Tag: Aaron Hernandez

Falcons Tight End Austin Hooper Will Become a Free Agent and the Patriots Need Him

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The Patriots traditionally don’t make a big splash in free agency, but it’s a myth to say they never do. They gave Antonio Brown a 1 year $15 million deal last year, the $65 million deal they gave to Stephon Gilmore in 2017, the Revis deal in 2014, Danny Amendola in 2013, and of course the disaster that was the Adalius Thomas contract in 2007. So while I don’t expect them to make a huge move, especially because of the precarious cap space situation with Tom Brady’s contract, but don’t put it past them.

These are uncharted waters for the Patriots, who haven’t had to think about the tight end position since they drafted Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez in 2010. Obviously Hernandez had his own demons, but Gronkowski was a staple for the team for a decade. The biggest question mark was always “how long will Gronk be out for?” rather than “who is going to be our tight end?” Last year the team seemingly thought they could coax one more year out of the big fella as they waited on baited breath until Gronk finally announced his retirement (late) and the Pats missed out on legitimate replacements like Jared Cook.

So this is really the first year the Patriots are fully IN on the tight end market and I can’t think of a better guy to take over than Austin Hooper. Despite my all-time bad break in missing the fantasy football playoffs last season I did have the wherewithal to roster Austin Hooper yet again. I have watched him closely over the past few years. To put it simply, Hooper has been a stud and only has continued to get better as the team around him continued to deteriorate.

  • 75 receptions 787 yards 6 TDs
  • 71 receptions 660 yards 4 TDs
  • 49 receptions 526 yards 3TDs
  • 19 receptions 271 yards 3 TDs

Hooper finished 6th among tight ends in fantasy points last year, while ranking 5th in receptions, 6th in yards, and 4th in TDs. Travis Kelce is a much flashier player, but Hooper is a guy I would take tomorrow. He did miss three games last year with a sprained MCL, but it wasn’t an injury that seemed to hamper him when he returned as he had 7 catches in each of the last two games.

With all the top tight ends in the league earning $9-$10 million per year, expect that to be the starting point for Hooper. However that could jump a bit if the Chargers do franchise Hunter Henry, leaving Hooper as the de facto No. 1 guy on the open market. Yahoo Sports noted that “Salary-cap analyst Joel Corry predicts free agent TE Austin Hooper will command at least a four-year, $44 million contract.” So it may be a stretch for the Pats financially, but they reportedly considered trading for him last year, and it is a crystal clear area of need.

Not to mention Hooper Drives the Boat t-shirts would sell themselves in Massachusetts so I would really appreciate that as well.

McNabb and T.O. Continue to Feud 15 Years Later While the Patriots March On

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Yahoo – Old grudges die hard. In 2005, Terrell Owens engaged in one of the most public holdouts in NFL history…his feud with teammates and repeated jabs at quarterback Donovan McNabb led to locker-room discord. The Eagles devolved that season from NFC champions to 6-10 and last place in the NFC East.

For that, McNabb is still agitated. He recounted the experience in an interview with Bleacher Report’s Master Tes released on Wednesday and blames Owens for breaking up a contender.

“I thought that was the major distraction for us,” McNabb said. “He’s doing sit-ups, he’s doing push-ups, he’s playing basketball, he’s ordering pizza for the people out there, and we’re sitting there in training camp just like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’ …

“This is like ‘Days Of Our Lives.’ It’s unbelievable. But that was something that kind of broke us up.”

And this is why the Patriots are the Patriots and every other team in the NFL is forever chasing their own tails. Fifteen fucking years later, T.O. and Donovan McNabb are still sniping at each other in the media. McNabb even says in the interview with Bleacher Report that T.O. is what broke up the Eagles, which is the softest shit I’ve ever heard. Was T.O. an all-time asshole diva receiver? Yup, you bet. But, T.O. is also the reason the Eagles were ever that good. In 2004 McNabb threw 31 touchdowns, 14 of which went to Owens. It was also the first, and only, time McNabb threw more than 25 touchdowns.

But, I’m not here to bash McNabb because he was also one of the godfathers, well more like a distant uncle I guess, of the mobile QB revolution we see today. The guy was fun as all hell to watch so if he wants to bitch about T.O. in 2020 go for it.

My point is this is exactly why no team has ever replicated the Patriots’ run of dominance. The Pats literally had the biggest asshole in the league on the team this year in Antonio Brown. A guy who forced his way out of Pittsburgh, torpedoed his short stint with the Raiders, and then got cut by the Pats after a whole bunch of (alleged) dirtbag behavior came out. So the Pats dropped him like a bad habit and his name was never uttered again like he was Beetlejuice.

