It’s been a while since I wrote one of these. The main reason is that, as previously noted in Joey’s quarantine blog, I moved to Israel. If you had a balcony in a city bordering the Mediterranean, you’d be writing less too. Now, you may be thinking that because I haven’t been writing WDDN articles, I haven’t been drinking. Is this true?
Unfortunately, the beer scene here is not good. As a matter of fact, it’s bad. Growing, but still bad. Most Israeli brewers seemingly have yet to discover American hops, and almost every Israeli beer I’ve had is sweet to the point of being unbalanced. The best beers here are German pilsners and wheat beers, which get boring quick when you’re used to American craft beer. This isn’t a complaint, just an observation.
So what am I drinking?
With beer now an afterthought, I’ve since turned to vodka. And that, folks, is a sentence I never thought I’d write. It’s super easy to mix, can be added to pretty much anything, is low in calories, and is cheaper than almost any other liquor out there. If you are thinking that I wrote that sentence to somehow justify drinking an alcohol I’ve always looked down upon, then you are correct.
To further that justification, I’ve taken to infusing vodkas with all sorts of different flavors. I usually do my infusions in 500mL batches just because the biggest size they sell here are liter bottles and I like to try multiple flavors at a time.
When infusing, you generally want to wait 2-3 days before drinking, although you can taste along the way to check how the flavor is developing. I would also recommend shaking the bottles a few times a day so the ingredients don’t settle at the bottom and concentrate the flavor too much. Here are some flavors and cocktails I’ve found tasty so far:
Cucumber
What to add: Cut and peel half a cucumber and add to the vodka. Leaving on the peel isn’t the end of the world, but I wouldn’t recommend it because it can give the vodka a pickly flavor.
Recipe: I stole this recipe from a sushi restaurant we used to frequent in Arlington. Stir together 1 part cucumber vodka, 1/2 part lime juice, 3 parts Cava (sparkling wine). Sprinkle cracked black pepper over the top and garnish with a cucumber slice.
Blood Orange-Pomelo
What to add: 1/2 teaspoon of each fruit zest.
Recipe: This one is good neat, but also works well in a Bloody Mary or Screwdriver.
Ginger-Pomegranate
What to add: 1 teaspoon of ginger zest and add 1-2 dozen slightly crushed pomegranate arils. You want the juice from the arils to get into the vodka without making a mess. You can also substitute a lot of other red fruits instead of the pomegranate.
Recipe: Perfect for a Moscow Mule because of the ginger.
Orange-Honey-Cinnamon
What to add: 1 teaspoon of orange test, 1 teaspoon of honey, 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon. If you feel like you want more cinnamon flavor after the first day, you can add more. Just be cautious because there is a fine line between subtly and overdoing it.
Recipe: This one is by far my favorite and is very easy to sip on it’s own. The orange flavor hits you right up front, the sweetness from the honey masks the alcohol burn, and the cinnamon on the finish ties everything together.
Time to drink up!
The best thing about vodka infusions is you can do them with pretty much anything you have around the house. Just get creative and remember that less is more. Cheers!
The New York Knicks have made me smile a lot this week and that’s not something I’ve been able to say very often in three decades of cheering for the team. They deemed this week #LinsanityWeek on social media and have been playing two games every night on MSG Network back from those magical couple of weeks in February of 2012. If you’re not very familiar with the story of Jeremy Lin, the undrafted Harvard point guard who became the talk of the entire sports world, boy do I have a tale for you.
Now 50-plus days into the suspension of all the major sports leagues, it was nice to look back fondly on one of the most spontaneous and genuinely fun stretches I’ve had in being a sports fan. When I commiserate with fellow tortured Knicks fans, the refrain “the last time I had fun watching this team was Linsanity” is exchanged with alarming regularity for it being the year 2020. One can argue that a LARGE reason for that is the depressing fact that the Knicks have won a grand total of one playoff series since the start of the 2000-2001 season. But honestly, another reason was that ‘Linsanity’ was really fucking cool.
We love sports for a million reasons (and boy will I appreciate them all so much more when they finally resume!) and one of them is the classic story of the underdog athlete emerging and succeeding against all odds. In early February of 2012, it was enter, stage right for Jeremy Lin to become the next athlete to fit that classic mold. Lin was an undrafted point guard from Harvard who, in the midst of his second NBA season, had already been cut by the Warriors and Rockets before the Knicks signed him to be their fourth point guard and an insurance policy. Oh and I probably should mention Lin is the son of two Taiwanese parents and in 2010 became the first Asian-American to play in the modern NBA.
