The Little Franchise Which Cried "There's No Wolf Over Here!"
The Patriots never discuss injuries. Until they want to.
Officially, mum's the word on the status of Rob Gronkowski's knee today. Unofficially, anonymous Pats' personnel are leaking furiously to the national NFL reports who would tweet that Martians were sitting in Roger Goodell's office if some source told them that Gronkowski's injury is "not too serious." He may "miss one game, or maybe none."
I sure hope that's true. Gronk's my favorite Pat to watch. But I don't believe it, and won't until I see the tight end take the field during play. The New England organization lost whatever credibility I gave it on the topic of player health over a decade ago. In 2004, wide receiver Deion Branch got hurt in a September game in Arizona. The in-game team update stated Branch "had the wind knocked out of him."
Branch's next game came in Kansas City -- the Monday after Thanksgiving.
Fast forward to 2014. Linebacker Jamie Collins has an undisclosed "illness." He's now missed four games, a month of playing time. We can deduce Collins doesn't just have some bug that's going around. But what has laid him low? Mono? Rickets? Ebola? We don't know. We also don't know what purpose the Pats' secrecy serves except to fuel ever wilder speculation about the poor guy, who must really be sick.
So I also don't know if those Pats' sources are telling the truth about Gronk, or if they're just indulging in a group whistle-thon in a playoff graveyard. I DO know Pats' fans desperately want those leaks to be true, so in New England, they will be treated as a fact by just about everyone.
Don't let your team play you for a sap, fans. Be delighted when (and if) Gronk comes up to the line of scrimmage for the next time. Just don't spend the whole week expecting it.
Sports Illustrated, Here Are Your Sportsmen and Women of the Year
English soccer team Tottenham Hotspur had a road game today in the Europa League, which is basically a runner-up competition for European teams that were good but not real good the previous season.
The game against rival Qarabag was in the latter's home town -- Baku, Azerbaijan. It's a modest 2500 mile flight from London, and only involves travel over two countries currently shooting at each other, Turkey and Russia. Azerbaijan is in the Caucasus region. Gets cold there in November, and this was a night game.
Tottenham won 1-0. The account of the game in the British paper the "Guardian" said that among the handicaps facing the visitors was that their contingent of traveling fans was "only 100."
Only 100!?! How about "Tottenham had the support of 100 heroes"? These Limey superfans were in a stadium in a part of the world where centuries-long blood feuds take place over matters much less important than soccer. They flew over a war zone. They doubtless drank whatever is the national booze of Azerbaijan, which I don't even want to know it is.
Those 100 loonies are the glory of sports. If Spurs ever play a game in Boston. I hope to meet them. Hell, all who can fit are welcome to crash at my place.
There Are No NFL Moral Victories, but There Are Pyrrhic Ones
I'm not quite sure at what point of last night's game Bill Belichick decided he had more urgent priorities than just beating the Bills. I only know the decision took place.
Maybe it was in the third quarter after Leodis McKelvin's fumbled punt. Up 17-10 with the ball on the Buffalo 30, the Patriots ran the ball four times in five plays and settled, for once the right verb, for a Steven Gostkowski field goal and a 10-point lead. Maybe it was after Tom Brady's interception early in the fourth quarter, or after the last Buffalo hit on Brady that led to an extended dialogue between the quarterback and referee Gene Steratore. They could have been discussing holiday plans, but more likely Steratore was seeing if Brady was a concussion protocol candidate.
But for sure the decision was made before the Pats' final possession. Leading 20-13 with over two minutes to play, Brady handed off to LaGarrette Blount three times. If he got a first down, great? When he didn't, well, defense and special teams get paid, too. Let them be the heroes tonight.
