Saturday, January 20, 2024

Memo to Whom It May Concern in Patriotsland

 Dear Sirs and/or Madams in the Front Office: The following is a list of quarterbacks drafted with the third pick in the NFL draft since the merged NFL-AFL draft began in 1967.

1967: Steve Spurrier (note, number four pick Bob Griese is in the Hall of Fame).

1970: Mike Phipps

1971: Dan Pastorini

1979 Jack "The Throwin' Samoan" Thompson (4th pick Dan Hampton, Hall of Fame

1986: Jim Everett

1994: Heath Shuler

1995: Steve McNair

1999: Akili Smith (4th pick Edgerrin James, Hall of Fame)

2002: Joey Harrington

2006: Vince Young

2008: Matt Ryan

2014: Blake Bortles

2018: Sam Darnold

2021: Trey Lance

       As a group, these QBs fail to impress. Everett and Pastorini had OK careers. McNair and Ryan did better than that. Each won an MVP, each had a team reach the Super Bowl but lost. Otherwise, oy. There are some historic failures on the lost -- Firing an executive or two type failures.

Past performance is no guarantee of future success, as the Wall Street ads say, but this list strongly suggests the Pats should do even deeper study of their tapes of Marvin Harrison Jr.

Wednesday, January 17, 2024

The Triumph of Hope Over Experience

 In the winter of 2020, the New England Patriots organization, led by coach Bill Belichick but certainly including team owner Robert Kraft, decided that the team could lose quarterback Tom Brady and continue with business as usual, maybe with a hiccup or two, but nothing that couldn't be handled.

This assessment turned out to be erroneous.

In the winter of 2024, owner Robert Kraft decided the resulting disasters were Belichick's fault (he bears his share of blame and then some), so he fired the coach and replaced him with young, smart, Jerod Mayo, whose only football experience was working for Belichick. In fact, as far as can be told, the entire organization created and ruled by Belichick for a quarter of a century will remain in place. Their natural talents will bloom without the shade cast by the previous hooded tyrant.

Could be. Kraft's smart, too. But I'd keep my money in my pocket when a Patriots game goes on the board next fall.

Friday, September 08, 2023

You Gotta Be a Football Hero to Get Along With the Beautiful Girls. Or a Baseball Hero

One tell about Boston opinion about the Patriots going into the 2023 season opener is that local TV news, the ultimate homers, are focusing on the Tom Brady ceremony/whatever the hell it is event at halftime rather than the actual game against the Eagles.

Well, there's nothing local TV likes better than some meaningless feel good event, so there's been deep coverage. One station (I'm leaving a lot out here, because the nice lady at the center of this piece deserves better than what's coming) found a sweet woman in her 80s who allegedly was the inspiration for the ho "80 for Brady" horror movie. 

The usual fluff feature ensued, but there was a twist. Some enterprising intern, who I hope this post doesn't get fired, discovered that in her youth, this woman had been Miss New Hampshire 1948. Moreover, he or she also found some newspaper or publicity still in which she appears next to Ted Williams in full Red Sox uniform.

The picture told 10 million words. Ted was very obviously throwing major moves at this sweet young this and she was just as obviously not unhappy about it. At all.

The saying goes that the Splendid Splinter hit .344 on the field and .844 off it. I think we can regard that photo as another occasion where Ted sent one deep over the bullpen into the Fenway bleachers.

What I'm saying here is that this sweet old lady is still a hardcore and together sports groupie. And for that, I salute her. That spirit is what makes America greay.

Thursday, May 18, 2023

Second Guessing Never Stops the Clock

 Once upon a long ago time there was a basketball coach. Among other of his qualities, he was famous for hating to ever call time outs when his team was struggling with its play or facing an opponent's surge. He almost never did this, which even back in this era was considered most unconventional if not controversial. But the coach believed that his players were properly prepared and could, indeed should, figure out their problems in real time during game action.

This coach's name was John Wooden. Check his record out sometime. Then think about if you really want to insist Joe Mazzulla was the reason the Celtics lost to Miami last night or if maybe, just maybe, the incredibly gifted and even more incredibly inconsistent team Boston puts on the floor had something to do with it.

Tuesday, February 28, 2023

Final Thought, I Promise, on NBA Minutes Played

 Back in my day, NBA stars did load management the right way. They half-assed it on the court on the nights they felt tired.

Saturday, February 25, 2023

Quiet Times Breed Noisy Takes

The Boston Celtics have the best record in the NBA so far this season. According to some however, the team must address a serious problem. Its best player is playing too much.

No, really. It is posited that because Jayson Tatum is averaging a fraction over 37 minutes a game of playing time, the Celtics are in danger of burning out their top star and MVP candidate before the playoffs, the "real season" begin and certainly by the NBA Finals, which incidentally the observers tend to assume the Celts will make anyway.

Leave aside that Tatum's time spent on the court might have something, indeed, a good deal, to do with Boston's gaudy 43-17 record to date. The worrywarts sure do. Let's generously assume that in theory, there's a point where Tatum could be overused, where his play would begin to slip due to his workload. In reality, where might that point be?

Tatum is 24 years old. By happy coincidence, Larry Bird was that age in the 1980-1981 season, when the Celtics won the first of their three NBA titles of the 80s. In that regular season, Bird averaged 39 1/2 minutes per game. In 1983-84, when Boston was again the champ, and Bird won the first of three straight MVP awards, he was granted about an extra 80 seconds of rest a game, averaging 38 plus minutes of PT.

