I know that this is not the most reputable source but this is the same account that had the Gordon news before just about anybody than Rap, you’ll have to just trust me.
When I saw this I sat back and kind of just said, “well how about that.” Believe it or not when I hear Kaepernick’s name the first thing I think of is still a 24 year old Joey B watching him carve up the NFC and come within a pick of making it to the Super Bowl. He could run, he had an arm, his choice of pet was a turtle, the whole shebang.
Now, sticking to football, he could have not given less of a fuck about learning to read defenses or look off his receivers, which is a tad bit of an issue in the NFL. There was some SERIOUS flaws to his game. With all of that said I still always thought he could be a reclamation project if a team could lock him in the film room.
So how do I feel now that he may be New England’s new back up/3rd string. I feel fine. He has a similar skill-set to Brissett and I am sure the Pats could come up with some McTrickery to include him in. TB12 could show him how to be a professional, possibly excluding the rub and tugs from Alex Gonzalez, and who knows, at 30(ish?) he still could have a few solid years left. Maybe at least become a trade piece.
ESPN – New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady felt trapped this past offseason and was not sure he wanted to play anymore for the only NFL coach he has ever had, Bill Belichick, according to a new book on Belichick’s life.
“If you’re married 18 years to a grouchy person who gets under your skin and never compliments you, after a while you want to divorce him,” a source with knowledge of the Brady-Belichick relationship told ESPN’s Ian O’Connor, author of “Belichick: The Making of the Greatest Football Coach of All Time,” after the 2017 season. “Tom knows Bill is the best coach in the league, but he’s had enough of him. If Tom could, I think he would divorce him.”
What is dead may never die.
In the latest bombshell to drop in the Belichick (sources) vs Brady (sources) war of words comes this new book from ESPN’s Ian O’Connor that has quite a few juicy excerpts. Before people try to discredit this book or start holding their breath until they pass out like a child, O’Connor has been at ESPN as a senior writer for years and is generally pretty favorable towards the Pats despite being a longtime NY guy.
So lets get to it shall we?
“Based on interviews with 350 people (Belichick did not cooperate), the book, due out Tuesday, reports Brady was so upset with his coach that he still wasn’t certain in late March if he would return to the Patriots.
“But in the end, even if he wanted to, Brady could not walk away from the game, and he could not ask for a trade,” O’Connor wrote. “The moment Belichick moved [Jimmy] Garoppolo to San Francisco, and banked on Brady’s oft-stated desire to play at least into his mid-forties, was the moment Brady was virtually locked into suiting up next season and beyond. Had he retired or requested a trade, he would have risked turning an adoring New England public into an angry mob.”
If Brady felt painted into a corner it’s because he was, but that’s mostly through his own doing. By continuously saying he wanted to play until he was 45 and (allegedly) complaining about a contract extension he essentially told the team I want to be here for the long term. And by elevating his play to levels of success never seen before the Patriots had zero choice when it came to keeping or trading Brady. A victim of his own success it would seem if he does indeed hate working with Belichick that bad.
“New York Yankees general manager Brian Cashman recalled in the book that Belichick told him years earlier about a disagreement Brady had with a Patriots strength coach over equipment. “Belichick said, ‘If Tom Brady wants it, Tom Brady gets it,‘” Cashman said. “If you get a player at that level, you get him what he needs, even if the strength coach says otherwise.”
This is a little disingenuous from Cashman because you’re telling me that Jeter, A-Rod, Mariano, Posada, Sheffield, CLEMENS, and other star players didn’t get special treatment? Bull. Shit. The top performers get special treatment in every team or 9-5 office.
According to the book, Brady’s family long felt Belichick would push out his longtime franchise player before he was ready to retire. Brady’s sister Nancy is quoted telling people that her brother believed “Belichick will definitely do to him someday what the Colts did to Peyton [Manning].“
Brady started worrying for his job almost immediately after Belichick cited his age and contract status –– and the coach’s desire to be “early rather than late at that position” — when the Patriots drafted Garoppolo in 2014.
100% valid concern from Brady because Belichick absolutely will would have done this when he felt it was best for the team in the long run. However, Brady winning Super Bowl XLIX, and Super Bowl LI, and Super Bowl MVP in both, and league MVP at the age of 40 kind of blew that plan to smithereens though. Still, it’s not a great look for Brady if true because it essentially admits to something we’ve all known for years; Brady’s late career resurgence is due almost entirely to his fear of being replaced by Jimmy G.
Don’t get it twisted, thats not a knock on Tom Brady, thats just human nature. As much as Brady would hate to admit it; thats just great coaching. Bill knew what buttons to push as Brady would either double down and work even harder to improve from a dip in production….or he wouldn’t and Bill would push Brady out for Jimmy G.
“One New England assistant said the general feeling among staff members around that time wasn’t that Belichick’s system could make Super Bowl quarterbacks out of all 32 NFL starters. “But if you gave us any of the top 15, we could do it,” the assistant said. “I don’t think the coaches view Tom as special as everyone else in football does. Mr. Kraft thinks Tom is the greatest gift ever, but the coaches don’t.”
