New England Patriots Football Team

PHOENIX -- In the latest example that Congress is keeping a focused eye on the NFL, a senior senator said Friday that he wants the league to explain why it destroyed the videotapes from a cheating scandal involving the New England Patriots. "I do believe that it is a matter of importance," Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) said at a news conference, the same day his comments on the matter appeared in the New York Times.

PHOENIX -- The cards and messages that find their way to Tedy Bruschi aren't the usual fan mail. "Stories of adversity," he calls them. After he had a stroke three years ago -- a football player cut down in his prime -- Bruschi began hearing from people who had suffered the same malady at a young age. Early on, while he was fighting through rehabilitation, the letters encouraged him. "It gave me a little bit of hope," he said this week. "I could come back."

The head of the NFL players union said Thursday that members are prepared to strike or decertify if owners choose to opt out of the current labor agreement next fall. "I have prepared the players for the worst," Gene Upshaw, executive director of the NFL Players Assn., said at the union's annual Super Bowl news conference. The collective bargaining agreement reached in 2006 allows either side to opt out in November.

PHOENIX -- One way or another, Plaxico Burress has found a way to be the center of attention this week. The New York Giants receiver started with his mouth, making headlines by predicting that his team would upset the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLII. "I've always been a confident player," he said. "And I'll always be that way." Now he is making news with his injured ankle and knee, which caused him to miss a second day of practice on Thursday. And that could be a much bigger deal.

After New York running back Tiki Barber retired at the end of last season, the Giants' ground attack was expected to suffer without the franchise's all-time leading rusher. After all, Barber had led the team in rushing for seven consecutive seasons, from 2000 through 2006, and was the main source of New York's offense when he decided to call it a career. Fortunately for the Giants, Barber did not take his blockers with him.

GLENDALE, Ariz. -- There was a lot of talk last spring that Randy Moss, then on Oakland's roster, might wind up in Green Bay. Moss thought that might happen, too, but said Wednesday he soured on the idea of playing for the Packers in his discussions with personnel executives there. "Green Bay was in the picture, but things were told to me about maneuvering money around and making it a good fit," he said. "The Packers were really talking about the wrong things, and not the right things.

Throughout former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson's heyday, his intimidation in the ring was legendary. For years, it wasn't unusual for Tyson's opponents to fear his knockout punch so much, they were defeated before ever being hit. New England receiver Randy Moss doesn't wear boxing gloves but he has had a Tyson-like effect on NFL defenses this season.

New England's Tom Brady, who is already breathing rarefied air among NFL quarterbacks, has the chance to join an even more elite club. He needs one more Super Bowl victory to join Pittsburgh's Terry Bradshaw and San Francisco's Joe Montana -- Brady's childhood sports idol -- as the only starting quarterbacks to win four Lombardi Trophies. "Joe Montana is the greatest of all time, and he always will be," said Brady, who was raised in the Bay Area.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- No wincing. No limp. No walking boot. So will Tom Brady be ready for Super Bowl XLII? No problem. That's essentially what the New England Patriots quarterback told reporters Sunday evening, talking publicly for the first time about the high ankle sprain he suffered in the third quarter of the AFC championship game against San Diego. "This won't keep me out of this game . . .