Jack Edwards is the TV play-by-play announcer for the Boston Bruins. He's known for his enthusiasm and rather overly poetic and sometimes politically incorrect historic metaphors. He's a good, old-fashioned homer, in other words.

He was at his nearly violent best Monday, when the Bruins pulled off something close to a sports miracle in a 5-4 Game 7 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Bruins were down 4-1 halfway through the third period, and still down 4-2 in the final two minutes when they pulled netminder Tuuka Rask.

The Bruins strike for two goals in the final 82 seconds to tie the game, and then won in overtime.

Captain Comeback Scott Kacsmar took a long look today at Ronde Barber's Hall of Fame qualifications.

Nestled among the many individual accomplishments is one incredible team accomplishment: Barber and the 2002 Buccaneers won the franchise's only Super Bowl largely on the backs of one of the great pass defenses in history, and certainly the greatest pass defense of the Live Ball Era (1978-present), at least by one notable measure.

Below is a look at the 25 best pass defenses of the Live Ball Era, based upon Defensive Passer Rating. The 2002 Buccaneers (48.4) come in at No. 4, ahead of legendary units like the 1985 Bears or the last two champions of the Steel Curtain Steelers.

It's the lowest DPR, the best pass defense, of the past 24 seasons, a rather significant chunk of pro football history.

More impressively, Tampa's Defensive Passer Rating that year was 30.2 points below the league average (78.6), the greatest disparity in the history of the NFL. (Not a perfect measure, as inflated modern ratings mean greater opportunity to beat the league average; but still a figure that makes the 2002 Bucs a historically significant defense.)

In other words, you could argue that Barber and the Bucs fielded the best pass defense in modern NFL history and maybe of all time.

Clearly, the game has evolved greatly, even within the Live Ball Era. The league-wide passer rating in 1978 was 62.1. In 2012, it was 83.8.

It took offenses several years to catch up with the rule changes that spawned the Live Ball Era and truly adapt to the new game. That 62.1 league-wide passer rating figure provides plenty of evidence that the passing game was still fairly primitive by today's standards at the dawn of the Live Ball Era.

But this evolution only serves to show how great that Bucs defense was in 2002.

Tampa Bay then concluded its only Super Bowl-winning season with one of the great defensive performances in history: the Bucs picked off Raiders quarterback and 2002 NFL MVP Rich Gannon five times, returning three of those INTs for touchdowns.

The league's top quarterback that year was held by the Bucs to a 48.9 passer rating in the Super Bowl, nearly identical to their season-long DPR.

It's one of those signature team-wide performances that often help marquee individuals like Barber make it into the Hall of Fame.

Top 25 Pass Defenses of the Live Ball Era, 1978-present (SB champs; conference champs)

Tawdry little silver screen vixen Reese Witherspoon got her redneck on in films like "Sweet Home Alabama" and "Walk The Line." It was no act, apparently.

She got her redneck on the other night, complete with that sexy little Southern accent, when the police tried to mess with her man.

The cops pulled over her husband after he had been drinking. The best is when hubby sells out with movie star wife at the end to save his own ass.

The nation's biggest craft brewery, Boston Beer Co., joins the canned craft-beer craze next week with the release of its flagship Samuel Adams Boston Lager in cans.

The specially designed "Sam Can" is meant to enhance the flavor of the aromatic German-style lager:

• it comes with a lider lid for more air flow
• the lid is pushed back slightly, toward the center of the can, so it's closer to the nose when you drink
• and the extended lip is meant to place the beer at the front of the tongue, which some say is more sensitive to flavor.

Cans have two main advantages over bottles. One, they're lighter and more convenient, which is especially good in the summer drinking season when you want to pack as much beer as possible in your cooler or on your boat. Of course, cans are great for your autumn tailgate parties, as well.

And two, cans protect beer much better from sunlight, which breaks down hops and gives off that "skunky" smell associated with bad beer.

Football Nation reporter Bill Enright is at Radio City Music Hall, where he learned that NFL fans don't know much about the draft.

