We talk about Julian Edelman’s possible suspension and how apparently the NFL doesn’t even know what he tested positive for, how does this all affect Tom Brady and TB12, some good old fashioned Boston media on media crime and more! Listen, subscribe, and review us on iTunes, Google Play or wherever you get your podcasts!
Yahoo – At present, the Cavs don’t have much to offer James. Despite reaching the NBA Finals, it’s tough to label the current roster as championship-caliber, and Cleveland’s lack of salary cap flexibility nixes the idea of signing a marquee free agent. In order to make stark changes, the Cavaliers likely will have to make a trade. And considering Kevin Love is Cleveland’s best player outside of James, the veteran big man could be the team’s saving grace. “They missed chances to trade their best non-LeBron player, Kevin Love, at something close to peak value, and will have hard time flipping him for even 50 percent of that now,” ESPN’s Zach Lowe writes. “Expect the Cavs to explore what they might get for a package of Love and the No. 8 pick around the draft in a last-ditch attempt to convince LeBron to stay.”
This is the exact kind of shit that got Cleveland in the spot they’re stuck in at this exact moment; forcing personnel moves solely to appease LeBron. Thats how you get a roster full of guys like JR Smith, Tristan Thompson, Kyle Korver, and (ironically) Kevin Love. So now, rather than try and actually build something the Cavs are just gonna double down and reconfigure the team on the fly again in an effort to entice LeBron to resign.
Let me be very clear; this is a TERRIBLE idea.
Completely altering the structure of the team by trading your second best player and a top 10 draft pick only to guarantee LeBron for another year AT BEST is asinine. The past couple of years LeBron has exclusively signed 1+1 deals where its 1 year + a 1 year player option. He then opts out after the 1 year to essentially put the pressure on the team to do what he wants and continuously add to the roster. Which is genius by the way. LeBron snatched all the leverage away and gave it back to the (elite) players. Business savvy as all hell. But its put the Cavs in a terrible bind the past few years, despite reaching the Finals 4 straight years.
Cleveland has essentially been operating under 1 year cycles, not even pretending to think about building for the long term. And don’t tell me that its exactly what they needed to do to win and be successful because the Cavaliers have just as many titles as the Celtics in the past decade.
So the Cavs could trade all of their best assets just to appease LeBron and then if it doesn’t work to his liking he’s gone next year anyways. Then you’re really hosed.
It’s an awful position to be in, but the Cavs let themselves get here so they need to do 1 of 2 things. Either sack up and tell LeBron this is the team we’ve got and we’ll do the best we can, but we’re not going to start purging valuable assets unless you commit to a long term deal. OR just blow up the entire thing and restart with whatever you can get for the assets you currently have.
SI – “I know what Julian Edelman posted on Instagram in the wake of the suspension news (“I don’t know what happened”) came off as a little weird, but there is an explanation for it. I was told Edelman’s result was triggered by a substance that wasn’t immediately recognizable, and there are scientists analyzing it. And as to the timing, the test did happen during the offseason (a couple months ago), which means it’s not for any kind of stimulant. You might remember the rash of players saying they got popped for Adderall—the rules have changed now so that offseason use of stimulants falls under the substances of abuse policy, rather than the PED policy.”
Late last week Julian Edelman got popped for PEDs, but it wasn’t immediately known what he had actually tested positive for. However, Bert Breer of MMQB reported today that Edelman’s “I don’t know what happened” defense may not be totally unfounded because apparently the NFL doesn’t know what happened either.
“I was told Edelman’s result was triggered by a substance that wasn’t immediately recognizable, and there are scientists analyzing it.”
Ask anyone who has read “Game of Shadows” or “Juiced” or followed really any of the Olympic track scandals over the past 20 years; the steroid scientists are always ahead of the league scientists. Its just a constant game of catch up as the leagues are trying to reverse engineer everything and figure out what to test for. With that being said, when they do pop someone its usually a hybrid substance or a masking agent of another substance that triggers the test. Breer makes it seem like Edelman tested positive for something the NFL has never seen. But if thats the case, then is the substance he took actually banned? Did Edelman even know if it was or wasn’t?
I mean technically, if its not a banned substance then you can’t suspend a guy for it. You would have to at least inform the NFLPA that it will soon be banned and that it will be tested for in the future. Without knowing all the details its hard to say who’s more in the wrong here (neither Edelman nor the NFL are in the right) because if you’re the NFL how can you suspend a guy for something you didn’t know even existed let alone banned? If you’re Edelman WTF are you doing taking something that isn’t 100% approved by the NFL. A lot of players won’t even step foot in a GNC anymore because who the hell knows whats in half of the supplements they sell? If you don’t know, then don’t risk it.