Now it’s time to set the stage. Like I mentioned, the Knicks had signed Lin to be nothing more than an injury insurance policy but on February 4, 2012, they found themselves 8-15 and in the midst of having lost 11 of their previous 13 games. Their biggest problem? Led by the corpses of veterans Baron Davis and Mike Bibby the Knicks had by far the worst production at the point guard position in the league. At their current rate of losing head coach Mike D’Antoni was not long for his job, that’s for sure. During a Saturday night home game against the Nets, the Knicks were once again trailing early and D’Antoni was ready to start throwing shit against the wall to try and spark the team and save his job. He brought in Lin off the bench. Now keep in mind, up until that point Lin had scored a total of 76 points in his entire NBA career. But on that night he’d go on to torch opposing point guard Deron Williams and the Nets to the tune of 25 points, 7 assists, 5 rebounds, and 2 steals in a much needed Knicks win.
Because his Knicks contract wasn’t guaranteed for the entire season, Lin had not even rented a place in Manhattan but instead was sleeping on his older brother’s couch on the Lower East Side. The night before his career game against the Nets he spent the night sleeping on his teammate Landry Field’s tiny love-seat of a couch because his brother was having a party that night. 24 hours later Jeremy Lin would have a sold out Madison Square Garden chanting his name in the fourth quarter. Sports, man.
Lin started at point guard for the first time in his NBA career the next game and he casually dropped 28 points and 7 assists on the Utah Jazz in another Knicks win. What made that performance even more significant was that forward Amare Stoudamire missed that game and the star of the team Carmelo Anthony injured himself in the first half and would go on to miss the next seven games. So now the Knicks were without their two best players (and perennial all stars) and it did not matter one bit.
Three wins in and Jeremy Lin had quickly become the talk of New York sports and owned the back-pages of all the newspapers on a daily basis. But the upcoming fourth game of this saga would come against the vaunted LA Lakers led by none other than Kobe Bryant, who at this point was still the biggest star the NBA had to offer. The game would be at home at the Garden and would be broadcast nationally so it would be the first time that the country got their chance to see what all the hype was about. Pundits around the league acknowledged that this was a neat story but that the big stage and bright lights of this match-up with Kobe was probably the night where the clock struck midnight. When asked pregame about Lin’s recent play and all the hype, Kobe scoffed at reporters explaining that he hadn’t been following “the kid” at all and didn’t know what they were all talking about. A career high 38 points later by Lin, resulting in a seven point loss to the Knicks (still without Carmelo and Amare), and Kobe would quickly very much learn about what those reporters were talking about.
I remember permanently having a huge smile on my face throughout that game because of how insanely fun this whole ride was and thinking of the absurdity of it all. One week prior the guy was crashing on his brother’s couch and fully expecting to be cut from his third team in six weeks and now he’s out-dueling one of the greatest players in NBA history. It was the definition of the cliched sports story script that Hollywood would throw out because it wasn’t the least bit realistic. But even better, it was actually happening and overnight Lin and the Knicks became the lead on SportsCenter every game.
The 89 points that he had totaled over his first three professional starts was an NBA record dating back to the ABA merger (’76-’77). After the 38 point explosion against the Lakers, Lin had grown to become a nationwide and even an international star. Fans in Taiwan were packing bars at 8:00 am local time to watch each and every Knicks game. Lin donned the cover of Sports Illustrated not once but TWO weeks in a row, a feat that had very rarely ever been done before in the magazine’s long history. He also quickly became a role-model and beacon of hope for young Asian-American fans across the country whose dreams of one day playing in the NBA just got a little more plausible.
On Valentine’s Day Lin hit a game winning three pointer to beat the Raptors in Toronto and hand the Knicks their sixth win in a row (remember when they had lost 11 out of 13 games before he entered the lineup?). After finally losing a game, the Knicks had another big test on national TV hosting the defending champion Dallas Mavericks on a Sunday afternoon. As we had already learned, Lin relished the bright lights during this run and he did not disappoint in this game either. He finished with 28 points, a season high 14 assists, and 5 steals in a 104-97 win.
