It’s the east coast, no it’s the west coast It’s public schools, it’s asbestos It’s mentholated, it’s techno It’s sleep, life, and death It’s speed, coke, and meth
We’re jumping in the way back machine all the way to 1997 with Atmosphere’s “Scapegoat” off their debut album, Overcast! I’ve always loved the song because it’s got this kind of slow burn to it as the list of who’s fault it is and what to blame continues to grow longer and more absurd. People generally have a hard time accepting their faults and addressing their shortcomings head on so it’s easier to just blame the fast food giants than it is to get up every day and hit the gym. The irony of this endless feedback loop is particularly biting after hearing Slug name drop dozens of scapegoats over the course of the track.
While my life would not be terribly impacted by a protracted baseball labor dispute, it is good to see that we will be getting a relatively normal baseball season this year. While the season may be starting a few days later than originally planned, I consider that win. Who wants to watch baseball in Cleveland in March anyway? My ideal opening day is actually the same day as the NCAA men’s basketball National Championship game. It won’t work out that way this year, but if it gets us out of Cleveland in March I’ll take it.
It’ll be good to have more than a dozen games to choose from on most nights. I’d rather watch a few innings of a Cubs/Cardinals game than scroll to the bottom of Netflix just to watch “The Comeback” for the 300th time.
Also, I’ll be a part of that thirty-something bachelor party Joe talked about a few weeks ago (no word if I’m a Stu or a Phil) and am thankful that baseball will be played that weekend. It’s always nice to have a sporting event to build those weekends around. Especially in flyover country. It’ll be a hell of a lot cheaper to put back some beers at a baseball game I won’t pay attention to than at a country music concert I won’t pay attention to (which was the backup plan).
But in addition to just getting baseball back, and some important financial gains for players, it sounds like there will be some improvements to the on-field product as well. A subtitle for this CBA could well be The Base Ball Modernization Act of 2022.
I am all in favor of the Universal Designated Hitter. If Shohei Ohtani wants to hit on days he pitches, he still can! That is fun to watch, and it’s always fun to see a pitcher go deep! But that so rarely happened. Most plate appearances for pitchers were perfunctory bunts, strikeouts, or groundouts. This adds more action to the game by replacing these plate appearances with more competitive plate appearances. It also speeds the game up by reducing pinch hitters and pitching changes.
I could go either way on expanded playoffs. A 12-team playoff sure beats a 14 or 16-team playoff, though. I’ll miss the potential for chaos with no more tiebreaker games, but if that means the playoffs can start the day after the regular season ends I’m for it. Also of note, the playoff teams in each league will not be reseeded after the first round. Not sure why hockey and football reseed, while basketball and now baseball don’t, but I am firmly against reseeding. If #8 beats #1, they shouldn’t be rewarded with #2 in the next round. They’ve earned the right to take on the #4/#5 winner.
Starting in 2023, every team will play every other team every year. This is a huge step forward. While it might not mean every team visits every stadium each year, at least you’ll get to see everyone else at least once. There’s no need to play half of your games against your four divisional opponents any more. Variety in scheduling is good, and allows MLB to schedule more creatively if/when necessary. Red Sox fans in Colorado and Phoenix rejoice!
Also in 2023 we could see larger bases, the dreaded pitch clock, and the shift banned. I have absolutely no opinion on the size of the bases. I do not care. I don’t love the pitch clock, but it has become a necessity. I am 100% in favor of banning the shift. You can’t play zone defense in the NBA. You can’t drill the center on special teams plays in the NFL. Ban the shift, improve the game, and move on.
It took longer to get a deal done than fans and players wanted, but it seems like there is enough here to make it worth it. I’m ready for winter to be over and to throw back some crispy boys at the ballpark. Let’s go.
Watching the Celtics roll to 9-1 in their last 10 games (including a complete dismantling of the Sixers) with their only loss coming by one point, has me feeling like Austin in Not Another Teen Movie when he sees Janey Briggs’s “makeover.” Complete and utter shock. The makeover in this analogy being the Celtics’ renewed focus and tenacity on defense. After months of up and down play, has this team finally figured it out?
