Sequels and Supergroup Reunion Tours Always SEEM Like Good Ideas
Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski are now reunited as Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They're happy at the reunion, which apparently was all Brady's idea. Assuming there is a 2020 NFL season, will they be happy in December? Or will they learn the hard lesson of show business that for every Godfather II, there's a dozen Fantastic Fours: Rise of the Silver Surfer?
It's all guesswork. My own guess is that if Gronk has anything left in the tank, which is unknowable, and can avoid further injury, a less than 50-50 bet, he and Brady are likely to be if not joyful, at least satisfied. And far, far happier than anyone who goes to work at Gillette Stadium.
Bill Belichick thinks otherwise. He felt Gronk was hit out back in 2018, when he tried to trade him to the Lions. He felt it was well past time for the Pats to move on from Brady when that finally happened in March. As far as New England's future goes, the coach might well be right. But even if the departure of two Hall of Famers was necessary for improvement down the line, the fact remains Hall of Famers are very hard to replace. New England tight ends were a nullity in 2019. To expect whoever replaces Brady to be as good as Tom was in 2019, when he was merely a slightly above average NFL quarterback, is asking for more than can reasonably be expected.
The conventional wisdom in these parts is that Bill will find a way. Maybe he will, too. If anyone can, he can. But I can't help remembering the Celtics of the '80s. As Bird, Parish and McHale got old, injured and retired, they took the better part of two decades to replace. Greatness is rare. There is no comparison between the replacement of pretty good starter Drew Bledsoe and historic great Brady. Don't throw poor Jarrett Stidham down that well.
Those who believe Brady and Gronk won't do very much for the Bucs, a minority but a large one in NFL I feel are ignoring the basic setup of the Buccaneers. To be blunt, neither is going to be asked to do all that much. They aren't there to be first team All-Pros. They won't be judged failures if Tampa Bay doesn't make the Super Bowl, which it won't. The two incomparable if now faded superstars are part of a plan to eliminate or at least mitigate the weakness that made the Bucs 7-9 last season and make them a playoff team instead.
That weakness was Jameis Winston's stat line. No team of this century could have a winning record with 30 interceptions and seven pick-sixes. That's four losses that might've been wins otherwise right there. As this blog has noted before, the one statistic where Brady remained among the top quarterbacks in 2019 was interception percentage. He had only eight while throwing more passes than most other QBs. Whatever else Brady does for Tampa, if he throws 20 fewer interceptions and five less pick-sixes, he's made them better, much better.
And if Tom thinks he'll do better with his former all-time favorite receiver, and said receiver is available for a fourth round draft choice, why the hell not? Tampa made its play when it signed Brady. Acquiring Gronk is lily-gilding. We may note that there has no gild on the Tampa Bay lily for over a decade. They've gone through some lilies, too. Theirs tend to die each November.
Brady could deteriorate more rapidly in 2020. Gronk could get hurt running wind sprints, and part of me is sadly sure he'll get hurt severely once live action begins. As we learned on Behind the Music, reunion tours often have suboptimal endings for all concerned.
And then again, perhaps not. The only things we know for sure about the Brady-Gronk reunion is that the Buccaneers have made a high stakes short-term bet. Of necessity, Bill Belichick's side of the bet is a long-term gamble on the Patriots' future.
The only sure thing in gambling is that short-term bets, win or lose, end more quickly than long-term ones.
Bill Veeck Gives Them a C-minus in Hustling
Live sports are back! On Taiwan.
The Chinese Professional Baseball League re-opened play this week. You can livestream their games. I give it a week before you can bet on them too.
Naturally there were many adjustments due to the coronavirus, the most notable one being no spectators allowed at any of the ballparks. No live ones, that is. The Rakuten Monkeys (scouting report, powerful lineup, weak pitching, this is the team for you Red Sox fans) placed mannequins, some of them robots and cardboard cutouts, all carefully shown as wearing masks, in seats around their yard.