Sadly the clock did eventually strike midnight on Jeremy Lin’s magical Cinderella story in 2012 when he tore his meniscus and missed the rest of the season. And looking back eight years later, the rest of Lin’s NBA career didn’t quite go to plan as he never fulfilled the promise and success of that ‘Linsanity’ stretch (although don’t cry too much for him as he earned nearly $66 million over the course of his nine season NBA career). But for a three week stretch in February of 2012, Jeremy Lin was the brightest star of them all and put together a run that will make Knicks fans smile for many many years to come. Man, I miss sports!
Yahoo – Eminem came face-to-face with an intruder who bypassed security at his Detroit home.
TMZ broke the story, claiming the suspect used a paving stone to smash a kitchen window and climbed inside the house. The outlet reported Eminem was sleeping and woke up when his alarm went off, only to find the suspect in his living room, so he called for security. However, a rep for the rapper disputed some of the details to XXL, saying Eminem was not asleep and did not call for security — but that he detained the man himself until police arrived…Hughes apparently didn’t attempt to steal anything, but “was said to have wanted to meet the rapper face-to-face,” per TMZ. He was booked on charges of first-degree home invasion and malicious destruction of a building.
Imagine breaking into Marshall Mathers’ house? The guy thats spent the last 20 years rapping about killing his wife, his mom, and even his own fans at a concert?
Slim knows that some fans are nut cases and may want to break into his house to do God knows what. Whats even more eery though is he legitimately rapped about this exact scenario back in 2013 on the Marshall Mathers LP 2:
See, it’s sad it came to this point Such a disappointment I had to make this appointment To come and see ya, but I ain’t here for your empathy I don’t need your apology or your friendship or sympathy It’s revenge that I seek So I sneak vengefully, and treat your bedroom window Like I reached my full potential: I peeked Continue to peep, still bent low, then keep Tapping the glass lightly then start to crescendo, sneak All the way ’round to the back porch Man, door handles unlocked, shouldn’t be that easy to do this You don’t plan for intruders beforehand?
TMZ actually reported that Em was asleep when the intruder broke in, but one of his reps told XXL that he wasn’t asleep and in fact detained the intruder until police arrived. I know he’s a rich, 47-year-old white man, but he’s also a maniac so what do you think was the more likely scenario?
This is hands down the worst part of being mega famous because you never know what the hell people are thinking. Maybe this was a troubled young man who just wanted to meet his idol or maybe he was a psychopath looking to slice up Slim Shady.
Glad to hear Em is fine, but I hope he fired those security guards that night like Shooter McGavin.
I saw this tweet going around the other day posing an excellent question: What is the greatest movie prop of all time? Maybe you’re going with Marty Mcfly’s self lacing shoes or perhaps George Clooney’s Batsuit with the nipples? Here are hands down the Top 5 movie props of all time.
5. Beatrix Kiddo’s Hattori Hanzo sword
A Hattori Hanzo sword is like a modern day Valyrian Steel sword, which didn’t make the cut because GOT isn’t actually a movie. Goddamn was Kill Bill a great movie though. Watching both 1 and 2 are worth the double feature binge if you’ve never seen them. Basically a Hattori Hanzo is the rarest, sharpest, and best kind of sword ever produced. “If on your journey you should encounter God, God will be cut.”
4. Darth Vader’s Lightsaber
Truly one of the most badass characters in cinematic history. There are dozens of Star Wars characters and their lightsabers to pick from and I almost went with Mace Windu’s purple saber or the double sided Darth Maul version, but it’s hard to beat the original bad guy.
3. Happy Gilmore’s Putter
Maybe it’s the white trash in me, but I’ve always loved the Happy Gilmore hockey stick turned putter. It’s practical too as Adam Sandler had to actually sink putts with it. The putter may not be regulation, but I’m not exactly on the PGA tour so I think I can sneak the extra club in my bag. Nothing would please me more than sinking a birdie putt on 18 after shooting in the three figures on the first 17.
2. Mjolnir
Sure I have the plastic replica and a Mjolnir keychain, but give me the real deal! I don’t expect the hammer to come when called like a Golden Retriever, but this is THE conversation piece to stick up on your mantle. I would be shocked and disappointed if Chris Hemsworth didn’t steal this prop after production on Endgame wrapped.