The Patriots are just experts in PR and damage control. AB is a legitimate disaster waiting to happen and currently has a warrant out for his arrest, but the team never let it become a distraction. This is the same team that, albeit disappointingly briefly, rostered Tim Tebow without any distraction, gave new life to perceived diva Randy Moss, and even had a convicted murderer on the team in Aaron Hernandez without it breaking up the team.
So my point is, T.O. did not ruin the Eagles and cause them to go from playing in the Super Bowl to finishing last in the NFC East the next year. The Eagles did that to themselves.

With Isaiah Wynn Out for the Season, Scrutiny Intensifies on Patriots’ Poor Drafts

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ESPN – New England Patriots top draft choice Isaiah Wynn tore his left Achilles during Thursday’s preseason game against the Philadelphia Eagles and will miss the 2018 season, a source told ESPN’s Adam Schefter.

Last year the Patriots top pick Derek Rivers blew out his ACL and missed the whole season. Granted he was “only” a third round pick, he was supposed to be a solid young infusion of talent the Patriots were banking on. This year their top overall pick Isaiah Wynn just blew his achilles and is done for the year. Add that to the fact that they’re other first round pick this year in Sony Michel has missed the entire pre-season with a knee injury and the Patriots draft is looking like a shaky class already, at least in the immediate future.

My point here though is that the Pats have not gotten much out of the draft in the past several years, which is essentially playing with fire in today’s NFL. If we go back and look at the Patriots draft picks in the first 2 rounds over the past 10 years and the contributions they’ve gotten — it gets ugly. I took the first 2 round as the barometer as that is normally the elite young talent you expect immediate contributions from. Guys you’re getting in the later rounds are oftentimes lottery tickets and/or end of the roster players. Anyone that makes a significant contribution from late in the draft is a pleasant surprise, no more no less.

With that being said, lets take a look…

  • 2018
    • 1st Rd – Isaiah Wynn (No. 23), Sony Michel (No. 28)
    • 2nd Rd – Duke Dawson (No. 56)
  • 2017
    • 1st Rd – NO PICK
    • 2nd Rd – NO PICK
  • 2016
    • 1st Rd – NO PICK
    • 2nd Rd – Cyrus Jones (No. 60)
  • 2015
    • 1st Rd – Malcolm Brown (No. 32)
    • 2nd Rd – Jordan Richards (No. 64)
  • 2014
    • 1st Rd – Dominique Easley (No. 29)
    • 2nd Rd – Jimmy Garoppolo (No. 62)
  • 2013
    • 1st Rd – NO PICK
    • 2nd Rd – Jamie Collins (No. 52), Aaron Dobson (No. 59)
  • 2012
    • 1st Rd – Chandler Jones (No. 21), Dont’a Hightower (No. 25
    • 2nd Rd – Tavon Wilson (No. 48)
  • 2011
    • 1st Rd – Nate Solder (No. 17)
    • 2nd Rd – Ras-I Dowling (No. 33), Shane Vereen (No. 56)
  • 2010
    • 1st Rd – Devin McCourty (No. 27)
    • 2nd Rd – Rob Gronkowski (No. 42), Jermaine Cunningham (No. 53), Brandon Spikes (No. 62)
  • 2009
    • 1st Rd – NO PICK
    • 2nd Rd – Patrick Chung (No. 34), Ron Brace (No. 40), Darius Butler (No. 41), Sebastian Volmer (No. 58)
  • 2008
    • 1st Rd – Jerod Mayo (No. 10)
    • 2nd Rd – Terrence Wheatley (No. 62)

As you can see, in the last 10 years, the Patriots had great success in the first half of the decade, drafting guys like McCourty, Solder, Mayo, Gronk etc. But in the past 5 years (not counting the 2018 draft) the Pats have exactly ONE of those players still on the roster in Malcolm Brown who is solid but unspectacular.

And for the guys that were actively traded away, the Patriots have not received great value in return.

  • Chandler Jones – Received OL Jonathan Cooper (cut before his 1st season with NE) and a 2nd Round draft pick, which the Pats then traded to the Saints for 3rd and 4th Round draft picks ultimately turning into Joe Thuney, and Malcolm Mitchell (recently cut).
  • Jamie Collins – Received Browns 3rd Round draft pick, which the Pats then flipped to Detroit for No. 85 overall, which the Pats then used to take Antonio Garcia (played 0 snaps for NE and missed his entire rookie season due to blood clots in his lungs before getting released).
  • Jimmy Garoppolo – Received a 2nd Round draft pick, which the Pats then flipped to Detroit and traded down for a 2nd and a 4th, which they then flipped a couple of times again in a whole bunch of draft day trades to wind up with Duke Dawson and a 2019 Bears 2nd Round draft pick.

It obviously doesn’t help that three of the last 5 years the Patriots didn’t even have a first round pick due to various reasons, trades, and league mandated penalties from absurdly overblown alleged incidents. This is not a great way to build a deep roster guys.