He asked fans their thoughts about imaginary players, including "The Bird Man" Mike Hawk, small-school prospect Buster Hyman and Calvin Johnson's "brother" Curving Johnson. The answers are comedy gold.

College football must be trying to muscle in on the NFL's dominance of the football news cycle here on draft week.

The BCS announced details of the four-team major college football postseason to begin after the 2014 season on Wednesday, the day before the NFL draft was set to kickoff.

It will be called the College Football Playoff. The first title game will be played at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas on Jan. 12, 2015. And six bowls (Rose, Sugar, Orange, Fiesta, Cotton, Chick-fil-A) will make up a playoff semifinal, with back-to-back triple headers played on Dec. 31 and Jan. 1.

Perhaps the most dramatic announcement, however, came from BCS executive director Bill Hancock.

He boldly declared: "The culture of New Year's Eve will change in this country."

It's a ballsy thing to say, especially for a guy who fought a playoff system for so long.

But not necessarily a wrong thing to say. It's easy to picture millions of football fans around the country glued to their TV sets New Year's Eve watching college football instead of the ball drop in Times Square.

As it was, the existing New Year's Eve and New Year's Day bowls drew fairly decent ratings anyway, from a football-loving public with little else to watch.

Now each of those games will have an actual direct impact on the national title picture. So, yes, the College Football Playoff very well might change the culture of New Year's Eve in the United States.

And if it's true that a major college playoff is so huge that it alters the culture of the nation, it begets the question: what took college football so long to do it?

The following NFL Draft odds come from Bovada. The wise guys expect South Carolina stud RB Marcus Lattimore, injured badly last season, to likely last until the third round.

2013 NFL Draft - How many QB's will be selected in the 1st Rd?               

Over                              1 (EVEN)

Under                            1 (-140)

2013 NFL Draft - How many WR's will be selected in the 1st Rd?              

Over                              3 (-140)

Under                            3 (EVEN)

2013 NFL Draft - How many Safeties will be selected in the 1st Rd?          

Over                              2½ (-140)

Under                            2½ (EVEN)

2013 NFL Draft - How many offensive players will be drafted in the 1st Round?       

Over/Under                   13

2013 NFL Draft - How many defensive players will be drafted in the 1st Round?      

Over/Under                   19

2013 NFL Draft - Who will be the 2nd Pick Overall?          

Eric Fisher                    1/2       

Dion Jordan                  7/4       

Geno Smith                   15/2     

Luke Joeckel                 15/1     

2013 NFL Draft - Who will be the 3rd Pick Overall?           

Shariff Floyd                -1000    (1/10)

Other Player                  +550     (11/2)

2013 NFL Draft - Who will be the 4th Pick Overall?           

Lane Johnson               3/2       

Star Lotulelei                 7/4       

Dion Jordan                  2/1       

Chance Warmack          9/1       

2013 NFL Draft - Will the Eagles trade the 4th pick overall?          

Yes                  +170     (17/10)

No                    -250      (2/5)

2013 NFL Draft - Who will be the 5th Pick Overall?           

Lane Johnson               5/4       

Ezekiel Ansah               3/2       

Eric Fisher                    3/1       

Dee Miliner                    15/2     

2013 NFL Draft - Draft Position - Geno Smith       

Over/Under                   8½

2013 NFL Draft - Draft Position - Matt Barkley     

Over/Under                   37½

2013 NFL Draft - Draft Position - Marcus Lattimore           

Over/Under                   84½

2013 NFL Draft - Draft Position - Tavon Austin     

Over/Under                   13½

2013 NFL Draft - Draft Position - Manti Te'o         

Over/Under                   25½

2013 NFL Draft - Draft Position - Eddie Lacy        

Over/Under                   22½

2013 NFL Draft - Draft Position - Tyrann Mathieu  

Over/Under                   75½

2013 NFL Draft - Which WR will be drafted 1st?

Justin Hunter                   -200     (1/2)

DeAndre Hopkins           +150     (3/2)

The Twitter account apparently belonging to Boston terror suspect Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev has some pretty freaky stuff, including about a dozen Tweets since the bombing.