Vin Diesel’s 67 Pontiac GTO from XXX
Long before Samuel L. Jackson was even a twinkle in Nick Fury’s eye, this Vin Diesel store brand James Bond flick introduced us to the greatest movie prop of all time. XXX came out when I was 13 so obviously I was the exact target demo, but I also saw XXX 3: Return of Xander Cage in theaters with Papa Giorgio when I was 27 sooo…
Say what you want about this (delightful) movie, but if you don’t enjoy XXX you are someone who takes themselves entirely too seriously. Now lets get to the best part of the movie: the 1967 Pontiac GTO. This is just the sweetest ride these eyes have ever seen and I’m not even a car guy. This is the best (and most practical) movie prop of all time. For some reason I couldn’t find the scene where they unveil the GTO on YouTube in English so you’ll just have to make do with Spanish. De nada.
Since you can only do so many sit ups in your living room, the at-home workouts have fallen off precipitously. Meaning the majority of my exercise comes from walking the dog or a quick (read: slow) mile jog around the neighborhood while I gasp for air behind a mask. So the inactivity has shot way up while physical exercise has taken a nosedive. It also doesn’t help that my iPhone reminds me every other day how big of a piece of shit I am for taking less steps than normal, working out less than normal, and also using my phone for like 7 hours a day.
You would think not working out and lifting heavy weights and hopelessly trying to look respectable for bikini season would mean *less* injuries, but nope. As I often like to say I am aging in dog years and I seem to be physically falling apart due to all the inactivity. I somehow injured my shoulder getting *into* bed a couple weeks ago and I’m pretty sure I just have that now.
Doing some research into why it has become a conscious effort to open a heavy door without destroying my shoulder, the best self diagnosis I could come up with was Bursitis. And now I can’t stop laughing because I never even knew what Bursitis really was when Johnny Knoxville claimed to have it all those years ago.
So thats it for me folks, when the gyms finally do reopen in Boston and they tell us to jump back into our old workout routines, I’ll be sitting here like (old) Steve Rogers at the end of Endgame.
Yahoo – Boston Red Sox legend Manny Ramirez’s time in the majors may have ended in 2011, but he’s not done playing baseball. Ramirez, now 47, told the Taiwan Times he’s hoping to make a comeback in 2020.
Ramirez has set his sights on returning to the Chinese Professional Baseball League, where he spent time in 2013. Ramirez performed well in a 49-game stint for the Rhinos, hitting .352 with eight home runs. He left the team because he missed his family, and because he wanted to try and return to Major League Baseball.
Manny is the greatest right handed hitter I’ve ever seen.
To make that proclamation it definitely helps that he was the No. 3/No. 4 hitter for my favorite team for nearly a decade. But it also gave me the opportunity to watch the guy play every day (Ha!) and rake year after year. Just look at this stat line from his eight years in Boston.
It’s one of the greatest statistical runs a Red Sox player has ever had.
Manny had an absolutely effortless swing that produced moonshots as he hit 30+ home runs 12 times in his 19 year career. He wasn’t just a pure power hitter though as he finished with .312 career batting average. The guy was just never off balance at the plate.
(You’re welcome for the 13 minute loop of Magic Stick)
And nobody knew when a ball was going YABO quicker than Manny. Well, maybe Dennis Drinkwater, but you get my point.
With that being said he could be a childish prick at times like the time he took three straight strikes in a Yankees game back in 2007 because he had to pinch hit after being told he would have the day off.
So yea, Manny Being Manny may as well have been Spanish for “baggage,” but my lord could this guy put the bat on the ball. He anchored the greatest team in Red Sox history in 2004. (Thats not debatable, they had a Batting Champion hitting 9th and two HOF pitchers at the top of the rotation) Manny hit .308 with 43 home runs and 130 RBIs that season. He also had a Slugging Percentage of 1.009, won a Silver Slugger and finished 3rd in MVP voting.
Granted that was 16 years ago, but even in 2013 he hit an absurd .352 in the Chinese Professional Baseball League. So do I think he could be a serviceable player in the CPBL right now even at 47-years-old?
But hey if things don’t workout in Taiwan, he can always play for the local independent leagues. Hell, I saw Oil Can Boyd pitch for the Brockton Rox when he was 45 and he was mowing guys down.
The movie we’ve all mocked for the past 15 years and cringe whenever it comes on TV is actually surprisingly delightful right now. This movie just hits different when sports are banned.
