A Pin Drop Sound...and a Shout- Sports Thread #1 and #2

Life can change so fast, can't it?

Back in the first week of February, Serena Williams was coming off one of the more perplexing defeats in her career at the Grand Slam tournament where she was the current title holder. At the same time, Tom Brady, Bill Belchick, and the New England Patriots were on the verge of ultimate perfection.

In short, one was real happy and the other, not so much.

Now, the inverse has transpired. While Serena Williams celebrated her return to the top of the tennis world last night, the news was probably overshadowed even in Arthur Ashe Stadium, as murmors about Brady being out for the season went through the crowd.

First, to focus on Serena, a full review will come at "The Deft Volleys" page. But for a general synopsis of it, all the hard work coming back to the pinnacle of the sport paid off. Serena was the Serena of old (outside of a few terrible lapses), aganist the annoying but competitive Jelena Jankovic of Serbia (and Divaland). The game that displayed her diligence the most was surviving five set ponts aganist Jankovic at 5-4 in the second set.

It seemed from my vantage point that Serena looked to have garnered an injury with the way she looked languid and served in that game. She abbreviated her service motion, and when that happens usually that means something is wrong with her. Instead, it was possibly a chance to stay in the set and see if Jankovic could close the second set out. In typical Jankovic form, she failed to do so on any of those five set points, including double faulting on the final set point she would see after hitting a rare ace the "deuce" point before.

Serena got her act together after J-squared's typical inability to take a match by her hands, and the now three time US Open champion showed how her movement is back to being the best in the sport (when her sister is not included in the discussion though) in the last two games of the encounter. The joy and leap is evident in the picture above, and you can also thank Common for helping in Serena rightfully being back to where she should have been all the time. Common, for those who don't know, is one of the real clean cool rappers in music, and he is Serena's boyfriend at the moment. He told the younger Williams sister to basically "not waste her talent and worry about the acting stuff later."

Apparently, that seems to be the case right now. Gisele Bundchen,on the other hand, probably could tell her boyfriend (or whatever you want to label them as) the exact opposite. You could literally hear a pin drop at Gilette Stadium along with the sound of other quiet things the moment after Kansas City Chefs safety Bernard Pollard hit Brady's left leg. It was the ultimate disaster for any Patriots' fans, as today in the Boston area has been filled all day with the news they never wanted to hear.

Brady's ACL tear will lead to season-ending surgeryASAP ("as soon as possible" for those stil not familiar with the acronym). And despite reports of bringing Dante Culpepper out of retirement, Matt Cassel will probably be the only person in America less experienced for a job than Sarah Palin, as he becomes the starting quarterback of last year's 18-1 squad.

Cassel did a fine job in their 17-10 "scratchy as hell" win over a Chefs' side who were probably a thousand drop balls from Dwayne Bowe removed from scoring the opening day upset. He made no mistakes and made the big throws when he needed to make them. And it helps when you have both Randy Moss and Wes Walker as safety nets, as well as getting a commendable effort from Sammy Morris.

But some feel that the season is over already for the Patriots. Forget even making it to playoffs, let alone win a game or even think about the Super Bowl, and that is coming from the most ardent optimistic Pats fans.

And no matter how much Belichick is dry about it, or Moss says, "We got to move on," even they in that locker room are deeply wondering, "What in the world will happen next?"