So the real question is what did Edelman test positive for? Adamantium? Vibranium? The symbiote that forms Venom?
Or is it a TB12 cocktail? I’m certainly not going to point the finger because it would be criminally negligent for Alex Guerrero and Tom Brady to be signing off on anything even approaching questionable as part of the TB12 Method. Doing so would essentially submarine a potential billion dollar business in a second.
But thats not to say the media won’t make the connection, allude to the connection, or nearly come to blows arguing over the mere mention of a possible connection.
Curran is Edelman’s business partner in a book deal. He is a client of Alex Guerrero. Reports on both. Like most in sports media he has opinions about teams he never covers in person (C’s, B’s, Sox). And here he lectures us on journalism. https://t.co/PuuLy9H7Iz
Either way the Patriots have become a constant source of drama and gossip this offseason, which is the antithesis of what this team has been for the past 18 years. Thats tough to ignore because where there’s smoke there’s usually fire. But until that shoe drops, I fully expect the team to win 12+ games and be chasing another Super Bowl this year. So for all the critics calling for the end of the dynasty, saying every great team run ends the same; It only ends once. Everything before that is just progress.
ESPN – New England Patriots wide receiver Julian Edelman is facing a four-game suspension for violating the NFL’s policy on performance-enhancing substances, league sources told ESPN on Thursday. The suspension is currently under appeal as Edelman has taken “hundreds of tests” and has not tested positive before, a source told ESPN..Edelman, who has been a regular participant in the team’s offseason program, OTAs and minicamp, is returning from an ACL tear during the 2017 preseason that forced him to miss the entire season. He turned 32 years old last month and is entering his 10th season in the NFL.
Goddamnit, Jules.
This is not what the Patriots need right now. Not with all the drama surrounding Brady v Belichick. Not with Gronk nearly retiring to become a wrestler. Especially not with the receiving corps being comprised primarily of cast offs and new faces. If Edelman misses the first 4 games that means the Patriots receiver depth chart will look something like this (barring roster cuts):
Chris Hogan
Kenny Britt
Phillip Dorsett
Malcolm Mitchell
Jordan Matthews
Cordarrelle Patterson
Riley McCarron
Braxton Berrios
Cody Hollister
Matthew Slater
Besides the fact that we lose Edelman for a month, does anyone really care about the sanctity of the game? Football fans aren’t a bunch of MLB HOF voters wielding the vaunted morality clause, which is the biggest difference between football and any other sport. A baseball player tests positive and its the lead story on SportsCenter and that athlete is required to do the Game of Thrones shame walk with the crazy nun before they’re allowed to play again.
I heard Edelman got popped for PEDs and I just thought oh goddamnit, now we’re really gonna miss Danny Amendola. Totally unfair to baseball, but thats what happens when you build your entire sport around numbers and records and then a couple of juiced up sluggers completely destroy said record book by ingesting and injecting everything under the sun into their bodies.
I really just don’t care mainly because I’m jaded having grown up in the rise and fall of the steroid era. I read “Juiced” and “Game of Shadows” in high school and witnessed the fallout with all of these athletes getting outed over the years so many times that I just am numb to it.
The most similar example of then 31-year-old Edelman’s case has to be Rodney Harrison in 2007. Harrison was also suspended the first 4 games of the season for PEDs after coming off a serious shoulder and knee injury that ended his 2006 season at the age of 34. My point being, whether its naive or not, HGH is probably the No. 1 supplement to help an athlete recover from an injury. Is it banned? You bet. But if I’m in my 30’s staring down the barrel at the end of my career, then you bet your ass I’m taking whatever I can to get back to 100% as fast as possible.
What will be really interesting though is the connection, real or imagined, that is made between Edelman’s PED usage and his time working with Alex Guerrero and the TB12 Method. There’s probably no connection as it was made abundantly clear in Tom vs Time that Edelman loves to lift weights more than anything the TB12 Method could offer in terms of pliability and exercise bands. But, as we all know Guerrero has a shady past selling all kinds of shit so the questions will be asked no doubt.