Was that too long ago to be relevant to today's basketball? Only to the foolish, but in the spirit of generosity, I present a more contemporary comparison. Boston's last NBA championship came in the 2007-2008 season. That was a far more veteran team than today's Celts, but in terms of playing style, Paul Pierce is probably the closest comp to Tatum.

Pierce was 30 years old that season. He averaged 36 minutes per game in the regular season. This slowed him down so much Pierce was only able to average 38 per game in the playoffs.

History lesson over. I didn't go back any further than Bird because the increasingly large section of the basketball public too young to remember back then tends not to believe the statistics of the '60s and '70s. (If you must know, John Havlicek averaged 41 minutes a game for the '74 Celtic champs at age 33 and Bill Russell, age 34, averaged 43 minutes a game for the '69 champs).

In any event, none of these numbers suggest that Tatum's being driven/driving himself into the ground by coach Joe Mazzulla or by his own desires for personal glory. He's played about how much Celtics superstars have played for the last 40 years. Tatum is indeed second in the league in minutes played per game. But he's getting all of 84 seconds on the floor per night more than LeBron James, age 38. James is 12th in average minutes per game. 

If Tatum tells us he's tired, I'll believe he is. Until then, I'll believe that his 37 minutes per game is closely related to that 43-17 record.

Saturday, February 18, 2023

If Wishes Were All-Pros, Beggars Could Ride Deep Into the Playoffs

Offseasons in all sports breed plans and schemes. Unfortunately for their creators, these are most often just dreams.

So it's not too surprising that a consensus has emerged within the New England Patriots' media-industrial complex that there's nothing wrong with the franchise that five or six new Pro Bowl calibers couldn't fix. For the record, I agree. I would also agree if this diagnosis was given for any of the 17 other teams that didn't make the postseason in 2022, even the lowest of the low like the Bears and Texans. Put the likes of Roquan Smith, Darius Slay and Cooper Kupp on any of 'em and it's a cinch they'd win more games in 2023.

The Pats' commentators wish list is a long one. In no particular order, it goes, new tackle for the offensive line, a new number one corner, a new number one wide receiver, and several new linebackers. Also a new third down running back would be nice, and of course the team has to replace its kickers. How all this is to be accomplished in the 4 1/2 short months before training camp is left for Bill Belichick to figure out.

My guess is that Belichick will indeed figure out how to acquire a couple, or maybe even one more than a couple, of the items on the above wish list. But the only management genius who could get all of them for the current Patriots by late next summer is Santa Claus.

The means by which a team may acquire better NFL players are well-known. There's the draft, trades, free agency, and rarest of all, coaching or an athlete's natural development results in dramatic improvement by a guy already on the roster. 

The Pats have cap space to spend on free agents. But free agency is a two-way street. They also have free agents to lose, notably cornerback Jonathan Jones and wideout Jakobi Myers. The website Sportrac estimates each man's market value at $12.5 million per season, an exponential raise from their 2022 salaries.

Either the Pats let the two go or spend more for them. Whichever choice they make, a significant chunk of their free agent budget will go for running hard to stay in the same place. This isn't mismanagement, it's how the system is supposed to work.

Then there are trades. The nihilists on Felger and Mazz have floated the idea the Pats want to acquire Deebo Samuel from the 49ers. Splendid idea. Samuel is a wholly admirable player, the kind who truly would improve any team. This is why he's unlikely to come cheap. Since the Pats' primary desirable asset is draft capital, they'd once again give up a means of improvement to improve via another.

None of this is the result of mismanagement. It is the way the NFL system is set up to work. The whole idea of the league is that it is easier to rise to the middle from the bottom than to rise from the middle to the top. Indeed, it's far easier to slide off the top to the middle, another built-in feature. 

Nothing I've written above is news to anyone, or shouldn't be. The people making up those five-point plans for a New England renaissance know it perfectly well. I can't fault the lists for what's in them, only for the assumption, and in some cases the outright statements, by the listmakers that all these changes can and should be made immediately. letting the Pats return to their manifest destiny as one of the NFL's top five (at least) teams.

How spoiled is that? How is it that media and fans here can accurately describe Tom Brady as the greatest quarterback of his time and yet pretend losing Brady shouldn't have cost the Pats a few spots in the standings? All dynasties end. The Patriots' dynasty ended the day Brady left for Tampa, and what's left here in New England is the stubborn refusal to accept the fact the team is now, well, just one of the bunch of middle strivers caught in the near-impossible process of becoming consistent playoff qualifiers.

There's maybe one or two other men alive who know as much about NFL history than Belichick. Rest assured he knows the record perfectly well. There's only been one franchise ever to lose a Hall of Fame QB and return to the title without a long, painful interregnum, the 49ers of the '80s and '90s. That's because they had Hall of Famer Steve Young to replace Joe Montana.

Maybe Mac Jones will take the kind of leap Josh Allen has, or Jalen Hurts did last season. Maybe not, too. And if he does, well then Jones will be looking for at least Kyler Murray money, like $45 million a year. There may be a quarterback someday who turns out to be as good as Brady, but none will ever come along who'll take lower salaries for the "good of the team" as Brady did with the Pats. He himself will tell QBs not to.

The football takes funny bounces, players indeed get better, or stay healthier or both. It's certainly possible the Patriots could rebound to one of the NFL's best records in 2023. Look at what the Vikings did last season.

Oh, was that a bad example?