In the event, they were. Field position off the kicking game, defense, and the uncanny ability of Rex Ryan's teams to punch themselves in the face are the reasons New England is 10-0 this morning. Nobody wins without them, of course, but the manner of this particular victory was particularly unBelichickian. His Patriots are legendary for never letting their collective foot off the accelerator, taking the fastest and most direct route between Kickoff A and Win B at all times. Except last night. Ahead on all the judges' cards, Belichick was content to waltz out the last rounds of the fight.
Content's likely the wrong word there. Belichick felt he had no choice. I couldn't read his poker face up close when I covered the team, and I'm not going to try and peer into his mind from watching TV, but the coach's actions speak for him, and what they said last night was "I've seen one injury too many tonight. I've seen about five hits too many on Tom. And I've seen about two hours too much of my offensive line."
Danny Amendola out. Aaron Dobson out. It's getting downright dangerous to be a Patriots wide receiver, but that's not what changed New England's offense down the stretch. What did were the double-digit shots Buffalo pass rushers took to Brady's torso. Tom is a big, strong, fanatically conditioned man, but no amount of muscle pliability can protect ribs, collarbones and shoulder joints.
So Belichick made Blount Brady's safe word. It had to be hard for the coach, Brady too for that matter. They're not the types to choose discretion as the better part of valor -- unless they had to.
They had to. The simple truth that New England is the best team in pro football but only so long as Brady is ambulatory outweighed the franchise's creed that the game at hand is the most important, only important matter in the world.
Here's a bet. You'll hear Blount's name called more often in the next six games. The Pats will give Brady the late game hero's role only when they absolutely have to, and the definition of "have to" will be very strict until January rolls around.
Do your job is a fine slogan. But a man can only do his job if he's healthy enough to get out of bed and go to work.
Skill Be a Lady Tonight Just Doesn't Have the Same Zip to It
The Hon. Charles Baker, Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, stated last week that daily fantasy sports websites DraftKings and FanDuel aren't gambling, they're "games of skill." Baker said he learned this by playing one free game on DraftKings.
For once, I'm hoping a politician IS trying to play the voters for suckers. If Baker actually believes that, then HE's the sucker. Those who live by the gambling dollar regard those who think the odds through brain power as their very best and most profitable customers.
Baker isn't a sucker, he's a sharp guy. Like most pols uttering nonsense, he wasn't lying per se, but offering a ritual statement not meant to be believed by a soul for a second. As all governors must, he was just supporting local industry, that is, Boston-based DraftKings, come what may. To show the bipartisan nature of that sentiment, Martha Coakley, the Democrat defeated to be elected Governor last November, is on the DraftKings payroll as a legal adviser.
(BTW, for an instructive lesson in how moral attitudes towardsDraftKings has many legal advisers and is hiring big-name law firms the way its suckers, sorry, players, load up on Rob Gronkowski every week. They are responding as Baker was to the announcement by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman that daily fantasy is too gambling, and as such, illegal in the Empire State. If other large states were to follow suit, all those daily fantasy ads would be off TV, and DraftKings would be yet another spectacular Internet-based business bust. This would in turn cost its investors serious dough and cause much agita among its marketing partners, such as your New England Patriots.
I have no stake in daily fantasy, so I don't have to insult anyone's intelligence. Of course daily fantasy is gambling. The federal law loophole that lets it operate says because it's "based on the assessment of the skills of the participants." Uh-huh. And why exactly is risking money on the proposition Tom Brady is gonna have a good game skill and risking money that the whole Pats team will cover the spread just a matter of chance?
ESPN was showing the final table of the World Series of Poker last night. The talents of the players at that table in disciplines ranging from mathematics to psychology are unbelievable. Compared to top level hold-'em as a game of skill, fantasy football is Candyland. And yet nobody, least of all the poker players themselves, would say they weren't gambling.
