Will Pats rush often? You never know with Belichick

	Led by Corey Dillon, the Patriots have the No. 7 rushing offense in the NFL. Damian Strohmeyer/SI
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	MAILBAG Dr. Z will answer select user questions each week in his NFL mailbag. Your name: Your e-mail address: Your home town: Enter your question:

Should the Patriots get their yards on the ground or in the air (definitely not at sea) against the Colts? Generally, which is better for a team at the top level, defense or offense (not special teams)? Just remember, the Broncos own "all you pretty boy, Kool-Aid, East Coast teams." And Z, did you really lift a quote from Vladimir Nabokov? Shame on you! This and many more thorny branches decorate the forests of our mailbag column, which our sponsor, Asteroid, The Finest Name In Linoleum jewelry, now brings you without further delay:

From Donnie of Bethesda, Md. -- "Of course New England is going to run the ball a lot against the Colts, who have been horrible against the run ... " Of course. Except if they don't. In other words, if they don't do what everyone expects them to do, a perversity that has been the trademark of the Belichick operation. Just speculating-in print. I mean it doesn't take a genius to merely mouth the words spoken by everyone else. Yes, Belichick was on the Giants staff when they brought the Bills' flashy K-Gun offense to a halt. But it wasn't the Giants' running game that did it. It was leaving the linebackers on the field and using them to rough up the Buffalo receivers.

Vamshi of Flanders, N.J. (Is the Silver Spring Farm still going strong? We had a nice, friendly meal there many years ago) feels that the game has moved in an offensive direction. Witness the way a fine attack (Colts) dismembered a highly rated defense (Broncos). Can I think of a dominant team, recently, that matched a fine defense with not much of an offense? Yeah. Super Bowl champion Ravens of 2000.

Samir of Oakland is looking for a parallel to this year's Raiders, in other words, fine defense matched with a clunk of an offense. You guys get together on these? Go back to the 1998 Chargers. The defense finished No. 1 in the NFL. Ryan Leaf, with two TD passes and 15 picks, ran an offense that was somewhere south of the Falklands. My Coach of the Year in Sports Illustrated was Joe Pascale, San Diego's defensive coordinator. The magazine didn't want to run the choice of an assistant. I told them if they didn't, I'd throw a tantrum and break all my toys.

I tried to count up all the stupid things Andrew's buddy, Chris from Virginia, wrote and I stopped at four. "All you media types that are in love with East Coast kool-aid, i.e., teams like the Pats ... " That's one. East coast teams have won the last six Super Bowls ... "must remember that Denver still owns them. Head-to-head Shanny owns BB (Belichick) ... " That's two. The score is 5-2. That's not exactly owning ... "and Plummer owns your pretty boy, Brady ... " Unless they start wearing the numbers of linebackers or cornerbacks, I never knew QB's played against each other. So that's three. "Of course you won't respond because you don't have an argument." So that's four. But I think we have to award something to the overall thrust of this thing, representing the true idiot-fan who puts the game of football into the level of sociological and personal hatred.

From St. Louis Jeff -- My reference in the last Mailbag column to things in history I'd like to see comes from, he says, a 1965 Robert Hughes interview with Vladimir Nabokov. I must have read it because it exists, without a source, in my BIG BOOK, featuring quotes, snappers, one-liners, etc., that I liked. This pair of snappers stayed in my mind, though, and I never forgot them ... the stuff about Herman Melville and the sardines, and the beheading of Louis XVI. Whenever I can, I try to be meticulous about accreditation, usually involving lines from old movies. But, gosh, 41 years is a long time. I wasn't trying to lift the stuff, I just couldn't remember who said it. Now I know, and when I refer to these two points in the future I'll be careful to give old VN full credit. He also said something else I've been fond of quoting, because it's very close to my way of thinking. Someone asked him why he used so many commas in his writing. "I like privacy," he said.

P.S. Your comment, "What references have we missed in past columns?" really was a nasty thing to say.