Laxative by Sports Illustrated

This makes me want to puke. In an article published this week, Sports Illustrated asks you to shed a tear for the Patriots because they are supposedly getting screwed by the league's schedule makers. That's right, winning three out of the last four Super Bowls isn't enough. Now we have to feel sorry for them, too.

Under the headline "The Patriots gear up for arguably the toughest five-game regular-season stretch in the history of the NFL," the article states: "No other NFL team has ever had a five-game run in which four games were on the road and the five opponents averaged 11 wins or better in the previous season...That brutal slate of games has some New England players thinking there's a conspiracy against them."

Wasn't it the Raiders who had to travel across the country to play the Super Bowl champs on opening night? When is the last time a 5-11 team opened the following season's first three weeks with two non-divisional cross-country road games against AFC and NFC conference champions? Never, that's when. That is, until the Oakland Raiders got their 2005 schedule.

But there are no excuses in the Raider Nation. We'll leave the crying to the Patriots and Sports Illustrated.