Hope you all enjoyed your Christmas Day and weekend. The festive season isn't over yet, though. It's Boxing Day for our friends up north and across the pond, Hanukkah is still going strong, and at week's end, we'll all celebrate the turn of the calendar to 2012.
Meanwhile, the Patriots hope to turn the page on the 2011 regular season by wrapping up the number-one seed in the AFC playoffs. They'll give themselves that gift if they just beat the Buffalo Bills on New Year's Day at 1 p.m. in Foxborough.
New England players have today off, but the normal Tuesday round of conference calls with Bill Belichick, Bill O'Brien, and Nick Caserio will take place at noon today. I'll post anything newsworthy here on the blog around that time.
Players will be back at Gillette on Tueday for meetings, treatment, and such, and the normal work week resumes on Wednesday. You'll have a new Ask PFW column on patriots.com tomorrow, in addition to our weekly radio programming slate, headed by "PFW in Progress" from noon to 2 p.m. Eastern (available for download later).
Practice access and player media interviews will take place Wednesday through Friday (check for updates here on the blog and on patriots.com), and Bill hosts press briefings on Wednesday and Friday. Our radio shows continues Wednesday and Thursday afternoon. Thursday night, tune in to PFW TV at 7:30 on Comcast SportsNet New England.
Sunday morning at 10:45, Andy and Paul will get you prepped for the game on the Pre-Game Social. Visit the Patriots Facebook page to listen and contribute to the show with your e-mails, phone calls, and pictures from your tailgating parties.
UPDATE … 12:45 P.M.
The conference calls just wrapped, and not much of note came out of them. Belichick was asked about the health status of left guard Logan Mankins, who injured his left knee in the first quarter against Miami and did not return. The head coach offered nothing concrete on when Mankins would be back on the field.
Meanwhile, Caserio said he didn't expect the team to make any transactions today, "But don't hold me to it," he quickly added.