PS – I will be using this as an opportunity to go on the attack if people start with the “Patriots are cheaters” bullshit, particularly in the wake of Peyton Manning’s HGH scandal. Jerry Thornton is doing God’s work over at Barstool keeping everyone apprised of that story. Basically Manning’s lawyers confirmed that Peyton took the HGH, which he publicly denied taking, saying it was for his wife. So a guy who had made over $100 Million in his career was getting his wife’s medicine shipped to some shit hole clinic in downtown Indianapolis IN A STRIP MALL. Get outta here with that nonsense.
Yahoo – Start with this when it comes to Johnny Manziel and his attempted return from self-induced football career disaster – the former Heisman Trophy winner has said all he wants is a chance to play, and faced with no NFL opportunities, he’s grabbing one. In Canada, no less. Manziel, 25, announced Saturday morning that he has signed a two-year contract with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the Canadian Football League. Conceivably, he could suit up for a preseason game against Toronto as soon as June 1.
It took me a minute to find the stats for Manizel’s first game because if I asked you right now, where do you go for CFL stats? What’s your go to source? Its not exactly on the back page of the sports section or in my ESPN push notifications.
I ultimately used my brain and just went to the Hamilton Tiger Cats website where I was swiftly and sharply reminded that this is Canada.
If I had just written that joke out you would have ridiculed my wit and said it was too predictable. Welp, thats literally the first thing I saw on this Canadian Football League website, god bless em those hosers love their Tim Hortons.
Say what you will about Johnny Football, but his game was created in a Canadian lab somewhere in the mountains of Alberta. (Does Alberta have mountains?) The wider fields, the larger endzones, the unlimited motion on offense; this is like college football on coke. Anyways, on to the stats because as we all know stats don’t lie. And my dude Johnny Manziel is LIGHTING. IT. UP.
Can’t say I necessarily understand the vaunted three quarterback attack, but in his first CFL game Manziel had an 81% completion percentage going 9/11. Thats a pretty good start after only throwing footballs in the illustrious Spring League and at Texas A&M Pro Days. I have full confidence that Manziel will be wrecking that league in no time at all.
But the real question is; how do I pirate legally stream CFL games? I feel like thats some shit you’re going to need an old school black box from your dad’s shady buddy. So if anyone finds that stream deep down the Reddit rabbit hole tweet me @the300sboston to hook it up. Otherwise, we might have to expense a road trip on The 300s non-existent credit card to Tim Hortons Field in Hamilton, Canada in the name of content.
I think Johnny Manziel needs a new nickname though if he’s going to truly follow in the footsteps of another diminutive American QB and run shit in the CFL.
My vote goes to Johnny Maple. Bookmark this blog so when somebody with a little more venture capital steals it and makes a billion dollar t-shirt out of it, I want my royalties.
Steph Curry was putting on a show last night, hitting regular three pointers, hitting fadeaway threes, deep threes, hell he even hit a desperation three. The guy was just downright unstoppable in Game 2 finishing with 33 points. He actually set a record for three pointers made in an NBA Finals game with 9. NINE threes in a Finals game is absurd.
You know who held the record that Steph broke? Yup, Jesus Shuttlesworth himself. Ray Allen had eight three pointers and 32 points in Game 2 of the 2010 NBA Finals. Ya know the one the Celtics lost in excruciatingly painful fashion in seven games.
Well you hear Steph broke a record Ray Allen set while on the Celtics last night and you dreamily think oh man he was great in that series wasn’t he?
He was actually terrible in that series, shooting 37% from the field while going an abysmal 29% from 3. We’re talking about a career 40% 3 point shooter. Rajon Rondo had a better 3 point percentage in that series for christ’s sake. So yes he set an NBA Finals record that stood for almost a decade, but lets not forget the fact that he was downright awful the rest of the series.
Its ironic and cruel that the record Curry broke belonged to Ray Allen’s 8 three pointers in Game 2 of the 2010 #NBAFinals Allen would then go on to drop 2, 12, 12, 19, and 13 with FOUR THREE POINTERS TOTAL IN THE REST OF THE SERIES. #Celtics#Cavs#Warriors#NBAhttps://t.co/ltoNdXGzIh
After that record setting night in Game 2 with 8 threes, Ray hit only FOUR 3 pointers the rest of the series. After dropping 8 threes in Game 2, Ray dropped 4 threes in the next 5 games combined.
Maybe mix in a make?
So I just wanted to thank Steph Curry for reminding me of that.
This has been “The 300s Rehashing Celtics Games From 8 Years Ago.”
