Thanks to everyone who voted in last week’s Debate Friday, concerning Vince Wilfork’s status for Week 1 of next season. By a 2-to-1 margin, Patriots fans said, yes, he’d be in uniform to start the season.

This week, Team PFW is arguing about Tim Tebow. He’s making news this week because of his upcoming Super Bowl ad, but we’re interesting in debating the merits of his potential football future in New England.

Head to patriots.com, check out my argument for and Andy Hart’s against, then vote in the Debate Friday poll.

The NFL had a pretty comical weekend.

First you had a Pro Bowl – a bonanza in terms of both ratings and attendance according to unbiased NFL press releases – that was anything but a collection of the game’s top talent.

I’m a big Vince Young fan. But do 10 starts, a 58.7 completion percentage with 10 touchdowns and seven interceptions for an 82.8 passer rating really qualify a quarterback as one of the tops in the game?

Things were so ridiculous I think PFW’s Paul Perillo actually got invited to this year’s Pro Bowl to cover kicks. Seriously.

In my opinion the Pro Bowl wasn’t the only debacle the league put forth Sunday in South Florida. There was a second, equally embarrassing effort in the form of the 2000s NFL All-Decade Team.

Picked by the Pro Football Hall of Fame Selection Committee, the ninth all-decade team in the history of the league consisted of 53 players. Of course I don’t really know why a selection committee was necessary at all as the group never seemed to make a tough call at any position.

Look at quarterback for example. My two-year-old son knows that Peyton Manning and Tom Brady were the best quarterbacks, no questions asked, of the last decade. Shouldn’t a real all-decade team pick between the two? Or at least make one guy first-team all-decade and the other second-team as they do with the All-Pro team or with college All-American and all-conference teams?

Nope. The NFL just puts both guys on the list. So is Brady the backup to Manning? Do they both get to start? You’d have to ask them.

The joke continued with the coaches. The Patriots and Colts dominated the decade, right? So you’d think the NFL would have to pick between Bill Belichick and Tony Dungy for coach of the decade. Why? Just take them both.

This would be like allowing the Texans taking Mario Williams and Reggie Bush in the 2006 NFL draft. Or U.S. voters being able to pick both Barack Obama and John McCain for president!

Why choose when you can have them all? That’s the NFL’s motto. It’s like little league, we all get trophies and ribbons.

So you end up with an All-Decade team that’s not worth the paper it’s printed on. A team with two kickers for cryin’ out loud. (How David Akers gets the nod alongside Ice Cold Adam Vinatieri is beyond me.) The entire devalued team is listed below:

NFL ALL-DECADE TEAM – 2000s
(2010 Pro Bowl participants listed in Bold/Italics)

What do you think about the All-Decade Team? Is it a joke to have 53 guys and at least two players at every position? (Except fullback, with the tough guys getting overlooked yet again!) Who is really worthy of All-Decade honors? Let us know with a comment below!

TAT'S WHAT I'M TALKIN' 'BOUT - Asante Samuel's "Get Rich To This" tattoo.

Asante Samuel was at it again down in South Florida this week, taking a few more shots from afar at his former team.

“I don’t think they care about you, in my opinion,” Samuel said at Pro Bowl practice, according to Boston.com. “They didn’t care about me. So do what’s best for you and your family.”

Samuel went on to say that the way the Patriots treat players, including the current situation with Vince Wilfork, could affect how free agents view the team from afar.

“From my end, it would, definitely,” Samuel said. “But they’ve got their own mindset. The way they treat people is not something I agree with. But everybody has their own opinion.”

Not surprisingly the comments, just more of what Samuel has said a number of times since leaving New England for the richer pastures in Philly, irked more than a few Patriots fans. A quick scan of some of the posts regarding the newest quotes over on PatsFans.com unearthed a number of references to Samuel’s missed interception late in Super Bowl XLII that could have given the Patriots a perfect season.

But there were also plenty of references to Samuel being a guy that cared only about the money, supposedly evidenced by his “Get Paid” tattoo.

There is only one problem, that’s not what the All-Pro’s tattoo says. As the photo above shows, taken from a 2006 tattoo feature story in Patriots Football Weekly, the tattoo clearly says “Get Rich To This.”

At that time Samuel told me that the tattoo’s meaning was, “basically just whatever you want to think it is.”

So maybe it means get paid, but that’s not what it says. That’s fact, not opinion as a local media personality likes to say. (Although he uses that phrase a little too often for my liking.)

So maybe you can hate Samuel for many things. Dropping a potential 19-0 clinching interception. Leaving town for more money. Not shutting his trap about his former team.

Those are all understandable.

But you can’t hate him for having a “Get Paid” tattoo because that’s not what his tattoo says. So, as they say on the popular TV show Myth Busters, this much referenced myth about Samuel’s tattoo has been – busted!

What do you think about Samuel’s recent comments? Are you worried that the Patriots are creating an organizational image that could hurt the team moving forward? Let us know with a comment below!

In a hold-your-nose, lesser-of-two-evils vote, Patriots fans overwhelmingly chose to pull for their hated AFC East rivals, the New York Jets, in last weekend’s AFC Championship Game.

Our second Debate Friday poll of this offseason gave the J-E-T-S (and me and Fred) a 10-percentage point margin of victory over the equally loathed Indianapolis Colts (and Andy and Paul), 55-45 percent. 

Either way, though, it would have been a bitter pill to swallow, so we appreciate all your votes.  Tomorrow in Debate Friday, we’ll be addressing the question of the week: whither Vince Wilfork, given his recent appearance and somewhat incendiary comments on local sports talk radio?

As we head toward the 2010 NFL Draft and begin to analyze what options the Patriots will have Thursday, April 22 through Saturday April, 24, it’s important to know what resources the team has at its disposal.

As it stands today, here are New England’s eight picks in the draft, a bounty that includes four selections in the first 53 choices.

1st RD – No. 22 overall
2nd RD – From Jacksonville
2nd RD – From Tennessee
2nd RD – No. 53 overall
4th RD – The 21st pick in the round
6th RD – The 21st pick in the round
7th RD – The 22nd pick in the round
7th RD – From Philadelphia, the 24th pick in the round

Keep in mind, though, that this does not include any compensatory selections the Patriots might be awarded by the league in advance of draft weekend. A year ago that announcement came on March 24.

The 32 total compensatory picks, which cannot be traded and at the highest come at the conclusion of rounds three through seven, are awarded based on a secret formula evaluating the net difference between the unrestricted free agents signed and lost by a team in the previous offseason. The formula takes into account a number of factors for the players lost/gained, including salary, playing time, awards and other variables.

In regards to the compensatory pick process, it’s important to understand the difference between an unrestricted free agent and a free agent. Unrestricted free agents are those players who reach the end of their contract and (in any year other than an uncapped year) have four years of service or more. Free agents are those guys cut by their teams and then enter free agency. This will be a major factor for the Patriots potential compensatory picks this spring because most of the players the team signed – including Leigh Bodden, Shawn Springs, Tully Banta-Cain, Joey Galloway, Fred Taylor and Chris Baker – were simply free agents. On the other hand the team lost mostly unrestricted free agents who could garnered compensatory consideration, including Heath Evans, Lonie Paxton, Jabar Gaffney, Larry Izzo and Lamont Jordan.

While New England may not get the quality of compensatory picks it did a year ago when the team was awarded selections in the third, fifth and sixth rounds after losing Asante Samuel, the Patriots should add a pick or two in the compensatory process once again this year.

Thoughts on New England’s draft picks or what selections the team may add as compensatory picks? Let us know with a comment below!