FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH

•We know that this is a new NFL season, a clean slate upon which to write a new script.

We know that last season’s clean sweep through the regular season has already been relegated to NFL history.

We know this intellectually.

Now we have to deal with it emotionally.

To compare this team with last year’s team, regardless of what happens, is fodder for talk shows and water-fountain conversation, but is ultimately irrelevant. This team’s challenge is to establish its own identity, not to try to replicate last year. This team’s challenge is to forget about last year, both the good and the last few minutes of the Super Bowl, to realize that they simply don’t matter anymore.

Our challenge, too.

•Anyone who wanted Manny to still be on the Red Sox has never been on a team.

•Republicans should never dance in public.

•You’ve got as much chance of getting information out of the CIA than you do from the Patriots about Brady’s foot.

•Tampa Bay’s Joe Maddon should be the manager of the year, regardless of what happens from here on.

•Speaking of the Rays, what were the odds that the team in first place in the A.L. East would have two Rhode Islanders, Dan Wheeler and Rocco Baldelli, on it?

•Quiz of the Week: In their history, the Patriots have drafted four quarterbacks in the first round. How many can you name? (Answer near the end of the column.)

•Line of the Week is a famous one from former Sox pitcher Bill Lee, the ole “Spaceman” himself, after he had been asked his views on mandatory drug testing: “I’ve tested them all, but I’m not sure they should be mandatory.”

•Sally Field plays Sarah Palin in the movie, right? Norma Rae goes on the campaign trail.

•Let’s see. The Friars nonleague home schedule has URI and seven games designed to pad the record, all this in a tough economy in which the cost of season tickets are going up. Is that about it?

•Will Blackmon and Deon Anderson, two Providence kids who used to be rivals on youth teams, are both once again in the NFL, Blackmon with the Packers and Anderson with the Cowboys.

•Four NFL exhibition games are two too many.

•There’s no truth to the rumor that it takes a sociologist to tell the difference between hockey moms and soccer moms.

•Or that the Devil Rays had an exorcism, became the Rays, and look what happened.

•Forget pantsuits. Whatever happened to jumpsuits?

•You need a long memory to remember when the Orioles were important.

•Sports Illustrated jinx? Let’s hope not. The magazine has the Pats beating the Eagles in the Super Bowl.

•It also has Brady as the best quarterback in the NFL, and has the Pats’ receiving core as the league’s best, too.

•What exactly does “vet” mean, and when did it become the new political cliché?

•Sometimes it seems as if the Williams sisters have been around forever, but they’re still the best story in women’s tennis.

•The Celtics taking a chance on Darius Miles is a smart move, for before his injury, he was a big-time athlete.

•Speaking of the Celtics, has Paul Pierce stopped partying yet?

•There are few things more irrelevant in this world than knowing which presidential candidates celebrities are supporting.

•Who would have ever believed that Dustin Pedroia would turn out to be appreciably better than the Yankees’ Robinson Cano?

•Speaking of Pedroia, in yesterday’s paper, I implied that Pedroia was the best story in baseball this year, only to get an e-mail from a Mikey C. saying that, considering everything he’s been through this year, Rocco Baldelli is a better story. He’s right.

•You’ve got to love Bengals receiver Chad Johnson, who has legally changed his last name to Ocho Cinco, Spanish for 85, his uniform number. Just when you think you’ve heard it all.

•Vicki Cristina Barcelona is not the Woody Allen of legend, but it’s stylish and you don’t have to check your IQ at the door.

•The people running the Mariners must be sleepless in Seattle, as the Mariners are an amazing 31 games behind the Angels in the A.L. West.

•Bill Belichick said in a recent edition of the Sporting News that he likes lacrosse as much as he likes football.

•Must-see TV would have been Hillary Clinton being miked while she watched Sarah Palin’s speech.

•Quiz answer: Jack Concannon in 1963, Jim Plunkett in 1971, Tony Eason in ’83, Drew Bledsoe in 1993.

•Let’s see, you almost have to take out a loan to fill up your tank, we’re trying to wean people off cars, and RIPTA announces 20-percent cuts. Is that about it?

•This is a huge year for Laurence Maroney, one in which we’re going to find out whether he’s going to be an elite back, or just another guy.

•If A-Rod gets any bigger, he’s going to look like a linebacker.

•Yeah, she was the mayor of an Alaska town smaller than Tiverton and has less experience than Governor Carcieri, but if a moose comes up on my lawn some night, I’m calling Sarah Palin, not Joe Biden.

breynold@projo.com