ESPN – The Philadelphia Phillies have lost six of their past eight games. And after a sweep at the hands of the San Francisco Giants, pitcher Jake Arrieta has reached a boiling point. “Overall, it’s just a really horses— series,” Arrieta said after the Phillies’ 6-1 loss on Sunday. “Really bad. Really bad. We’ve had bad defensive shifts. We had a checked swing. [Shortstop Scott] Kingery should’ve gone to second on that play. And they got three hits in a row. The home run — credit [Andrew] McCutchen for putting a good swing on it, but did not expect a ball like that to get out,” Arrieta said in recounting how a five-run sixth inning for the Giants came together against him.
My fellow lumberjack beard sporting dude Jake Arrieta is having a damn good year for the Phillies (5-3 2.66 ERA) but he was NOT having a good time after getting shellacked and swept by the Giants this weekend. He basically had a meltdown after the game. My first reaction to reading those quotes was bro you cannot do that, especially after just losing 6-1 with the Phillies scoring all of 1 run in the entire series too…
“Sunday’s loss featured the team’s only run scored of the entire series, one driven in by Arrieta with a solo homer in the third inning.”
..which was scored by Arrieta himself…
Rip away, Jake.
If you weren’t dominating on the mound and then personally providing your own run support at the plate I’d tell you to STFU because you know players absolutely haaate when a pitcher calls out his team’s defense. But if you are doing those things then, well, then nobody can really say shit. This is a young team and Arrieta is a Cy Young winner and World Series champion so maybe a swift kick in the ass is just what his team needs.
Solid plan guys. I understand keeping Hanley Ramirez may have just been a fit issue with fellow 1B/DH Mitch Moreland absolutely crushing the ball lately (.305 and 10 HRs), but you couldn’t find a way to make it work?
As much as I don’t want to see JD Martinez in the outfield, you know he wants to play the field so rotate him out there and get Hanley at 1B or DH and just wait out his recent cold streak. He was only hitting .259 with 6 dingers, but he was still the Sox No. 3 hitter. The guy can rake like no one else when he gets going so to just dust him because the *Boston Red Sox* are worried about $22 Million next year is insane.
In a hilarious turn of events the move blows up in their faces not even a week later with both Mookie Betts and Dustin Pedroia going on the DL. So now we’re relying on Brock Holt and Blake Swihart. Oh and the Sox also called up Sam Travis who was hitting a cool .213 in Pawtucket. Forgive me if I’m not jumping at those options over Hanley.
The Sox also signed veteran 1B free agent Adam Lind too, which would have been awesome if it were 2009. He’ll be emergency depth as the Sox have stashed him at Pawtucket while paying him what I can only assume is the veteran minimum. So its peanuts for a guy, who in fairness, did hit .303 in 301 plate appearances for the Nationals last year. I guess if you’re the Sox you’d rather pay a guy $500,000 to hit just above the Mendoza line than risk locking yourself into $22 million next year.
But have the Sox been penny wise and pound foolish? I would expect Mookie to not miss much time, but its impossible to say what will happen with Pedroia. He’s coming off an invasive knee surgery and will soon be 35-years-old. When healthy he’s still very productive and a tough out, but he’s rarely been healthy recently. Pedroia has played in more than 105 games just once in the last 3 seasons so thats not exactly confidence inspiring. Ideally the Sox would have another bat that could play 2B to fill in for Pedroia rather than trying to mishmash Hanley into the lineup around two other guys that play the same position. However, the Sox don’t have that luxury this year as Eduardo Nunez has crashed back to Earth hitting .259 with just 17 extra base hits on the year.
So long story short? Don’t cut guys that can swing the stick for no other reason than to maybe save a few bucks next year. Not if you’re the Boston Red Sox. Unless of course John Henry and co. are stuffing cash under the mattress to go after a guy like Bryce Harper or Manny Machado this offseason. If thats the case then I’ll print this blog out and eat it with a nice lemon zest for flavor.
PS – Its possible the Sox got rid of Hanley because he was just a total cancer in the clubhouse. I don’t know whether thats true or not, but Ken Rosenthal strongly implies that was a big reason. If thats the case, then do what you gotta do.
“Some with the team believe the removal of Ramirez from the clubhouse will create more room for others to assert themselves and become leaders,” Rosenthal said in a video on FOXSports.com. “One player who is a top candidate to assume such a role? J.D. Martinez. Dustin Pedroia is the only other prominent veteran among the team’s position players and he is back on the DL.”
