When he's not smokin' trees at Lil' Wayne concerts, Kevin Faulk is a hell of a player

Can we just let Kevin Faulk start writing his speech for the Patriots Hall of Fame? When talking about Faulk (just like it used to be with Troy Brown), you run out of original thoughts. Faulk is the consummate professional, who always steps up and makes plays when his team needs him most.

With Laurence Maroney on IR, Sammy Morris and Lamont Jordan out with injuries, Faulk made the biggest play of the game as the Patriots held off the St. Louis Rams, 23-16, at Gillette Stadium yesterday afternoon.

Faulk had 13 carries for 60 yards and four catches for 47 yards. With the game tied at 16 late in the fourth quarter, Faulk split out wide and caught a 15-yard TD pass from Matt Cassel (21 of 33, 267 yards, 1 TD, 2 INTs).

On a day when both Randy Moss (7 catches, 102 yards) and Wes Welker (7 catches, 79 yards) dropped passes they would normally haul in, Faulk showed why he is Mr. Patriot (now that Brown is retired and Brady is on IR).

There were plenty of reasons why New England (5-2) should have lost: their running game as alluded to was a mess, their secondary sucks and that's compounded by the fact that everyone is going down with an injury. Cassel, his receivers and the Patriots front seven wouldn't let that happen.

As predicted, the Rams (2-5) came out looking to win after knocking off the Redskins and Cowboys in consecutive games. New England caught a major break when Steven Jackson was held out of the game with a thigh injury. Still, Marc Bulger (18 of 34, 301 yards, TD, INT) had no trouble gashing the Pats for long gains.

Rookie receiver Donnie Avery (6 catches, 163 yards) was unstoppable on deep balls all day.

The Rams went for it on 4th-and-1 on their opening day and eventually scored on Josh Brown's 20-yard kick.

New England answered with a 2-yard TD run by rookie Benjarvus Green-Ellis.

In the beginning of the second quarter, Avery caught his second long reception. This time it was 69 yards for a score as two Patriots defenders ran into each other as Avery elluded them both.

Two Stephen Gostowski field goals (30 and 27 yards) let New England take a slim 13-10 lead into the locker room at halftime.

The only score of the third quarter was a 44-yard kick by Brown. Cassel had bad luck on two drives as a pass to Moss, bounced off Moss' hands and into O.J. Otogwe's. Later, Welker slipped, allowing Fahkir Brown to pick another pass off.

Brown added a 25-yard boot at the beginning of the fourth quarter to give St. Louis a 16-13 lead. From there, the Patriots buckled down. They tied it on Gostowski's 41-yard kick then went ahead for good with 3:13 left on Faulk's grab.

Adalius Thomas (7 tackles, 2 sacks), Richard Seymour (7 tackles, 1 sack), Tedy Bruschi (11 tackles) and Ty Warren (sack) were all standouts on the defensive side of the ball for New England.

Even Deltha O'Neal made a play, picking off Bulger as the Rams tried to tie it at the end.

It wasn't pretty but it was a step forward for Cassel and the Patriots, who are now tied atop the AFC East since Buffalo lost to Miami yesterday.

There are no great teams in the AFC (assuming the Titans come back to earth) so the Patriots are in good shape to win their division and make the playoffs. We couldn't ask for much more at this point.

The Pats travel to Indy next Sunday night for a showdown with their biggest rivals, the Indianapolis Colts. It'll be interesting to see how the Colts do tonight against the Titans; Peyton and the Colts could easily be 1-5 rather than 3-3.

Well that was painful: Super Chargers smoke Pats, 30-10

So this is how the other half lives, huh? With Matt Cassel as quarterback of the 2008 New England Patriots, the team is wildly inconsistent and I guess at this point we have to accept that it'll be like that all season. The Patriots were in San Diego last night and got absolutely destroyed, 30-10 by a Chargers team that's not even that good.

Probably the most worrisome thing about the Patriots (3-2) is that not one part of the team is playing well. The offensive line has been terrible since the Super Bowl and they look worse when Cassel takes about 10 seconds to make a decision downfield (even Drew Bledsoe thinks he should get rid of it sooner). Laurence Maroney and LaMont Jordan both sat out and as a result, the duo of Kevin Faulk and Sammy Morris while likeable is woefully average. The running back situation needs a playmaker and Maroney is the only guy that has that ability, not saying he'll ever stop dancing and run hard downhill. The receivers are fine but they're nullified since Cassel can't get them the ball (other than short dumps to Welker).

The defensive line has been terrible, there's been no pressure on quarterbacks. The linebackers other than promising rookie Jerod Mayo have shown their age. The worst group on the team is the cornerbacks. Oh man, if you thought Ellis Hobbs is bad (he is), Deltha O'Neal is looking like a poor man's Duane Starks from a few years ago. Ugh. The Chargers repeatedly picked on O'Neal and he couldn't do anything to stop it. Finally, punter Chris Hanson is a complete bum. You wouldn't notice or care about that but with the current state of the Patriots, we need a good punter.

The Chargers (3-3) were coming off a loss at the Dolphins but you wouldn't know it as they stepped on the gas immediately. Philip Rivers had a Peyton Manning/Tom Brady-esque performance, 18 for 27, 303 yards and three touchdowns. The only reason I didn't vomit on the keyboard while typing that is because Rivers helped lead one of my fantasy teams to a win.

Nate Kaeding opened the scoring with a 25-yard kick in the first quarter. A sign of things to come was when Patriots kicker Stephen Gostkowski missed his first kick of the season.

Even without Chris Chambers, the San Diego passing game was unstoppable. Malcolm Floyd caught a 49-yard TD pass from Rivers in the first quarter. Gostkowski finally got New England on the board with a 47-yard kick in the second quarter. Vincent Jackson (5 catches, 134 yards) put the Chargers up 17-7 with a four-yard catch with 1:07 left in the half.

New England could be best summed up by their first drive of the second half. They moved it down to the 1-yard line and with four cracks at the end zone, they failed to score. It went incomplete play action pass, Morris stuffed, incomplete pass and Cassel was sacked when he tried to scramble in. Shoot me now. At that point, I think Brady turned off the TV. I wouldn't blame him either.

To nobody's surprise, San Diego made the Patriots pay by marching down the field and scoring on a 1-yard toss from Rivers to Gates. A 35-yard Kaeding kick made it 27-3 going into the fourth.

Kaeding's 23-yard kick made it 30-3 Chargers before Morris' 1-yard TD plunge hopefully helped a fantasy football player somewhere. Didn't mean anything to the real game.

After two weeks in California, the Patriots finally come home. They host a good Broncos (4-2) team next Monday. It can't get much worse than two out of the last three games (Dolphins and Chargers).