Here's what he wrote at 8:04 p.m. Monday, a few hours after he and his brother murdered and maimed on the streets of Boston.

This week was not the way you want your city to become the center of global news.

But it's given all Bostonians a chance to reflect on what a truly f*cking cool part of the world we live in, kind of like I think all Americans did after 9-11.

I make fun of Boston and its peculiarities all the time. It's cold, it's expensive and Bostonians are parochial to a fault yet for some reason think they're worldly and sophisticated. Railroad bums from Boston think they're smarter than brain surgeons from Alabama.

But the reality is I'll never leave, because living here is pretty cool.

The Onion last month brilliantly skewered Boston with a story headlined, "Pretty Cute Watching Boston Residents Play Daily Game of 'Big City.'"

Boston is a tiny little parochial Northeastern outpost of 600,000 people on the physical and cultural fringe of the United States. Yet we actually call Boston the Hub – short for Hub of the Universe. No, serious.

Only outsiders call Boston Beantown. We call it the Hub. Google “hub of the universe” and you’ll get a map of Boston.

Boston is peculiar in other ways, too, well beyond the accent, the Kennedys and the fact that half our roads have no street signs. People in other cities, for example, prefer things that are young or pretty: ballparks, natural resources, actresses. Bostonians prefer things that are old and dirty.

Think Fenway Park, Boston Harbor or Steven Tyler.

All those quirks make for great music. So, without further cultural navel gazing, here is one Bostonian’s list of the 10 best songs about the Hub of the Universe.  

10. “For Boston” by The Hold Steady – Not to be confused with “For Boston,” the Boston College fight song. The school song is a tribute to the work ethic and character of Boston College’s fine, upstanding Irish-Catholic men and woman educated amid the towering Gothic spires of the gorgeous Chestnut Hill campus. The Hold Steady song is about filthy co-eds from the urban sewer of the Boston University campus strung out on Oxy.

And that pretty much sums up the difference between BC and BU.

9. “Boston” by Augustana – What’s the deal with California bands and their fascination with Boston? Oh, that’s right. California sucks. And Boston rocks. Last we checked, the score was still Celtics 17, Lakers 16. And let’s face it, what lovelorn girl looking for a fresh start wouldn’t leave scenic Malibu Beach in sun-soaked Southern California for scenic Malibu Beach in Vietnamese flag-draped Dorchester?

8. “She’s from Boston” by Kenny Chesney – Boston isn’t exactly Nashville when it comes to musical tastes. Yet Chesney bangs out Gillette Stadium acouple times each summer, I’m guessing largely because he penned this tale of a Boston girl who escaped to some Caribbean island and sports a Red Sox cap to hide her baby dreads.

Clearly, a fantastical tale: what decent, Tyler Seguin-banging Boston girl would leave for the sandy tropics when all the roast beef, fried clams and hockey-player sex she'll ever need is right there at Revere Beach?  

7. “The Rascal King” by the Mighty Mighty Bosstones – The Boston ska band performed what may have been the genre’s biggest national radio hit with an odd tune about famed Irish-American politician James Michael Curley, a.k.a, the Rascal King.  

He was mayor of Boston, governor of Massachusetts and a U.S congressman at various points in his career. Oh, and he was more corrupt than a drug mule in a Mexican border town. And in classic Boston fashion, nobody cared because he was OUR crooked mayor. Curley was actually re-elected to City Hall while in prison.

6. “Escape (the Pina Colada Song)” by Rupert Holmes – The ultimate in 1970s cheese, about two bored lovers who search the newspaper classifieds (Craigslist, for you young 'uns) looking for a little excitement.

They end up re-finding each other at a bar called O'Malley's, which sounds a lot like a bar on the Irish Riviera south of Boston.

But mostly, it’s a song about drinking and screwing on the beaches of Cape Cod. And it has one of the best lines of the 70s: “I am not much into health food. I am in to champagne”

5.  “I’m Shipping Up to Boston” by the Dropkick Murphys – The Dropkicks took an old sailors ditty and turned it into a rocking sports arena anthem.