Before I even write one word, I will admit this is all coming from a Celtics fan that just got got by LeBron James…again. So I may not be the most objective person in the world, but, the ball washing of LeBron that we are now witnessing is unprecedented. Its the number 1 reason a lot of people just cannot get on board as a fan of LBJ, despite being a once in a lifetime talent.
It hit its peak during this Eastern Conference Finals. LeBron James won the series with a herculean performance no doubt. In the 2018 playoffs he is averaging 34 points, 9 rebounds and 8 assists. Thats bananas, but going into this series how many people actually picked the Celtics to win while being lead by a bunch of guys in their early twenties?
Lets go to the board!
Oh look three people.
Of the 22 ESPN “Experts” polled, all but three picked the Cavs to win the series, two of whom are Boston writers. And only 5 predicted the series would even go 7 games, so we can’t just turn around now and say it was some miraculous effort that LeBron willed this team to a win after you all picked him to win outright 2 weeks ago.
Hell ESPN said the same exact thing before the C’s played the Sixers too, giving them almost no shot of winning.
So is this a young underachieving team that got exactly as far as it possibly could? Or is this LeBron the savy vet, the all-time great somehow, some way getting past a Celtics team MISSING THEIR TWO BEST PLAYERS.
Its just recency bias.
Going into this series no one gave the C’s a shot because they were too young and inexperienced. Then the C’s win the first two to flip the script and put the pressure back on the Cavs. After battling back and winning the series though people are legitimately saying this is LeBron’s greatest achievement ever. The guy who has won three titles and is going to his 8th straight NBA Finals, beating the Celtics WHO WERE MISSING THEIR TWO BEST PLAYERS in 7 games is his greatest feat.
So while most of us still feel like this:
You gotta remember once Kyrie Irving went down we all said if the Celtics can get out of the first round then the rest is gravy. So while this loss stings, I know this team will be right back in it and competing for a title in a few months. This team took LeBron James, the greatest player of our generation, to 7 games on the back of a 20 year old rookie in Jayson Tatum.
So for the national media to come out as if this is some grand upset for LeBron and the Cavs to beat the Celtics WHO WERE MISSING THEIR TWO BEST PLAYERS is laughable.
Too many people are pointing to the Cavs supporting cast and saying LeBron has no help. Well, first off this is entirely his doing. If LeBron had committed to staying in Cleveland beyond dinner time then this team would be able to build around him with the security in knowing he won’t be jetting this summer. Plus most of these bums that people point to are guys that LeBron the GM forced his team to acquire and overpay for, whether its Tristan Thompson, JR Smith, or even Kevin Love himself. LeBron has forced this team to trade No. 1 overall picks, overpay aging role players, and had such a toxic relationship with a 25-year-old stud in Kyrie Irving that he forced a trade. All of that combined had a Cavs team constantly scrambling and slapping band-aids on a team that was generally building for right now rather than striking a balance and building for the long term. Thats how teams get old and supporting casts get slow. Thats on LeBron so I will shed no tears for that one.
Have we also forgotten the national reaction to the Cavs shaking up their entire roster at the trade deadline? The Cavs were not lighting up the world and Isaiah Thomas wasn’t a great fit so they hit the reset button on their roster and brought in Jordan Clarkson, Larry Nance Jr., George Hill, and Rodney Hood. The national media all said the Cavs were the team to beat hands down after that.
Now to pretend like the Cavs weren’t always the favorite in the East and this is some grand magic trick by LeBron is just dishonest.
So, no I won’t build a statue for him because his team, who was the favorite to win the series, won the series in 7 games while the Celtics…say it with me…WERE MISSING THEIR TWO BEST PLAYERS.
I must tip my cap to the man though. After torturing him during the early years of his career and chasing him from Cleveland, LeBron has poetically paid the Celtics back year after year. The guy is incredible and as much as he drives me nuts, he is a joy to watch because he’s just that good. Gotta give credit where it’s due, and as Brian Windhorst points out, the guy is money. He may have imploded more when he was younger, but LeBron James just doesn’t choke these days.
“James has won six straight Game 7s over the past 10 years, two of them on the road. He has won seven of the past eight elimination games he’s been in, including three this postseason. And he has now come from 2-0 down to win a series three times in his career. That has happened only 20 times in seven-game series in NBA history.”
Oh look three people.
The 300s 