I openly admit that this is a sign of Quarantine SZN starting to take its toll on my sanity more so than this movie actually aging gracefully. But when nobody has been able to drink a beer on Jersey Street in nearly eight months you take what you can get.
Watching this last night I legitimately started to feel like I had moved out of Boston and hadn’t seen Fenway, Cask n Flagon, Landsdowne Street etc. in YEARS.
You do start to notice little things though when you rewatch old movies, especially ones filmed in your backyard. Lets forget for a second that Jimmy Fallon is supposed to be some broke ass school teacher that has a sweet apartment in the North End and season tickets to the Red Sox. The thing that really stuck out to me was the bar that Jason Varitek, Johnny Damon, and Trot Nixon are having dinner at after the game just a few feet away from Fallon and his buddies.
Really? Had anyone involved in the writing, filming, or production of this movie ever actually been on Landsdowne Street?
Their slogan should be… "Bill's Bar: Where You Go When You Can't Get In Anywhere Else" https://t.co/8Sj44SaU27
Hey don’t get me wrong it’s a fine establishment to knock back a few Bud Lattes, but it’s not exactly the lap of luxury that the players would be having dinner at. But, I digress.
Fever Pitch is loosely based on an old Nick Hornby story about his obsession with an English soccer team. Rejiggered to focus on the Red Sox, the original script just kind of assumed the Sox would lose yet again in some brutal fashion, which really sticks out like a sore thumb when the movie peaks just before Dave Roberts’ steal in Game 4 of the 04 ALCS. Then they slap on a 30 second ending explaining the greatest comeback in baseball history and the Sox actually winning the World Series capped off with the most cringeworthy memory of the entire thing; Fallon and Drew Barrymore celebrating on the field with the players.
But hey I’ll take whatever Red Sox content I can get at this point, which is why one of the principals of marketing is that nostalgia is a powerful weapon. I haven’t been to a Sox game in slightly longer than usual and my body is already starting to go through withdrawals. And the team wasn’t even going to be good this year!
John Henry has us by the balls and he knows it. Now I’m not going to be the first guy there when the quarantine is lifted, but when the dust settles on all this I will be more than happy to buy a few a dozen $11 beers at 4 Jersey Street.
CNN – Microsoft has made its typographical decree: Two spaces between sentences is too many.
The style choice will now be marked as an error in Microsoft Word — and users who press the space bar twice after a period will be met with those dreaded blue squiggly lines…The habit of using two spaces is a relic from the era of typewriters, when typists spaced twice to more clearly define the end of a sentence. Characters were “monospaced” back then, which means they took up the same amount of space on the page — today, most fonts adjust the width of characters so sentences are easier to read.
Welp thats it guys. Even Microsoft finally got bullied into saying two spaces after a sentence is wrong.
To all my fellow two spacers out there, I feel your pain. I was a two spacer forever because thats how they taught us as kids growing up. Don’t give me this typewriter excuse, thats what we were taught on Windows 95 too. At one point in my life I was a big-J Journalist writing for an actual news outlet and we all did two spaces, but once I left that job and grammar ceased to be an important part of my life I slowly caved. This blog is filled with sentences just one space apart from one another after years of people just beating the two spaces out of me.
I’ll let this one go because I’m no longer trying to stretch everything out while writing 10 page term papers. The same does NOT go for the GIF vs JIF debate though. I’ll die on that hill.
Patriots fan favorite fullback James Develin announced his retirement out of nowhere this afternoon on Instagram. It’s a damn shame because the neck injury that ended his 2019 season after just two games seems to still be lingering.
“Due to unforeseen complications with the injury that ended my season last year, I have decided it is both in my and my family’s best interest to retire from the game of football,” Devlin wrote. “I’ve always maintained a belief that in the sport, the team is MUCH more important than myself as an individual … and that belief still rings true, as I have to prioritize my team at home before anything else.”
Develin retires after a 7 year career in which he helped the Patriots develop a legitimate edge in the running game. Develin was a rarity in today’s NFL as fewer teams even utilize the FB position than ever before. He was an absolute monster clearing lanes for Sony Michel en route to a Super Bowl title in 2018 for a Pats team that leaned more heavily on the run than any team in recent memory.
A real life Danny Bateman with the neckroll and everything, James Develin was a true throwback.
He wasn’t a complete meathead like most fullbacks though, Develin earned a degree in mechanical engineering at Brown.