The first couple heavy bass notes set the tone and by the end ofthe song you wish they’d bring back the old bucket-of-blood Blarney Stone in Fields Corner just so you had a good, decent place to get in a drunken fist fight on a Friday night.

It’s a tribute to power of the tune that they play it at sporting events all over the country. There isn’t a Steelers fan in the world who wouldn’t crawl over hot coals all the way to Foxboro for a chance to punch Tom Brady in the face and knock out a few of those pretty-boy teeth. Yet they still play “Shipping Up To Boston” at Heinz Field.

4. “Roadrunner” by Jonathan Richman & Modern Lovers – Bostonians pride themselves being the home of America’s firsts – whether it’s the first subway, school, library, or even football game. We even invented punk rock – at least according to some music historians, who credit the genre to Bay State rocker Jonathan Richman and “Roadrunner.”

I always thought of it as a quaint little song about Route 128, the ring road around Boston. But then I read a story in the The Guardian of London, who sent a reporter to retrace the journey of Richman’s song and its influence on rock history. I never knew the Braintree Split could be so romantic in the rush hour twilight.  

3. “Going out in Style” by the Dropkick Murphys – A bawdy, quick-fisted, Irish-Catholic funeral romp through good times, regretful incidents, lovers and old friends with the classic Boston characters we all know in some way: Sluggo, Garvy and Johnny Fitz. 

It features a tour of Boston landmarks (Mt. Calvary Cemetery, Fenway Park, Wollaston Beach) and a veritable who’s who of local icons, including marble-mouthed Mayor Menino and beloved Bobby Orr, the greatest man who ever lived. And if you don’t agree, Terry O’Reilly will climb into the stands and punch your f*cking teeth out.

2.  “Rock ‘n Roll Band” by, you guessed it, Boston, motherf*cker – The original Boston album sold 17 million copies and was the greatest selling debut album of all time before Guns ‘n Roses knocked it off the perch. It’s full of heavily produced but big, fun bright guitar tunes, including the anthemic “More Than a Feeling.”

But “Rock ‘n Roll Band” is the shitkicker: an autobiographical tale of local boys from Boston struggling to make ends meet but rocking away the summer on the streets of Cape Cod and in the bars of Rhode Island, where they were discovered by a cigar-chomping record exec.

It’s actually illegal to cross the Sagamore Bridge in summertime without Boston’s debut album in your iPod or 8-track. Or at least it should be.

1. “Dirty Water” by the Standells – The Standells were a 1960s California band that somehow penned the iconic song about Boston, the one they play at Fenway Park after Red Sox victories and that otherwise gets any group of Bostonians to lock arms and sing drunkenly at the top of their lungs ... even if they're not drunk.

The song captures the Boston zeitgeist perfectly: the girls are uptight, the bars close early, and the water is dirty, yet we’re full of bluster about it just the same. Hey, those are OUR uptight broads, this is OUR 1 a.m. last call and that’s OUR dirty God-damned water.

I grew up on a Boston Harbor beach and the water was so filthy we’d drive 30 minutes south to Hull just to go swimming without fear of growing a third penis.

For a little insight into Boston’s dirty water culture, look up “beach whistle” in your spare time. We had a six-piece Quincy beach whistle orchestra back in third grade. 

With that said, there isn’t a Bostonian worth his Larry Bird game jersey who doesn’t crank up the radio and dive into "Dirty Water" the second they the distinct opening notes of that classic Fender Stratocaster.

Seth McFarlane of "Family Guy" has taken a lot of heat this week for an episode of the popular New England-based cartoon comedy that features Peter running down people in his car at the Boston Marathon.

In fact, Fox has pulled the episode from the series.

Popular Boston-based band the Dropkick Murphys might face some pressure, too: they have a song called "Pipe Bomb on Lansdowne." Lansdowne Street is a popular nightlife area next to Fenway Park, right behind the Green Monster. It's maybe half mile to the scene of Monday's Boston Marathon bombings.

Among the lyrics: "Everybody's running out, bodies hit the ground, you'd better take cover; It's a pipebomb on Lansdowne Street."