“Boston is about to overtake the Golden State Warriors for No. 1 in defensive efficiency. Their starting five has allowed a bonkers 88.8 points per 100 possessions — easily the stingiest mark among lineups that have logged 100-plus minutes…Smaller groups with Time Lord as the only traditional big have been impenetrable; Boston’s potential new closing lineup — Smart, White, Brown, Tatum, Robert Williams — might be a problem…They are a threat to beat any conference rival in the playoffs..”
Anybody can cherry pick specific stats and point to a winning streak as reasons to be optimistic, but the Celtics weren’t exactly playing the Warriors and Bucks every night. The Ringer says the Celtics recent success goes beyond that though:
Sure, a favorable recent schedule helps, but point differential is a stronger predictor of future success than record, and the streaking Celtics now boast the best point differential in the conference, at plus-4.8 per game.
Already a defensively oriented team—the Celtics are up to second in the league in defensive rating, per CtG—Boston doubled down at the trade deadline. Individual defensive stats are squishy, but trade acquisition Derrick White ranks fourth in the entire league in defensive impact this season, according to estimated plus-minus. Boston now employs two guards who rank in the top 10. Good luck scoring against the Celtics’ new closing five.
I know the NBA is worlds different than it was back in 2007-08, but seeing the Celtics return to one of the toughest defenses in the league to play against has me clutching my beer stained Kevin Garnett jersey.
This team needs more than just a hot streak to turn their season around because we’ve seen chemistry issues for a couple of years now. It’s put up or shut up time for this group or else Brad Stevens will have every justification he needs to shake this team up in the offseason. But, can we please put to bed the narrative that Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown don’t want to play together? Can they improve their ability to consistently play well at the same time rather than just watching each other go off for 30+ in alternating games? 100 percent. But splitting them up? Unless you’re getting an elite elite level talent like KAT then splitting up the Jays makes this team worse, and not in one of those addition by subtraction kind of ways. Most players in the league leave their current team so they can link up with another All-Star. That’s exactly what Tatum and Brown have here in each other. Even Tatum scoffed at the notion on JJ Reddick’s podcast recently.
“I couldn’t imagine why you wouldn’t want to have two of the best players that are under 25 on your team.”
Speaking of the chemistry issues this team has seen bubble to the surface, Tatum, also on Reddick’s podcast, addressed the comments Marcus Smart made early in the season calling out him and Jaylen Brown.
While Tatum didn’t address the comments for several days in the aftermath, he said a meeting with Marcus Smart at the practice facility ended up getting everyone on the same page.
“I wasn’t angry or mad or anything,” Tatum said. “I just waited to the next day. I saw Marcus at the facility and we sat down and talked. It was a great talk actually. We had some time to sleep. The adrenaline was gone from the game. He apologized for what he said and that was something he shouldn’t have said in the media and that they got his words mixed up. I didn’t take offense.
“I started it off by saying, ‘Bro I’m not perfect. I make mistakes. I still got a long way to go from where I’m trying to get to.’ I think we ended the conversation on, we are in this together, we are all on the same team and we are trying to figure it out. Trying to say things like that in the media doesn’t help anyone’s case because that’s all they talk about for the next week or so when referring to the Celtics. It wasn’t the end of the world. No harm, no foul, we are past it now. “ – via MassLive
Smart can be a loose cannon at times. The man still has glass in his hand from punching a picture frame a couple years ago, but if you tell me that you’ve never punched an inanimate object, then you’re a liar and we can’t be friends. So yes, he can be…let’s say…hot headed, and the words “Marcus Smart for three” keep me up at night, but this team is simply better when he’s engaged and playing his role. Easier said than done, but it’s true. And Tatum knows that.
With that said, I have been incredibly wary of truly investing in this team because the Celtics really have been like Lucy ripping the football away from Charlie Brown the last couple of years. Now I always take advanced analytics with a grain of salt because you can paint any picture you want with the right numbers, but when their core four are all healthy and playing together this team is GOOD.
Celtics
Are a whopping (13-1, .929) in their last 14 games when Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Marcus Smart and Rob Williams all play in the same game
This season Tatum has missed time, Brown has missed time, Williams has missed time so naturally Marcus Smart left the Sixers game the other night with a hobbling ankle injury. With the All-Star break though he’ll have had plenty of time to rest up. So hopefully, hopefully the Celtics can soon get their core four together on the court all at once and with the addition of Derrick White finally make the deep playoff run we all know they’re capable of making.
