The Patriots' Beards

The Mankins beard.

Lord knows this isn't a new issue, but if I have a chance to interview professional athletes about their facial hair, I feel compelled to try.

Logan Mankins, on his beard:

"When you're a lineman you just grow a beard, and wherever it grows and however long it grows in certain spots, you just let it."

Five of the Pats' linemen have beards. And the others?

"There's a couple guys who can't grow hair, their [bleeps] still haven't dropped I guessed," Nick Kaczur said.

Kaczur said Mankins looks like Grizzly Adams; Mankins described his own look as "probably a big mountain man."

He said his plan was to shave after the Patriots' first loss, but, you know, that didn't really work out. So he's shaving Monday, win or lose, which seems to me a terrible, terrible omen for New England fans. And Tom Brady?

"You can't get on GQ if you have a beard," Mankins said.

The Giants' Kareem McKenzie also has some chin growth, but he seemed reluctant to embrace the go-for-broke approach of his New England counterparts.

"The wild beard growing, just crazy? That's not me," he said. "It doesn't look good, it's not very fashionable. Especially, I'm already a bigger-sized gentleman, and you can't have the Wild McGruff, the Wild Man Jack. It doesn't go well for me. If that works for them, more power to 'em."