Name another professional sports team owner that has his own shoe. Don’t worry I’ll wait. What an absolute boss Robert Kraft is. We always knew he was a sneaker guy as he was usually seen rocking some fresh kicks with his suits, but I didn’t know the full extent of it until he did this piece with Complex last year.
Now I can only imagine the gems RKK has planned for this year. Air Force 1’s that “commemorate Super Bowl LI.” May have to just blow off work tomorrow and hop in my car so I can jet down to Patriot Place and grab a pair.
ESPN – The 2017 New England Patriots are the overwhelming favorites across Las Vegas to repeat as Super Bowl champions, but are they better in bookmakers’ eyes than the 2007 team? ESPN spoke with seven Vegas bookmakers and asked them to make a line in a hypothetical matchup between the two teams. Six of the seven had the ’07 team favored, with lines ranging from “a small favorite” (William Hill US) to 11 points (Frank Kunovic at Caesars).
Well, no shit. The 2007 Patriots went 16-0…and then I don’t really remember the rest…but they legit didn’t lose a single game in the regular season, routinely BLOWING teams out, all while setting multiple offensive records along the way. That squad vs the 2017 team that hasn’t even played a single game together? I mean who would you take? Not to mention we have players dropping like flies and our front-7 is starting to resemble swiss cheese.
But this is exactly why video games exist. Just putting old school juggernauts against the latest and greatest. NBA2K is awesome for that exact reason. Putting Larry Bird and the Celtics against Steph Curry and the 2018 Warriors. Or playing the Shaq and Kobe Lakers against Bill Russell. I don’t know if this year’s Madden has Classic Teams like it used to, but if it does, this 2007 Pats vs 2017 Pats matchup *needs* to happen. Not only that, it needs to be played out in traditional, painstakingly full 15-minute quarters. If thats still an option then that will be my cross to bear.
Imagine Malcom Butler trying to shut down 2007 Randy Moss who had 23 touchdowns that year? Or 2017 Tom Brady trying to rifle in some slants through that forest of Tedy Bruschi, Junior Seau, Vince Wilfork et al? Now that would be a goddamn game and that is why Twitch is a billion dollar business.
1,000-1. Those are the Jets odds of winning the Super Bowl. The same odds as the Warriors NOT making the playoffs. Insane. Just for comparisons sake, the Patriots odds to win the Super Bowl are currently 11/4. Just slightly better.
I guess if you’re a Jets fan, the one saving grace is that this year they are intentionally bad. Sure if they had really tried they still wouldn’t have been great, but by getting rid of Brandon Marshall, Eric Decker, Sheldon Richardson and other players they have basically punted on the season. And as painful as this season will be for those dummies in green, its a smart play long term. Especially with a pretty solid looking crop of top QB prospects this year. UCLA’s Josh Rosen looked like a goddamn stud this weekend.
But it is the Jets, so odds are they luck into like 3-4 wins and lose out on a franchise QB. It really is amazing to have witnessed three peaks and valleys in the Jets franchise all while the Patriots have remained consistently dominant the entire time. Think about it. We’ve witnessed the rise (and fall) of Eric Mangini, the Rex Ryan era featuring the roughly 3 year reign of Bart Scott and the mouthy assholes, and most recently the moderately successful 1-year reign of Todd Bowles and Ryan Fitzpatrick before falling back to earth and saying screw it lets be REALLY bad.
All sandwiched between a mere 5 Patriots Super Bowl victories. What a goddamn shadow over the New York Jets of New Jersey.
No Off Days? Why..does..that..sound..so..familiar?
Oh thats right, its because Bill Belichick made it the biggest Patriots rallying cry since Do Your Job and The Patriot Way. But here come the Jets like some shitty t-shirt vendor just switching a couple words around and passing it off as their own. Embarrassing. Not even worth the ink it would cost to print the cease and desist letter.
As was suspected Friday night when Julian Edelman left the Patriots’ third preseason game with an injury, Edelman tore his ACL and will miss the entire 2017 season.
A lot of fans on social media were quick to decry the NFL preseason but the truth is that this injury could have happened at any time. Tom Brady didn’t play at all in the 2008 preseason and suffered a season-ending injury in Week 1 of the regular season. Wes Welker tore his left ACL and MCL in Week 17 in 2009. Rob Gronkowski has suffered a wide range of injuries during his seven year career, including a broken arm while playing on field goal protection (!) against the Colts in Week 11 in 2012.
Time and again, the Patriots have shown the ability to adapt and not only survive, but excel. The Patriots won the Super Bowl last season despite not having Gronkowski for the last five games of the regular season or the playoffs. They won the Super Bowl in 2003 after cutting Lawyer Milloy four days before the start of the regular season. And they won 11 games in 2008 without Brady, becoming the first 11-win team to miss the playoffs in more than two decades.
This season will be no different. It’s always disappointing to see a star player go down, but Bill Belichick never lets emotions affect his team’s play. The Patriots still have a very talented wide receiver corps that includes Brandin Cooks, Chris Hogan and Danny Amendola. Future hall of famer Rob Gronkowski is apparently healthy and ready to go, and the Patriots should still be able to cobble together a pretty good running game (to the chagrin of fantasy football players). With the AFC East still consisting of the Jets, Bills and Dolphins, it’s hard to bet against this team making it back to at least the AFC Championship game in January.