The Celtics are back in action on Thursday night to take on the new look Brooklyn Nets with James Harden getting swapped out for Ben Simmons at the deadline.
Although there isn’t much chance I bang my way through this without an ounce of bias, I am going to try my hardest to stick to the facts and be fair. I think I can do a pretty good job of that.
So here they are, the facts as they exist today
-Tom Brady played in the NFL for 22 seasons -His first 20 were played in New England -His last two were played in Tampa Bay -He had kind words about New England when he left for his final two seasons (9% of his career) -He had some nice words when he played New England this year -He retired officially today -In his 900+ word retirement speech, which lasted multiple scrolls of an IG post, he never once mentioned New England, the Patriots franchise, or the fans -He thanked the Glazers (owner of the Bucs), coach Bruce Arians, Tampa, the Tamps fanbase profusely
Do you kind of see where I am going with this?
Tom Brady fans have defended him going to Tampa Bay since the moment it became official. I kind of found it odd. But I find a lot things a lot of humans do odd so I sort of ignored it, minus the occasional acidy remark when I got fed up with people talking about him like he still played here. It was just an odd time in Boston sports. Bruins, Celts, Sox, Pats, Tom Brady, for some. There were others like me too. He chose to leave and he was no longer on our team. Best of luck, but that’s it. Relationships of all kinds end. It’s just best to move on.
So I’ll admit I feel a bit vindicated now. Sad too. We did win six super bowls with the guy. People cherished Tom Brady. He was a beacon of hope in their dark worlds. And I get it man, I do. But he left. He didn’t care to stick around. He went to another city for two of the 22 years he has been in the league and the 44+ years he’s been on earth and the only people he thanked on the way out were the people who cheered him on in between dips in his pool at the AirBnb he rented for a couple of years.
He didn’t care about the people of New England. He didn’t mention us. He didn’t mention you. He didn’t mention Kraft. Regardless of his feelings for Belichick, Kraft and Brady always felt like family. They were, we thought, eternally linked. Kraft bringing this shitty franchise back from the brink with Brady at the front of the cavalry. And ya, he didn’t, as expected, thank Bill Belichick. That ended poorly. But Belichick gave him his shot all those years ago. Bledsoe was good to start the super bowl. An all-everything QB and Belichick went with the kid. What if he hadn’t? Who cares I guess. Thank you Bruce Arians.
Look, he has every right to write whatever thank you note he wants on his way out. I’m not criticizing that. I’m not criticizing him, actually. I’m criticizing everyone who called themselves a “Patriots fan” but still worshipped at the temple of Brady. Who thought they were anything other than someone who was cheering on their ex as they walked up the aisle with someone else. It was cringe-worthingly sad to begin with. Now that we know they had been cheating on you the whole time, that can’t feel good, and it makes it even more awkward.
With any luck though this is it. He’s gone. He’s retired. Hopefully locally at least that’s the last we hear of it. We have a new QB who I heard is pretty good. He led us to the playoffs and made the pro bowl. Maybe say a couple Hail Marys as penance and then come back to your team.
Update: Tom Brady has officially announced he is retiring from football.
Tom Brady is officially probably retiring from the NFL after 22 seasons, seven Super Bowl titles, three MVPs, and five Super Bowl MVPs. He is without a shred of doubt the greatest quarterback in NFL history, likely the greatest player in league history, and arguably the greatest athlete in American sports history. As we process the end of an era, only the most somber of songs will suffice. Hit it, acoustic Josie.