Your team is built around that young talent because you can’t overpay for everyone. With guys like Logan Ryan, who was formerly the third CB on the Pats, getting $30 million contracts — you rely on young cheap talent to flesh out the rest of the roster. But the Patriots have failed to do that over the better part of the last decade.

That is how we find the Patriots suddenly with the fourth oldest team in the league at an average age of 26.7. The cabinets are bare my friends and most of that is masked by Tom Brady being the goat.

Part of the problem here is the high risk/high reward approach the Patriots tend to take in the draft. Because they have been set at quarterback for the better part of the last 2 decades, they have been able to take some big swings (and misses) on risky players. Taking Rob Gronkowski in the 2nd round with a bad back was a big risk because he was just coming off a missed season due to back surgery. But obviously that paid off as Gronk, when healthy, has turned into arguably the greatest tight end the league has ever seen.

But then there are cases where the team is taking risks in the 1st Round on guys with pre-existing injuries and unsurprisingly those same injuries pop up and the guy never makes an impact. Easley was a guy with two bum knees coming out of Florida and never made an impact with the Patriots because he was always battling, yup, knee injuries.

So it should come as no surprise really that the Patriots lack a core of young, elite players on the roster. All of their best players are on the back 9 of their careers; Tom Brady, Rob Gronkowski Devin McCourty, Julian Edelman. They had 2 players in the NFL Top 100 (Gronk and Brady) and exactly 0 players on ESPN’s top NFL players under 25 years old.

Listen this team will be good as long as Brady is upright and pliable in the pocket and Gronk is on the field. But probably not a second longer. With each passing mediocre draft, I am less and less confident that this team will be all that good the second Brady and/or Gronk call it a career.

TLDR;

 

 

So Aaron Hernandez Was a Combination of Horrifying and Hilarious During His Time in Jail

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So this article describes Aaron Hernandez, unsurprisingly, as a terrifying combination of a 6’1″ 245 lbs gang member with a penchant for hilarity. Ya know, like an actual sociopath. It basically sums up his time in prison as Rorschach from Watchmen:

Horrifying.

“Hernandez was sent a care package of two dozen honey buns in violation of prison policy; before officers could confiscate the buns, he ate 20 of them, saving the wrappers so he couldn’t be accused of passing them to other inmates. Guards denied his request to eat the last four.”

Hilarious.

“He called one officer a “scared bitch” after the officer denied him an extra meal, and threatened to kill the officer and his family after he got out of prison. (“I did not say I was going to kill him or his family,” Hernandez later said. “I said if I see COs that act tough in jail, out of jail, I’m going to slap the [expletive] out of them.”)

Horrifying.

“Corrections Officer Joshua Pacheco noted the ways in which Hernandez would consistently seek to get under the officers’ skin: “He is constantly kicking his cell door and screaming at the top of his lungs, utilizing profanity at times when he wants something, regardless of how minuscule it is. It is not uncommon for Hernandez to kick his cell door constantly until an officer approaches his cell merely to ask the officer for the current time. This to him is comical, causing a disruption in normal operation within the unit.”

Hilarious.

“Hernandez had a variety of encounters with guards that tiptoed right up to the edge of threats: challenging guards’ manhood, hinting at dreams in which Hernandez had hunted the guards, and so forth. All in all, of the 10 months he was in the prison, Hernandez spent 120 days in solitary confinement. (According to a Yahoo Sports review of prison documents, Hernandez was charged with 99 disciplinary offenses and 24 major incidents during his nearly four years of prison time at two facilities.) Once, while guards were securing him in his cell, Hernandez beat his chest and defiantly proclaimed himself to be “tough. I’m built for this [expletive].”

Horrifying.

What an enigma Aaron Hernandez was.

Joe Thomas Nails It On Why Colin Kaepernick is Still a Free Agent

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Joe Thomas is the beacon of truth in the NFL. He is beyond refreshing as a currently active and actually elite player speaking out on all kinds of issues. Obviously him roasting Roger Goodell on the absurdity of Deflategate created a whole new region of fans championing him. All that aside, I encourage every player to speak out, there’s nothing I hate more in sports than the bullshit canned responses from players that answer absolutely nothing. Regardess of how you feel about Colin Kaepernick kneeling for the national anthem doesn’t matter here. Joe Thomas hits the nail on the head as to why the former 49ers QB is unemployed.

Oh right, because he was on TV every single day. Not for highlight reel plays. Not for winning games. For personal reasons. And again whether you’re with Kaep or not isn’t the point here. NFL teams do not want to deal with media scrutiny, questions, protests, backlash etc. ESPECIALLY if you suck. If Tom Brady were drumming up all kinds of shit for, oh I don’t know, say an alleged cheating scandal, the team backs their guy or at the very least deals with it because he’s the GOAT.