If you’re still down about Edelman, though, rest assured. He will be back, and it will be a hell of story in the updated afterword to his memoir in a few years.
Boston.com – The Patriots quarterback insists that he is “never sore,” despite fending off hits from the defense and sometimes even blocking pads to the face from head coach Bill Belichick. “I could practice every day,” he said. “I could practice twice a day if they’d let us do that, but that’s not the way it goes anymore. It’s just fun being out here competing.”Brady’s recovery regimen, which includes his line of Under Armour sleepwear, will be one of the featured topics in his upcoming book, The TB12 Method: How to Achieve a Lifetime of Sustained Peak Performance.
A friend of mine said to me last night over a couple of exclusive craft beers known as Rolling Rocks about Tom Brady that “He is fully going to get busted for PEDs” and a cold shiver went down my spine as I laughed it off.
I mean I want to believe that a Plant Based Diet Presented by TB12 is the one true reason for Tom Brady’s success, but who the hell knows. Maybe its the food, maybe its the avocado ice cream, or the concussion water, the plyometrics work or the TB12 space pajamas. Its probably some combination of all the wacky shit Brady does to keep his body in optimal condition. Or maybe, maybe its something really cool that I don’t even know about.
That or he’s just a legitimate android sent back in time to wreak havoc on the NFL for reasons we cannot yet understand.
Either way, I for one welcome our new robotic overlords and will enjoy the shit out of this guy who should be in an over 40 beer league who somehow continues to play at an MVP level and dominate a league filled with guys half his age.
You’re goddamn right I squeezed a Simpsons reference in there somehow. Gotta keep grinding every day.
With the Patriots season just a couple of weeks away, so too is the Super Bowl Champions banner unveiling. Only problem is, theres no more room at Gillette for any more banners. This is such a amazingly arrogant problem to have I love it. “So when we built this stadium we didn’t anticipate having nearly half a dozen Super Bowl banners just 15 years later.” If you remember the layout of the 4x Super Bowl Champion New England Patriots banners it looked like this.
Needless to say a very arousing photograph with a whole bunch of Super Bowl Champions banners. But alas, there is no room for the newly minted 5th SB Champs banner. And I would rather burn the place down then put it where that ill advised 16-0 banner used to sit.
So how do you solve the best problem to have in the NFL? You literally redesign the entire goddamn thing to MAKE room for the 5th banner (as well as a couple more).
I thank the good lord every day he made me a Patriots fan. See you guys in Minneapolis.
Yahoo – Belichick and the Patriots are practicing with the Texans this week and the Patriots coach was asked about his long relationship with Texans assistant head coach Romeo Crennel during the press conference. “Well, Romeo and I started together at the Giants in special teams, so he and I coached special teams together and then we coached defensively together through 1990,” Belichick said in comments distributed by the team. “We worked at the Patriots together, then another team, and then back with the Patriots in 2001. I’ve relied on him through the years, both with our team when I worked with him, but even at times outside when we could help each other and it wasn’t a conflict in competitiveness.”
How can you not love a man with this much hate in his heart? A guy thats won FIVE Super Bowls while his former employer has literally become the worst team in the league.
Doesn’t matter. If you’ve got hate in your heart, let it out. Bill still feels like the Jets mistreated him one way or another so whats a bigger fuck you than not even mentioning your name? Its like when people ask about an old ex-girlfriend from college and you just pretend like you can’t even remember her name. Ultimate disrespect.
Even if you think Bill should be over the whole Parcells/Jets situation, you can’t argue that Mangini and the Jets fucked him pretty good in 2007 by creating the whole Spygate scandal. That shit will never die for Belichick.
Some people may call that petty. I call that an insatiable, burning desire to crush your enemies. Thats the kind of general I want to follow into battle.
SI – On Monday at Jets’ camp, Christian Hackenberg was having trouble just breaking the huddle correctly. During one rep in seven-on-seven drills, as he approached the line of scrimmage, a coach ordered him to re-huddle. When he broke the huddle again—in the wrong fashion for a second time—he was ordered off the field. No one expects the Jets to contend this season, but at some point, they will have to decide whether Hackenberg is the answer at quarterback, a decision that could affect their 2018 draft plans and their franchise for years to come.
First off, what the FUCK does this even mean? He didn’t exit the huddle correctly? I don’t even understand what that entails. Did he not clap after calling the play? Did he try and line up in the slot like the old Wildcat days? Its such a Jets problem to have too. The guy can’t even get out of the HUDDLE to get ready to attempt to play QB. Forget actually playing QB well. Baby steps guys. J-E-T-S. Just Enough To Suck.
I’m gonna need a pair of No. 75 Wilfork overalls. Rompers are out. Overalls are in.
But seriously, round of applause to Big Vince for an outstanding career with the Patriots. A 325 pounder with the baby soft hands of a wide receiver.
Guy was an absolute ANIMAL on the field…
…and a teddy bear off of it.
Wilfork went from a 1st round pick to starting in the Super Bowl his rookie year to underrated D-Lineman to the undisputed best nose tackle in the game to the wise veteran to the Grill Master you see today. We’ll miss ya Vince. Now CUE THE HIGHLIGHTS
The 300s 