That is if you believe the likes of Adam Schefter and Jeff Darlington, two of the most tied-in guys in all of sports media. What started as rumors of Brady making a decision on his future sooner than later quickly turned into the breaking news alarm being sounded on Saturday afternoon. It was clearly not something ESPN was prepared for at that exact moment because they had wall to wall college basketball games airing and the regional sports networks like NESN and NBC Sports Boston are usually just airing infomercials when there’s not a game on. So kudos to the radio guys for doing the news justice all day while the snow piled up. But then there were conflicting reports that started coming in quoting sources like Brady’s agent Don Yee and even his own father saying he had not made a decision yet on his future. Mike Silver even reported that Tom Brady actually called Tampa Bay GM Jason Licht to tell him he had not made a decision yet. Welp, ESPN, the NFL Network, all of the internet, even TB12’s own Twitter account tweeted out notes of congratulations on a great career. Sports Center seemed to have taken Schefty at his reporting because they ran non-stop coverage and heart wrenching Tom Brady retirement packages. As they should because whether it was Giselle, Alex Guerrero or someone else that leaked the decision; I would bet my car that Brady is retiring. He’s just pissed he got scooped before he could announce it himself in his own way. (i.e. the mysteriously yet to be aired final episode of his ESPN+ show)
With all that being said, I am going to move forward with this blog assuming Brady is in fact retiring. I really hope this isn’t a Brett Favre situation and he hems and haws. Make a decision and stick with it. I personally don’t think he should walk away because he clearly is still one of the best QBs in the league, but hey if he is calling it a career I get it. He’s won seven Super Bowls, he has every significant NFL record for a QB, he’s got multiple budding businesses to tend to now, and most importantly he has his health. If this it for Tom Brady, what an incredible career it has been. Equally as impressive is the fact that he will be retiring at the height of his powers as he finishes his final season as a legit MVP candidate
So he calls it a career, rather than wait to get hurt or face an inevitable possible decline in skills, even as Brady once famously said “I’ll retire when I suck.” Suck, Tom Brady does not. There aren’t many guys that are able to walk away at the top of their game though. The only recent comp I can think of is David Ortiz, who retired after a 2016 All-Star season in which he hit .315 with 38 home runs and 127 RBIs. Absolutely mind boggling. As badly as Tom Brady wants to play until he’s in his fifties, there is something to be said about walking away before the wheels come off. Nobody wants to remember their idols stumbling around the field, clearly diminished and just chasing former greatness.
Speaking of David Ortiz, the fact that he gets elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame the same week that Tom Brady announces his retirement has me feeling straight up geriatric. My childhood idols now have their numbers retired, streets named after them, HOF inductions, and before long will have statues in their honor. We have truly lived through the greatest era in Boston sports history and to quote Henry Hill “and now it’s all over.”
Didn’t matter. It didn’t mean anything. When I was down, I’d go out and win some more. We won everything. We beat other teams, we battled the league, we even came back from 28-3. Everybody had their hands out. Everything was for the taking. And now it’s all over.
Sure Mac Jones looked pretty good, he helped bring the Patriots back to the playoffs as a rookie, and is technically a Pro Bowl level QB now as an alternate replacement. But it’ll never be the same, and I can already feel my future children rolling their eyes as I tell yet another story championing Tom Brady’s greatness.
In his final season, Tom Brady led the NFL in Passing Touchdowns, Yards, Completions, and Pass Attempts, all at the age of 44 and the oldest player in the league. That is otherworldly in a career of god level accomplishments. I’m not sure if this StatMuse graphic is completely up to date, but it paints the picture of just how utterly dominant Brady has been in his 40s compared to every other QB in league history. Sure he has way more games played, but that’s not a knock, in fact that’s a testament to his…pliability (sorry, I couldn’t help myself).
If this is in fact it, I have to give Brady props for not doing the whole gross Mariano Rivera Retirement Tour. Rivera was the greatest closer in baseball history and was a joy/terror to watch for all those years. But announcing you’re going to retire after one more season just opens the gates for distractions and gifts and media fawning every single week and it sounds exhausting if not outright off putting. Assuming the retirement takes, like a successful transplant operation, he will retire after his age-44 season, which is actually one season shy of the 45-years-old end date he had not so subtly hinted at for years. I’ve personally always thought the “45-years-old” timeline was thrown out there by Brady to throw us off the scent so he could play into his 40’s and then retire at some point before the media started asking him every single offseason about his plans. However, as he continued to play I was less sure of that because let’s face it, if he remained healthy Tom Brady could have played until he was registering for his AARP membership. I can even picture the Instagram promo video for TB12 introducing its most famous Medicare client.
Now in the interest of continuing to process my Tom Brady Leaving the Patriots grief, I’m only briefly going to go back to the Bargaining stage here for a second. Simply put, only playing two seasons in Tampa Bay makes his late career departure hurt a little bit less. A lot of Patriots fans will never forgive Brady for leaving, but I think the majority of fans recognized Brady was essentially forced out of town by Belichick and/or after 20 years it may have just been time to move on. So with that being said, I know a lot of Pats fans were rooting for Brady to play well and even win another ring down in Florida if not to stick it to Belichick, at least to incentivize the Patriots to get their shit together, and fast.