I don't care that daily fantasy is gambling. Society's hypocrisy about its vices doesn't much bother me, either. I'm used to it. My objection to daily fantasy is on simpler moral grounds. It's a bad bet, a bet so bad as to constitute a ripoff. Players who use DraftKings and FanDuel are competing against huge numbers of fellow players. They are all handicapping a horse race with about 250 entries, the skill position players of 32 NFL teams (28 or 30 on bye weeks). The odds stink, and the only way to lower them is to use Wall Street tactics, making hundreds of entries based on computer algorithms determining who all the other bettors are picking for their teams.
That is how at least one employee of one of the two companies made big money playing on his competitor. The uncanny resemblance that bears to insider trading is what began official scrutiny of daily fantasy. Well, that and the national horror at all those damn ads.
So daily fantasy is a mug's game. Why, the only worse bet you can make is buying a lottery ticket, a form of gambling legal everywhere and heavily advertised by every state that runs one, including New York. Governments everywhere have succumbed to the reality that while voters don't see a tax increase to fix the crumbling bridge on their road to work as a sound investment, they'll happily squander the same sums on a below infinitesimal chance to get rich quick.
That in fact is what I think will be the future of daily fantasy. It won't be outlawed in New York or anywhere else. It will become a quasi-governmental operation, with the states letting sites operate in return for a healthy slice of the daily handle. The public sector has learned that the self-righteous satisfaction of outlawing "vice" pales in comparison to a new revenue stream.
This will all be presented as a means of protecting civic morals while protecting the interests of the little guy, the nickel and dime daily fantasy patsy. The odds of the game will not change in the slightest.
Pols treat voters as suckers for the same reason the house treats gamblers the same way. It's a majority of their customer bases.
The Most Important Position on the Field?
There are four remaining undefeated teams in the National Football League this season. The Patriots, Bengals, Broncos and Panthers all have 7-0 records.
Denver quarterback Peyton Manning has an NFL passer rating of 75.1. Quarterback Cam Newton of Carolina has a rating of 78.1. By way of contrast, Tom Brady leads the league with a rating of 115. By further way of contrast, by the NFL's measuring stick, Manning and Newton have had worse seasons throwing the ball than such notables as Geno Smith, Blake Bortles and Colin Kaepernick, who lost his starting job with the 49ers yesterday with a rating of 78.8.
Notable fact related to these statistics: there has been quite serious talk that Newton is a league MVP candidate!
Notable implication of these statistics: despite the fantasization of pro football, the aerial circus is not the only way to win ballgames. Defense may not be as dead as the Saints and Giants think.
Quickie Quarterback Quiz, Rhetorical Variety
Because the Patriots have gone 7-0, and score a lot of points because their Hall of Fame quarterback is playing very, very well. the assumption in these parts is that they must be the best team in the NFL, probably the greatest team in history. The only debatable issue is whether they'll go 19-0 to win the Super Bowl, or only 18-1.
We'll leave aside the fact pro football greatness is impossible to achieve before Election Day. What interests me is the blithe assumption New England is far better, no, make that ludicrously superior to, the other NFL teams who haven't lost yet. This is particularly true of the 7-0 Denver Broncos. Denver throttled the previously unbeaten Packers in every aspect of the game last night, but that's nothing compared to how the Pats did the same thing to the Dolphins last Thursday. The disdain for Denver is based on comparing the rotten season Peyton Manning has had so far (until last night, anyway) with the fabulous 2015 performance of Tom Brady.
All football fans are overly quarterbackcentric, but nowhere more so than here. This was true when the Pats had lousy quarterbacks, and it's even truer now that they've had 15 seasons of an all-time superstar under center. So my question is aimed at a very specific audience -- Patriots fans.
Gang, be honest now. What do you think the Pats record would be if Brady had played as poorly as Manning did in the Broncos' first six games? Think your heroes would've beaten the Steelers, Jets and Bills anyway? If so, let me congratulate you for your loyalty and hand out your failing quiz grade.
Manning's no-good, horrible very bad first six games DID happen. And Denver won 'em all the same. From where this quizmaster sits, that's as least as impressive an accomplishment as hanging 51 points on the Jaguars.
