Burgess spent the entire 2008 season on injured reserve with a shoulder injury that occurred during the preseason. He saw action in Baltimore’s first two games of the 2009 season but did not register any tackles. Wendell, 6-2, 285 pounds, was originally signed by New England as a rookie free agent out of Fresno State in 2008. After spending last season on the New England practice squad, Wendell made the 53-man roster out of training camp and played in the first two games on special teams. The conspiracy theorist in me wonders if Belichick cherry picked Burgess to have an insight into Rex Ryan's scheme for the November 22 match up. Just a thought.

timmy@wickedpissadude.com

Well the leaves have showed me that it does not matter if they fall on the second week of September or the last week, once the ball is kicked off on the opening night of football the season has begun and it is time to be consumed by the new American Pastime. Starting with the great game between Florida State and Miami and of course the always early season meeting between Michigan and Notre Dame.

The well documented battle of Notre Dame and Michigan has been told on so many occasions with both sides having many a bragging right memory to choose from. Tonight though, September 12th 2009, the game took a personal swing with myself and fellow staffer Billy "Rubba Shoes" Corey.

We made a bet with each other that was the following, the loser has to (1) put the rivals fight song on their phone as their ring tone. (2) They would need to have the following as the beginning of their voice mail message "Hi this is (Scotty/Billy) and I just want to remind you that Notre dame/Michigan beat the Irish/ wolverines on September 12th and this is my punishment - leave a message and go Irish/blue".

Now if you saw what was one of the most exciting games I have seen in quite some time you would have seen the true freshman Tate Forcier throw a TD pass to one of the only seniors on the Michigan team Greg Matthews with only 11 seconds to go to win this seasons story 38-34.

That small paragraph can not describe the game that was since both teams played their hearts out and left everything on the field. The bet that Rubba Shoes and I had will be upheld as it would have if Matthews would have dropped that pass, but for the next few months I will be calling Rubba Shoes phone just to hear his voicemail, and enjoy this moment till next year when these two giants of college football meet again.

The leaves have started to fall around here in NH which I should have not questioned Saturday afternoon, because football has arrived and it is not wasting any time grabbing our attention! I will now enjoy my moment of victory and give Billy "Rubba Shoes" Corey a call...you think he will answer?

scotty@wickedpissadude.com