However, if Brady had continued to win in Tampa Bay for several years, it suddenly becomes a very real possibility that the lines of allegiance start to blur. Just think about it, do you look back at Peyton Manning as a Colt or a Bronco? It’s not as clear cut as you might think because although Manning had the bulk of his record breaking HOF career in Indy, he had an ugly breakup with the team that drafted him, then went on to set single season TD records in Denver, continued to have legendary battles against Tom Brady and the Pats, went to two Super Bowls, and won another ring with the Broncos. I think that was starting to become an unspoken fear of Patriots fans who don’t even want to entertain the discussion of who claims Tom Brady as their own.
Getting back on track with my stages of processing the post-Brady grief, I think the Week 4 game this season in Foxborough provided a lot of closure for fans who felt blindsided by his departure nearly two years prior. Not to mention an all-time promo from the Sunday Night Football team.
Speaking of closure, goddamnit am I glad I dragged my lazy ass off the couch in Boston and drove the five hours down to the Meadowlands just to see Tom Brady play in person (and witness him rip out the heart of the Jets) one last time. We even joked in the pre-game tailgate that we’d probably be back in the same parking lot four years from now seeing Tom light up another generation of Jets players, but in the back of our minds we knew this could be it. And it was.
We’ll continue to work through this news and process Tom Brady’s retirement when he finally makes it official. Or if he pulls a Wolf of Wall Street and declares he’s not leaving, we’ll cover that too. If this is it though, I can promise you one thing: Five years from now I will without a doubt be in Canton, OH to witness Tom Brady’s Hall of Fame induction speech. And I’m not a meterologist, but I already know it will be incredibly dusty that day.
It hit my inbox, and set off my phone, with the thud legal text hitting a desk in an otherwise vacant library.
There it was, the invite to our comrade’s bachelor party. It’s been quietly discussed and prognosticated upon in whispers. Here and there someone would bring it up, some hypotheticals would be discussed, and then the subject would change like the seasons. Suddenly it would just be gone.
But this was concrete. This was tangible. We had a date. We had a location. We had, as is always important, a “To” section of the email where you could scope out the identities of the other attendees. It was happening.
This is unlike other bachelor parties, however. This one is different. It is not altogether uncommon, let alone unheard of. But it does come with it a certain extra degree of contemplation in terms of how one intends to stretch out a celebration of the end of your buddy’s life as a single man over the course of a number of days.
You see, all attendees of this bachelor party are now firmly in their 30’s. Things are just different now. If the men of the bachelor party do not expect more from themselves than they did in their previous decade, well, society and/or their significant other certainly does so judgement will be coming from somewhere. Not that it matters. No, while many men hit 30 and take it as some kind of gun-to-your-head mandate to declare yourself tired all the time, some still enjoy their share of nightlife. So therein lies the true quandry of a post-30 bachelor party: who are the players involved here and how do they come together to form the team. It is, believe it or not, easier than one thinks to breakdown each of these types of RSVPs, along with his strategy for the weekend at hand.
The Low-T Guy is aptly named because he should be an actor in one of those commercials that peddle cures for guys with, you guessed it, Low-T. Now I am not knocking every last guy who no longer has his fastball, especially not every day. We’re in our third decade here. That’d be a big ask. No, I’m talking about the guy that just doesn’t even show a slight regard or any effort to have any fun whatsoever. It’s not necessarily that they fear the hangover or the look on their wife’s face when they walk in fresh off a plane and resemble someone that just escaped from Shutter Island. It’s that they in Peter Banning-like fashion completely lost the ability to have, and no longer have the memory of, a good time. So what should they do? The trick for the Low-T Guy is to find a perfect spot on a graph where the two axis’ are “Partying” and “Attending”. If you’re buddy wants to go the beach/pool, a few bars, a strip club, and and then, I don’t know, a comedy show, try and do all of that having a beer or two. Don’t be a noticeable downer, pretty much. We get it, you suck now. Just try not to make it obvious.