Some of the cutout fans were depicted with cardboard pets, dogs and cats. This was adorable, but I couldn't help imagining how the stand would be covered in puke by the fifth inning as real dogs and cats ate whatever concession crumbs and spillage dropped to the stadium floor.
The thing that bothered me most about the Brave New World of Monkey fandom wasn't the creepiness of the mannequins, although they were, but that Rakuten management did not go far enough with its bizarre conceit. The astroturf fans were in clumps, between plenty of empty seats, even in the box seat area. The clumps meant it wasn't an attempt to depict social distancing. So why stop there? This was Opening Day. The marketing department should at least have depicted a pretend sellout. Monkey fans at home watching on TV would've welcomed a little artificial enthusiasm for the new season.
Maybe they were worried about parking.
Turns Out I Do Care If I Ever Come Back
Sports are a leading indicator of the coronavirus. The suspension of the NBA after Rudy Gobert tested positive for the virus marks the point where most Americans started to think "hey, this is really serious," the start of the social distancing policies that now shape our lives.
Three weeks later, and no fan I know thinks the NBA or NHL will resume their 2019-2020 seasons. Baseball is hanging by a thread. Maybe there will be a season starting on let's say July 4. And maybe not. Golf's a very good leading indicator. The Open is likely going to be canceled. The US Open, PGA and the Masters are looking to be held, they hope, in October and November. They are blowing off summer, golf's chosen season, because the well-to-do and well-connected people in charge of the sport figure that's what America will be doing as a whole. And of course, the Olympics have already been postponed to the summer of 2021.
Only the NFL, our richest sports organization, is going cheerfully (well, not universally so) ahead with the idea its season will kick off as scheduled in early September, although it has acknowledged much of its preseason is gone. Since OTAs, rookie camps and most of training camp is closed to the public anyway, this has no impact on fans.
I sure hope the NFL and golf are correct in their assumptions as to the course of the virus's disruption of our society. I doubt it, but let's say they are. I have another question for the sports world. When the game restart, who's gonna go to them?
I won't. In all likelihood, I won't be allowed to. The world is going to reopen in fits and starts. Mass gatherings such as sports events will be way down the list of things allowed to reopen. Even when they are, I am fairly sure that as a senior and thus part of an age group at high risk of the virus's worst effects, I will be encouraged or mandated to maintain stay at home procedures long after the games begin again.
And that's cool by me. I'd dearly love to go to Fenway, or down to a Cape League game, but not at the price of risking my life. I don't miss American League relief pitching that much. I pay for an exorbitant cable television package for the very luxury of staying home with access to more sports than I can absorb on any day.
The suspicion in this old's mind is that many of the majority of not-old sports fans are going to share my sentiments on the happy day the authorities decide the world of games can resume its wonderful if trivial pursuits. Who's going to be first to venture out for a third-base line, 40-yard line, or courtside seat? Who's going to eat that first hot dog that's been passed from hand to hand from the aisle to Seat 22?
Someone will. Not as readily as people will hit the bars once more, perhaps, but there are so many sports fans, and they calculate risks no better than do non-sports fans. Worse most likely. What is rooting for a team than a poor estimate of emotional risks?
But I'm not sure there will be overflow crowds, not at first. And I'm damn sure that if the pro sports want live audiences, ticket price bargains had best be offered as well. Spending every waking hour thinking about how the outside world is trying to kill you does stuff to the mind. An economic depression does stuff to the wallet. We've got both those dilemmas on our hands. So does sports.
I spend half my non-virus worrying time desperately wishing for sports to return. I spend much of the other half wishing just as desperately sports err on the side of caution, for their own good.
If the all-clear is sounded, and there's a renewed virus outbreak traced to a spectator sports event
(you just know it'd be an SEC football game), then spectator sports as a business might not survive.
The government would never shut it down for keeps. But fans could, voting for their lives with their feet.