Develin also got robbed of a Super Bowl MVP, and a potential down payment on a house if you hit the bet, if you remember correctly
Best of luck to you in your post playing career James, you were a blast to watch and we’ll miss ya.
Full statement below:
Some Devlin highlights
My favorite play of Patriots fullback James Devlin’s career defines his legacy as a player; Effort, grit, and more effort. The epitome of a football player. Thanks for everything @James_Develinpic.twitter.com/lpO6gGEZeq
Patriots fullback James Develin officially announces his retirement.
Incredible 7 year career WITH the neck roll, 2017 pro bowler, 3 time Super Bowl winner. Won’t be another fullback in New England quite the same. Congrats, @James_Develin! pic.twitter.com/D2lV7fsAEv
I am not a draft expert nor do I do enough research to put together mock drafts like some of the other bloggers here at The 300s, but hindsight is more fun anyways. With that being said, I have a pretty wait and see type attitude on the draft because it’s impossible to grade a draft before anyone even laces up their Nikes. Anyone who says they know otherwise is lying to you.
1st Round: Patriots trade the No. 22 pick to the Charges for two 3rd rounders, No. 37 and No. 71
Least surprising (non) pick of the draft, which doesn’t make it any less frustrating for everyone waiting for the Patriots to pick for 3 hours before they traded out. Schefter also said the Pats could still get the guy they wanted at No. 37 instead of picking him at No. 22. Well I guess give them credit for not reaching on their first pick THIS far, but maybe that says more about overvaluing a guy a bit much? Remains to be seen.
Their first pick of the night was a safety from a Division II school I’ve never even heard of. At first glance this seems like an absolutely bananas reach, but most mock drafts didn’t have Dugger too much lower than where the Pats took him. From all the reports I’ve read he seems to be a freak athlete with the ability to float around position-wise on the field plus he returns punts, which the Pats desperately need someone besides Edelman to do well. All things that Belichick loves. At 6’2″ he adds another big body at corner for the Pats next to 6’1″ Stephon Gilmore and 6’3″ Joejuan Williams. Projects to be an eventual replacement for Patrick Chung and could likely drop down to cover tight ends like Chung.
Also, Scott Zolak shamed anyone for shitting on a Division II player because of his experience playing with a DII player himself.
You can all sit there and laugh at D2 kids. I played with Ben Coates. One of the greatest TEs of all time. Stud, went to Livingstone College. It’s now defunct. We laughed at him til he took that pass in fiat 55 yards vs Bills. It’s football
Uche is an undersized edge guy who didn’t start a game at Michigan until his senior year, which doesn’t sound great, but is a high ceiling freak athlete who excelled at the Senior Bowl against other top competition. He also has the positional flexibility to play LB or on the line, which the Pats love.
Josh Uche can play linebacker or as a pass rusher in the Patriots' defense. Think Kyle Van Noy or Jamie Collins. Super athletic. He can fill multiple roles in the Patriots' defense. Shorter but super long arms.
This team is BARREN at tight end so I expect Asiasi to compete for the starting role Day 1 if he can pick up the playbook.
Oh hell yeah, Belichick. #Patriots draft Devin Asiasi, one of my favorite tight ends in the draft. Burst and speed to get vertical up the seam and change of direction. Pass-catcher. https://t.co/GH7iPEnAKo
3rd Round No. 101: Virginia Tech TE Dalton Keene (6’4″ 253 lbs):
Dalton “The Cooler” Keene. Dalton “Pain Don’t Hurt” Keene. This kid better have seen Roadhouse because I am not referring to him as anything other than Swayze references from here on out. People complained the Patriots did nothing to plan for life after Gronk last year so this year they went ahead and drafted two tight ends back to back in the 3rd. Seems aggressive, but the Pats got next to nothing out of the position last year and had one of the worst tight end groups in the league (37 catches, 2 TDs). The Pats haven’t taken two tight ends in the same draft, let alone back to back, since the Gronk/Hernandez draft in 2010.