The Retired Guy has earned that nickname, and not something quite frankly ruder, out of respect for his since-ended career. In his heyday he was something, but just has aged out of being the focal point of an offense day in and day out. He will indeed show some flashes of what he once was, but he won’t expect himself to keep that going for, let’s say, three straight days. You shouldn’t either. You should respect his decision to make an appearance at a pick up game every now and again, where he will indeed light the place up with that once remarkable talent. In this case that means smashing unbelievable amounts of beers and possibly ass if he’s single. But again. It will come in waves only. If you are indeed the retired guy, just stick to that. When it’s time for the lion to come out its cage, roar. When it’s time to take a few plays off, let it be known.
The Steady Guy is an interesting case because he has probably played this role as long as you’ve known him. Aside from a the rare cases he gets shithoused drunk, he sets his pace and can keep it up without getting wasted until the cows come home. He did when he was 16, he’ll do it now. There may be one night of the bachelor party, when he is possibly consumed with nostalgia, that he goes a little harder than expected but he’ll even that out with a few moments of a slower flow before getting back to his normal speed. He’s the steady guy. If you are that steady guy in his 30’s good on you. It’s a great place to be.
The Carpe DiemGuy can literally be anyone from a complete train wreck to a snoozefest in day-to-day life but goes absolute hog wild during events like bachelor parties. To reiterate, he seizes the day. Beers, shots, possibly nose beers, all the strippers, as much shitty take out as humanly possible, and just the right amount of passing out in bizarre places is what is on the menu for this guy. He’s an unstoppable force. If I was the best man I’d simply just not try and babysit this guy because it is only going to fuck up your weekend and no one wants that. Plus, this guy knows who he is. He knows who he is and what he’s about. Let him do his thing. If you are the Carpe Diem Guy you know what? I salute you. You are a complete lunatic but good on you sir. Other than that, don’t let your good time fuck up anyone else’s via a visit from the cops to the AirBnB or a visit from your buddies to the morgue. Be an adult.
The Still Got It Guy is simply someone who still likes to party here and there. They like to have a few, knock em back, sip on Granddaddy’s ol’ cough syrup. Nothing wrong with that. He brings that lifestyle to the bachelor party. When it’s time to go he goes and can go hard. Once in a blue moon Natty Light Narcissus gets a little too close to the pond and falls in, but hey, it happens to all of us. The Still Got It Guy will often band up with the Carpe Diem Guy and the Steady Guy because that’s three men who know what they’re about, individually. If you’re this guy, make sure you’re not forcing the fact that you still got it on anyone else. They might not still have it.
The Chick Choosing A Restaurant Guy is named that because he’s not fucking sure. He’ll probably get hammered one day and not do dick the next. He’s an enigma. He’ll also inadvertently make different days of the trip hard to plan because he won’t know what side of the coin is landing face up that day. We raging? We sleeping? He won’t know until he gets into the swing of the day. It’s honestly not his fault, he’s completely discombobulated having not really been in this situation in awhile. My advice to this chap is to try and set your limits and such beforehand so that you can make a fair guess each day how you’re feeling.
BONUS: The Strip Club Guy is the one guy in a group of friends that LOSES. HIS FUCKING. MIND. At a strip club. More money spent than you thought possible and more services rendered than you wanted to conceive. He is a normal seeming guy when amongst civilized society, but in establishments of fleshly desires, he turns into a Goddam animal. I honestly have no advice for these guys. There’s no saving them.
So as I consider this post-30 bachelor party which I am to partake in I know who I go to battle alongside, although I do not know which armor they will inhabit. Will they be wildcard or a Snorlax? Will they bring back memories of sticky floors and dollar drafts or will they shock you with their newfound, new money love of narcotics? One can never truly tell when you get there. Just enjoy the ride.
Most of the goodwill Bill Belichick earned by bringing the Patriots back to the playoffs with a rookie QB evaporated last night after getting throttled by the Bills 47-17. The Pats were the gang that couldn’t shoot straight in a 30 point blowout with the Bills becoming the first team EVER in the Super Bowl era to score touchdowns on their first 5 drives of a playoff game. It also marked the second worst playoff loss in franchise history, second only to the 36 point drubbing at the hands of the ‘85 Bears in Super Bowl XX. At least that beatdown was to an all-time team though.