This is probably the single most disrespectful thing thats ever been said about Tom Brady. Listen, I love Bill Belichick, he’s hands down the greatest coach in the history of the league, but even for him this is cocky. I hate getting into the sports talk radio debate of how many Super Bowls would Bill or Brady have without the other? Would Bill win 2, 3, or all 5 without Brady and vice versa? Its a fortuitous situation for both that built the greatest dynasty the league will ever see. But for Belichick to completely discount Brady’s all-time talent, football IQ, work ethic and clutch ability is just nonsense. Could the Patriots probably be a pretty decent team with Matt Stafford or Philip Rivers or Ben Roethlisberger? Yea probably. Are they winning 5 Super Bowls with any of those guys? Doubtful. But to say that the Patriots would be a consistent Super Bowl team with the Andy Daltons, Dak Prescotts, and Case Keenums of the world is just spitting in TB12’s face and I will not stand for it.
“One person close to Brady said his entire family was “miffed” at Belichick for telling reporters to ask the quarterback about his preferences on game balls and “very miffed” at Kraft for reluctantly announcing in 2015 that he wouldn’t fight Brady’s four-game ban…Brady told friends that his weak answer to the news conference question about whether he was a cheater — “I don’t believe so” — didn’t betray a consciousness of Deflategate guilt, but rather thoughts of the earlier Spygate conviction and his belief that at least some of the suspicions over the years about alleged Patriots black-ops tactics were likely true.
I think years from now we’ll look back and point to Deflategate as the beginning of the end for the Brady Belichick relationship. According to all reports, Brady still outright denies doing anything shady in Deflategate so he feels, whether it’s accurate or not, that he did nothing wrong. Belichick however already had one huge black mark on his resume with the whole Spygate scandal. Despite Spygate being the most overblown story of the past quarter century, Belichick knew what it would mean for him and his legacy if he was blamed for a second league scandal though. So yup, he dumped that shit right in Brady’s lap.
Now if you’re Brady you have to feel like you’re getting hung out to dry *solely* because your coach was fucking around with cameras and filming rules 10 years prior and tossed the hot potato to you. That has to have destroyed any semblance of trust remaining between the two sides. Hell, Brady probably felt like he was paying for Bill’s past crimes as the team felt it had to distance itself from Tom and the Deflategate scandal just to save face as an organization and a coach.
Now we get to the juicy stuff when it comes to past relationships with his former mentor in Bill Parcells.
“[Bill] Parcells is quoted in the book questioning why his former defensive coordinator’s game plan in the Giants’ Super Bowl XXV upset of the Bills ended up in Canton. “I don’t know whose idea that was to put it in the Hall of Fame,” Parcells said. “If anything should be in the Hall of Fame, it should be [offensive coordinator] Ron Erhardt’s game plan. We had the ball for 40 minutes and some seconds. That takes work, consistent play. We were only on defense for 19 minutes. To me, we had a good game plan against them. It was well thought out, a couple of things we did, the two-man lines in that game. But I’m not diminishing anything. I’m just telling you. I don’t know how that happened. I’m not knocking anyone here.”
Bill Parcells remains the saltiest man in the history of the league. If you haven’t seen The Two Bills documentary it is a must watch for any Patriots fan. It details the “repairing” of a fractured relationship between a mentor and mentee, but it sure as shit didn’t feel that way watching it. Parcells came off as a guy who thinks Belichick got lucky in a great situation and all but says he would have won just as much if he had Tom Brady too. I mean I get it, I guess. In an environment you could never win in your younger protege comes into the same exact environment and wins FIVE Super Bowls. Thats gotta sting. So you tell yourself what you need to tell yourself to sleep at night.
There’s also some great tidbits on Belichick’s relationships with Urban Meyer, Nick Saban, Aaron Hernandez, the unlikelihood of Bill ever getting the Giants head coaching job in the late 80s/early 90s, and Belichick’s father being an awesome dude.
Week 2 is now in the books and I’d say we are one week away from really seeing what our squads “are”? Don’t you love those questions and answers? “We still don’t know what Jimmy G is.” “We will find out tonight what these 2008 *insert team here* are? But ya, horribly hard to be a T.V analyst.
To go along with Week 2 we have our second addition of the recap of how our bloggers did in their respective league(s). As with Week 1, every blogger has submitted a small blurb on their successes and failures. Let’s get to it…
Papa Giorgio Well, I got absolutely shellacked this weekend. 0-3 across all my leagues. Fournette being out did not help in the slightest. It will be interesting to see how Josh Gordon does for me now that he’s been traded to the Patriots. I have him in two leagues and if the guy can get healthy and live up to his potential my teams should be able to get back on track in the quest for some titles. Otherwise, if things continue to go south I may have to pull a Vontae Davis and get the hell out of Dodge.