Another tight end for the #Patriots: Dalton Keene was the best tester at tight end at the combine this year. https://t.co/7b52viqz2x
Kicker was a big need for the Pats after the debacle last season and cutting Gostkowski this offseason. Taking a kicker in the fifth round though is questionable. Taking a kicker that wasn’t really on anyone’s board also isn’t ideal. Oh and apparently there wasn’t even much game film of him except for a few YouTube clips. Sweet! Before the next pick was even in though the internet had descended on Rohrwasser for a tattoo on his arm that apparently symbolizes some right wing gun nut group the 3 Percenters. Jemelle Hill wasted no time in labeling his a white supremacist. Rohrwasser quickly denied that he supported the group saying he didn’t understand what the tat meant and he’d be getting it covered up. A bad look for the kid out of the gate, but not entirely unbelievable. He also had a questionable IG post about a controversial public speaker. Not a great start, but maybe we give the kid more than five minutes in the public eye before collectively deciding to #cancel him.
6th Round No. 182: Michigan OG Mike Onwenu (6’3″ 350 lbs):
New Patriots guard Michael Onwenu allowed two sacks in 1,198 pass-blocking snaps at Michigan, per @pff. Zero last season.
Patriots just got the OL steal of the draft imo. Michael Onwenu is a stud. Late 3rd rd grade from me. People overvalue traits a little bit at guard, plenty of guards that aren't elite athletes but physically and technically do just fine. That's him
6th Round No. 195: Wake Forest OL Justin Herron (6’5″ 305 lbs):
Herron was a four year starter and a team captain at Wake Forest last year.
The Patriots select Wake Forest OT Justin Herron with their next sixth-round pick, No. 195. The 6-foot-5, 290-pound Herron was a team captain last year, when he was a grad student at the school.
Absolute MONEY name. Mike Reiss projects him as a special teamer.
The Patriots select Wyoming LB Cassh Maluia with their next sixth-round pick (No. 204). He is 5-foot-11 and 231 pounds, and ran a 4.53 in the 40. Could be eyed with core special teams contributions in mind.
My biggest gripe with this draft was that the Patriots didn’t take a single WR in a loaded receiver class or a single QB even as guys like Jake Fromm continued to slide. It seems like Bill is pretty comfortable with Stidham throwing to the current depth chart of Julian Edelman, N’Keal Harry, Mohamed Sanu, and Jacoby Meyers. Not terrible, but it also wasn’t enough last year with Tom Brady throwing to them. So hopefully the combination of a young QB actually throwing to fellow young players, the addition of a couple tight ends, Sanu getting healthy, oh and the addition (for now) of WR Marquise Lee is a serviceable receiver core.
Almost as if he could hear all of our bitching from his place on Nantucket, Bill then signed two quarterbacks, four receivers, and another pair of tight ends (not including Thaddeus Moss) immediately following the draft. All four receivers are 5’11” or shorter though as the team may be looking to plan for the future at slot.
Undrafted free agents signed by the Patriots (via Patriots.com)
QB Brian Lewerke, Michigan State (6’2″, 213 lbs)
QB J’Mar Smith, Louisiana Tech (6′, 228 lbs)
WR Will Hastings, Auburn (5’10”, 175 lbs)
This one intrigues me the most as Hastings was Jarret Stidham’s go to slot receiver at Auburn.
WR Sean Riley, Syracuse (5’8″, 178 lbs)
WR Isaiah Zuber, Mississippi State (5’11”, 184 lbs)
WR Jeff Thomas, Miami (5’9″, 170 lbs)
TE Rashod Berry, Ohio State (6’3″, 263 lbs)
TE Jake Burt, Boston College (6’3″, 260 lbs)
Hey a guy I’ve actually seen play in person before! He also got a pretty big signing bonus so the Pats clearly see something.
Boston College TE Jake Burt, an undrafted free agent, is signing with the New England Patriots and is receiving $80,000 guaranteed to do it, one of the larger guarantees for undrafted TEs, per source.
As a fellow short, I love this pickup. The little wrecking ball racked up over 3,000 rushing yards in college so he’s not just a third down guy.
DT Bill Murray, William & Mary (6’4″, 280 lbs)
DE Nick Coe, Auburn (6’4″, 280 lbs)
DE Trevon Hill, Miami (6’3″, 248 lbs)
LB Kyahva Tezino, San Diego State (6′, 235 lbs)
LB De’Jon Harris, Arkansas (5’11”, 234 lbs)
“Per NESN, the Patriots gave Harris a significant deal to join the team, perhaps illustrating how high his chances are to make the team as an Elandon Roberts, early-down linebacker replacement.”
The 300s 