also an excellent possession receiver.

- Maroney made a subtle move on a run in the fourth quarter that froze Cooper. It was first and ten from New England’s 35-yard line. Maroney took a step right, drawing Cooper out of position, then cut hard to the left tackle where Brady, Light, Mankins and a pulling Yates (who was injured on the play) opened up a huge gap. Maroney picked up 14 yards before Cooper brought him down.

- The problems that the offensive line had with looping pass rushers in the pre-season game against the Tennessee Titans resurfaced on the first play of New England’s fifth drive. Merriman looped from left outside in over the middle. Hochstein was engaged with Cooper while Koppen blocked nose tackle Jamal Lewis. Kaczur tried to follow Merriman but failed. Kaczur’s hunting Merriman also resulted in defensive end Otis Leverette breaking free from tight end Brady.

The funniest moment came in the fourth quarter when Kaczur viciously cut-block a whole lot of air. Don’t get me wrong, it was a good cut block, but the defensive end he was going after pulled back just as Kaczur went after him. I wouldn’t be surprised Kaczur’s belly flop will be played for laughs in the team’s offensive-line film sessions.

Some other notes:

- Patriots had Vrabel and Colvin switch sides frequently.

- Hochstein made some nice blocks on special teams and Eric Alexander logged a couple of tackles. The wedge on the opening kick-off return looked a little ragged though

- Colvin drew a delay of game penalty for trying to provoke an illegal procedure call.

- Light gave up a sack on the fourth drive. He was basically outrun to the outside.

- Merriman stopped Patriots’ fourth drive when he crashed in unblocked off New England’s left edge to tackle Morris for a loss on 3&2. It looked like he ran into an impregnable pile of Chargers, but it really was Merriman who made the stop.

- A key play on Chargers second scoring drive was a screen pass right to Turner. Linebackers Tedy Bruschi and Chad Brown were cut down by the screen, giving Turner a clear path to Patriots 13 yard line, from where Rivers hit Gates for a touchdown. I think the Patriots were expecting a screen pass on the touchdown play.

People who are “Not-Hispanic, White alone” (white, in other words) make up 50.2% of Boston’s population according to data from the 2006 American Community Survey that was released today by the United States Census Bureau.

For a background on the sheer madness of the ACS and Census Bureau data for Boston over the past few years, start here and work your way back. Or just read my quick summary here:

The ACS and the Census Bureau population estimate for Boston have recorded a decreasing population for the city since 2002 and 2003, respectively. Last year the Census Bureau, under tremendous pressure from Boston’s mayor Thoms Menino, revised the population estimate for 2005 so that it showed an ever so slowly increasing population since the Census 2000. The revision was explained as due to a previous underestimation of the city’s group-quarter and immigrant populations by the Bureau. The explanation wasn’t exactly fool proof, or even particularly convincing, but it nonetheless went unchallenged.

An obvious question at the time was how the ACS would reflect the revised population going forward. Judging from the currently available 2006 ACS data, the answer seems to be “a bit.”

Before we dive into the new numbers, the Census Bureau would like to make the following clear:

Although the American Community Survey (ACS) produces population, demographic and housing unit estimates, it is the Census Bureau’s Population Estimates Program that produces and disseminates the official estimates of the population for the nation, states, counties, cities and towns and estimates of housing units for states and counties.

That disclaimer used to read something along the lines that the ACS surveys household populations to the exclusion of group-quarters populations like college dorms, but starting with the 2006 ACS, the ACS surveys everybody (or at least samples of both household and group-quarter populations).

So how different from “the official estimates of the population” is the ACS? Let’s take New York City, 2006, as an example:

American Community Survey: 8,214,426.

Official population estimate: 8,214,426.

A perfect match. How about that?

New York City’s numbers look pretty good when one matches 2005 and 2006 household and group-quarter populations.

So, how about Boston? Let’s just say it doesn’t look quite as good. Let’s start off with the total population estimates for Boston in 2006:

American Community Survey: 575,187.

Official population estimate: 590,763.

We’re in luck.

Let’s break it down. Boston household population in 2006 was 541,254, according to the ACS. In 2005 it was about 520,702. As I noted in a post two weeks ago, the ACS found a decrease of about 1,500 households from 2005 to 2006, yet the number of people who live in households increased by almost 21,000, we now learn.

Since the 2006 ACS has it that Boston’s total population is about 575,000, it means that the city’s group-quarter populations is virtually unchanged since 2000, even though under-estimation of college dorm and other group-quarter populations supposedly was the reason for why the Census Bureau for years thought Boston’s population was declining.

Strange stuff.