Not like this is anything new, but goddamnit did that game make me miss Tom Brady. Obviously no longer having the greatest player of all time hurts our chances, but you never felt out of a playoff game with TB12 (insert 28-3 joke here).
It was a disaster of a night that just snowballed with bad penalties, dropped passes, a defense that couldn’t stop Josh Allen through the air or on the ground, and routinely failed to set the edge. Any spark the Patriots had seemed to be snuffed out on Mac Jones’ endzone INT, which took an incredible effort from Micah Hyde to even make.
So where do we go from here? I’ll let the true football guys break down the All-22, but what seemed like a quote unquote successful year 24 hours ago now limps into the long, cold offseason after getting completely embarrassed on national TV. The Pats will get better, Mac Jones will get better, but last night showed that they’re a lot further away than we all wanted to admit from returning to true title contender status.
Teeterin’ between enlightened and insanity Now that I’m rich, I feel nobody understandin’ me All I can do is cut the mic on, holler at you Can’t let the fame scare me off from speaking candidly
p u n c h i n ’ . t h e . c l o c k kicks off with an incredibly insightful clip of Damian Lillard, after dropping 61 points, speaking about the necessity of doing the hard work when nobody’s watching, which helps illustrate the picture that J. Cole is trying to paint with his entire album here. It doesn’t matter how far he’s come, he still needs to put the work in every day if he wants to be the best. Check out the first 2 minutes of the video below that Cole put together documenting the creation of The Offseason and you can literally feel his passion as he explains the concept of the album to 21 Savage.
“Do you really wanna look back 10, 20 years from now on this music shit and be like the reason you didn’t make it in music was because you didn’t put in the work?…One more time before I leave, before I fill like I’m fulfilled in this game, let me try and reach new heights from a skill level standpoint.”
I’ve always had an affinity for J. Cole dating back to my college days when I was downloading The Warm Up and just playing it on loop in my dorm room. To watch one of your favorite artists come up from putting out mixtapes to minting his sixth straight Platinum album with The Offseason is incredibly satisfying. Hopefully he keeps putting out these elite level rhymes, but even if he retired today J. Cole has already cemented his status as one of the best to ever do it.
You only get one life at the end of the day, some people work they whole life and give it away Midlife crisis full of dreams they didn’t chase live with the regret of all of the risks that they didn’t take
It’s no secret that I’m a fan of conscious rappers from the old heads like Common to the current king of the game in J. Cole and Rexx Life Raj scratches that itch for anyone looking for something new. Rexx Life Raj isn’t a ringtone rapper, he frequently mocks wannabe gangster rappers, and was even a D1 athlete playing on a football scholarship protecting the blindside of current Cowboys Offensive Coordinator Kellen Moore at Boise State (although he was a couple of years after the Statue of Liberty play). The Berkley, California native has been putting out music for a few years working with the likes of Russ and E-40, but I was turned onto him when he dropped “Lockheed Martin” in June of this year. The Ringer actually did a feature on him last year if you’re looking for a good profile of his come up. Check out Rexx Life Raj and let us know what you think of him and the whole #RushHourRap playlist on Spotify.
I had every intention in the world to do my normal multi-part series to wrap up this year. I had fun with it last year. But life is what happens when you are busy making other plans and all that. Plus this year felt like a decade and I am still finding out that actual events that involved my own human person occurred this past like, March, and not in 2018 and that is fucking wild.
So without further ado here are a few things that did indeed stand out.
The Twentieth Anniversary Of 9/11
Nothing, I don’t think, has ever made me feel older than remembering the 20th anniversary of arguably the most horrible day in American history. Possibly the worst part of this day was that we were all so burned out from the pandemic and every other shitty thing going on in the world that we didn’t even have it in us, in my opinion, to give it its due. Maybe that’s for the best in a way, as I’ve heard multiple families of victims say they’d rather not see it played on loop on their TVs once a year. Either way it’s not something we should ever forget. If not to remember how we all stood together for a brief few months after that.