Colin Kaepernick wasn’t even the best QB on his team while surrounded by bums like Blaine Gabbert.

So yea, NFL teams don’t want to hear any shit from a borderline starter in the league. But then Joe Thomas brings it home with the one thing that is true of all good teams, none better at it than the New England Patriots.

I think the whole “Patriot Way” thing gets blown out of proportion because of the Patriots level of success and their perceived arrogance. So when they go out and sign a questionable guy, everyone rails against them because apparently the Patriot Way means you only sign choir boys, when in reality it means you Do. Your. Job. The Patriots are a goddamn machine. We had assholes like Corey Dillon. We had bad dudes like Albert Haynesworth. We had media storms like TIM TEBOW. We had an (alleged) MASS MURDERER in Aaron Hernandez. Bill deals with it and moves on. No distractions. Just Do. Your. Job.

Being all over TV for a cause you believe in is admirable, but when you don’t have the leverage (being a good quarterback), then you aren’t going to have the same platform. Thats why Colin Kaepernick doesn’t have a job.

Breaking Down ESPN’s Top 25 Athletes With Unfulfilled Potential

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So the World Wide Leader put out an article breaking down their Top 25 athletes that never fulfilled their potential. Instead of rehashing the whole thing, took my liberties and pulled the excerpts from this list for anyone born after 1985.

 

Matt-Leinart-SN-sportsman-of-year

No. 25 Matt Leinart: This guy was the king at USC, living the absolute life. Winning every game imaginable, taking home National Championships w/ Reggie Bush and co., all while just basically taking elective classes like Ballroom Dancing his senior year. Like I said, living the life. Gets drafted Top 10 into what seemed like a great situation in Arizona except Kurt Warner ends up going on a late career tear so any chance Leinart had of starting in AZ was gone after that. Bounced around a lot after that, but never was able to put it together, got a last grasp as the 3rd string guy for the Houstons and by some freak miracle both guys ahead of him go down and Leinart has a chance to revive is career..immediately gets sacked and destroys his shoulder, career over. It’s a shame because he was great in college, but has parlayed that into a pretty solid career on FS1.

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No. 24 Bo Jackson: On this list for obvious reason. Bo Jackson could have been the greatest football player of all time, and also ya know dabbled in professional baseball making the 1989 All-Star team. A lot of guys talk a big game, and many pros got drafted in multiple sports, but Bo was dominant in two professional sports at once – before the damn hip injury derailed his career. Now he spends his time being a freak athlete in other ways, like being scary good with a bow and arrow. Bo Knows, indeed.

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No. 17 Aaron Hernandez: Goddamn angel dust. Hernandez was so, so good. Just an absolute beast of an athlete, too big for cornerbacks to cover and too fast for linebackers. Belichick was using his as a freaking running back and he was breaking off 30 yard runs. Then someone had to smudge his Puma’s in the club and set him off into a murderous rage, which as it turns out wasn’t exactly a new thing for Aaron..allegedly.

vince-young-madden-08-cover_original

 

No. 16 Vince Young: Vinsanity, VY, Madden Cover Boy, Offensive Rookie of the Year. This dude was a stud in college, crushing the absolute soul of the aforementioned Matt Leinart, and then had a great rookie year obviously. Then the league adapted, his accuracy issues caught up to him, or the pressure became too much, or maybe working for Jeff Fisher just drove him nuts. I mean I’d throw all my shit in the stands too if Jeff Fisher was on my ass all day. At least he won’t be known for any outlandish quotes like being on some sort of Dream Team.

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No. 10 JaMarcus Russell: Another mammoth human being who dominated in college, No. 1 overall pick (got PAID before the new CBA smartened up and stopped giving rookies $70 million deals) and then was basically a disaster from the start. Criticized for being out of shape and lazy so it’s hard to feel too bad for his flame out, but he has offered to play for the price of ‘on the house’ to launch a comeback. With such a terribly small crop of decent backup QB’s in the NFL, why not?

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No. 7 Maurice Clarett: This guy just goes to show you can’t fight city hall. Petitioned to bypass the NFL Draft requirements and skip a year of college eligibility after accounting for 1,300+ yards and 18 TD’s as a freshman. A few gun charges later and Clarett’s getting cut by the Bronco’s before the end of camp. Woof.

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No. 1 Greg Oden: Definition of dodging a bullet for any team not named the Portland Trailblazers. Again, absolutely dominant in college (noticing a trend here), and was the consensus No. 1 overall pick. Another guy who’s career was derailed by injuries pretty much immediately with Oden missing his entire rookie year after getting Microfracture surgery. He only played in 82 games TOTAL with Portland, which is legit depressing to think about if you’re a Blazers fan. The ping pong balls giveth and the ping pong balls taketh.