I Was Reminded I Sort Of Caused The Pandemic
Being of a certain amount of Irish descent I fully believe in jinxes, karma, or whatever you want to call putting something into the universe that you may come to regret. I guess I briefly forgot about that at the culmination of 2019. For that I am truly sorry. It was during a discussion with a very close friend at that time. We were talking about where we were in life and where we wanted to be – our goals, our hopes, all of it. To that end we both had an odd feeling that we were on the precipice of some great happenings in our lives. Just an instinct that things were about to come together. And then we made the mistake of stating as such. I believe what was said was, and I quote, was, “2020 is going to be our year.” Needless to say three months later we realized how wrong we were. And a couple of days ago I was (fucking) reminded of that.
Long Live X
DMX was a man and entertainer who truly transcended any kind of labels you could possibly come up with – from his proper occupation, to his proper genre in the music world, to his place in the cultural zeitgeist. He was beloved by all of the generation during which he rose to prominence, famously hypnotizing a crowd of 300,000+ Limp Bizkit fans into mosh their faces off at Woodstock 99′. Unfortunately, he was also a testament to the phrase that the brightest lights burn twice as fast. His own demons caught up to him eventually. I don’t know how someone who goes that hard in every aspect of life was suppose to last too long. But he gave the world literally everything he had. There indeed was X.
Life Finds A Way (Back To Normal)
Memorial Day Weekend of 2021 marked the first weekend Boston officially “reopened” meaning bars and restaurants lifted all restrictions pertaining to Covid. It was glorious. Beers were drank, Ubers were puked in, Churches were broken into. Life seemed to be getting back to normal. Things have since gotten a little more dicey but it seems like for now the powers that be will stand strong in keeping life “open” as opposed to going back to the dark days of 2020 where there was nothing wrong with getting blackout drunk on my couch, alone, on a Friday at 6pm. It’s this writers opinion that at this point if you’ve taken your precautions, gotten vaccinated, and feel up to hitting the town you should be able to. If you are terrified of the reality we are never going to escape (probably), don’t. I don’t understand how this is still a debate.
A Guy Dressed Like Someone Going As A Viking To The Electric Daisy Carnival Leads A Storming Of The Capitol Building
Ya, that was this year. Insane. People’s reaction to this greatly interested me. Some sort of shrugged, ostensibly understanding that a small subculture of our country were indeed batshit and this just made sense. Some were shaken, our main federal governmental building and thus the epicenter of our nation had just been attacked by its own citizens. That is the kind of chaos saved for 2nd and 3rd world countries, not the great US of A. Some were even passively or directly supportive of QAnon Ragnar and thought he and his peeps were some sort of unemployed freedom brigade. I’m not here to talk politics. I just know it was a weird day.
Britney Is Indeed Freed
For whatever reason I can’t convince myself to care more about this. Maybe it’s because Britney Spears is indeed completely batshit. But good for her because her Dad has no right to control her money or her birth control (you creep).
Everyone Wears Big Dumb Hats Now
Have you ever observed a fashion trend from afar and just known that if you indeed participate you’ll hate yourself in retrospect? That is this new trend of coachella-esque big ass hats. It’s the ultimate red flag. If I see a girl in a big red hat I figure she either desperately needs it to have one discernable personality trait or she has MANY THAT SUCK and thus needs a now socially acceptable one to make up for it. Stop it with the hats.
You Cannot And Will Not Beat Dave Chappelle
Dave Chappelle put out a special in 2021. It was the last on his deal with Netflix and he is expected to sort of disappear for a bit again after this. So he went quietly with a pretty steady, run of the mill special.
Just kidding.
Among the other jokes he told and observation atom bombs he dropped he decided to slip in the fact that he isn’t 1000% behind the trans community, all over the course of discussing a trans friend of his who had committed suicide. The backlash to this bit was swift and furious. And one gigantic misstep. At this point the powers that be in the trans community probably should know that Dave Chappelle is a.) A comedian that takes his job as someone who lampoons every last inch of society very seriously a.) Therefore is largely considered above reproach as it pertains to doing that job. The calls for his head weren’t nearly as notable as the calls for him to sit down with local (Los Angeles) leaders of the trans community. I cannot begin to imagine the smirk of Dave Chappelle’s face upon hearing very average citizens he had never heard of were demanding to speak with him. He in fact did not acquiesce to their demands and has since ridden out the controversy, which included an awkward moment or two with his high school alma mater. It is kind of poetic that in the year we lost DMX’s body, Dave Chappelle’s soul refused to die.
The 300s 