(Joey B Note: Something about a Bill’s fan drafting the most volatile player possibly in league history makes me happy.)
Big Z
Fantasy football is a prime example of where it is better to be lucky than good. I was thisclose to dropping Chris Hogan in favor of Phillip Dorsett this week. I ultimately decided against streaming my WR/TE flex position and stuck with Hogan after a lackluster Week 1. At halftime it looked like they would both post underwhelming Week 2 numbers, but I was rewarded with two late TDs by Hogan. Thank god.
As I’ve written before, defense should be taken out of fantasy football. Until that happens, though, I will continue to stream defenses in fantasy football. This week I dropped Green Bay to pick up New England. Whoops! Thankfully the move only cost me eight points. After an early defensive touchdown by Green Bay it looked like it could’ve been a whole lot worse.
Up 89-88 going into Monday night, my opponent was done and I only had Russell Wilson left. I thought about benching him, but when’s the last time a QB got negative points? I don’t know, but Wilson made me sweat it out, turning the ball over a few times in the second half. A garbage-time TD put me at the century mark, though, and cemented my Week 2 W.
So with a Brandin Cooks, Christian McCaffrey and a little luck, the Big Z Fantasy Empire is on the board in 2018.
Red
(Joey B’s Note: This first sentence is laugh out loud funny. This is the beauty of fantasy: you can taste the bitterness)
If I have any piece of advice from another dogshit start to my fantasy season it’s this; stick to the guys you drafted as long as you can. After a disastrous 4 INT game in Week 1, I benched Matt Stafford for Jimmy G and Stafford went off for 32 points compared to Garoppolo’s 20. Naturally I lost by just a hair under 12 points this week.
I also lost in my other league wasting a 27 point, 14 catch, 100 yard performance from Christian McCaffrey. So all in all I am a combined 0-4 to start the fantasy season. Oh and I bet the Patriots to cover on Sunday while I was down in the great state of NJ and obviously lost that bet. So my gambling advice is radioactive right now. Stay away.
Joey B
The bitch of fantasy football is that sometimes what happens in real-life outweighs fantasy. In this case, Gronk having a bad day fantasy-wise was not nearly as bad as that Patriots game overall. I still not only won but had high score thanks to, in part, another MONNNSTER game from Michael Thomas. Still, seeing that 2 points (or so) from Gronk and what it really represented hurt.
Mattes
If it weren’t for O.J. Howard benefitting from even more FitzMagic this week, it would have been a SAD day for the Purple Cobras. Granted, I did leave over 65 points on the bench this week, which included three guys with over 17-plus points each, each of whose performance would have been better than the four-point abomination I got from Ryan Grant in my flex. (Hey! He had nine targets in Week 1!) But alas, it would not have mattered anyway, as my opponent was the league’s high-scorer this week. Fortunately, those bench guys look like they could be forces moving forward, so hopefully I can start to right the ship in Week 3 after a rough (but not insurmountable!) 0-2 start.
As far as my other league goes, I was able to pull out a two-point victory thanks in large part to Captain Kirk Cousins, who went absolute H.A.M. sandwich in Green Bay on Sunday. Pairing him up with Philip Rivers in a two-QB league proved to be quite the boon this week. Michael Thomas also continues to be a PPR juggernaut, and the fact that Chris Carson didn’t get a carry in the second half killed any chance my opponent had of winning going into what was looking like a very advantageous Monday night scenario for him. If David Johnson, Larry Fitz, and the Cardinals offense ever wakes the hell up, I’d be feeling pretty damn good about this squad. I’ll take a 1-1 start for now.
LETS GOOOO! The Patriots have traded a conditional 5th round pick for Josh Gordon, which is actually cheaper than I had predicted. I will take that all day long. Also, reportedly if Josh Gordon is not active for 10 games, the Patriots will receive 7th round pick back from the Browns.
This is exactly what this team needs right now. Immense, immense talent. Sure he’s only played 11 games over the last 4 calendar years, but this is a guy that could thrive with a QB like Tom Brady throwing him the ball. Again, his best, and only, great season came in 2013 when he went 87 for 1,646 with 9 TDs. Not a lot of guys in this league that can even approach stats like that. And that was with bums like Jason Campbell, Brandon Weeden, and Brian Hoyer throwing him the ball.
Granted the Patriots put themselves in a shit situation by trading Brandon Cooks and letting Danny Amendola walk, but hey you play the hand you’re dealt. And right now the Patriots need a stud receiver. I’ll take that chance as its the ultimate low risk, high reward type move.
Felger and the talking heads will dump on the move, despite complaining for weeks about how the Patriots were hesitant to bring in a guy over concerns of receivers “learning the offense.” It was this or Kenny Britt or Dez Bryant. Dez is three years older than Gordon with a history of foot problems. We’ve already cut Britt once. Give me Gordon. If he’s a bum or he misses practices or he just doesn’t gel with Brady, then cut him.
It’s a great move in an area of need as Belichick jumps on an opportunity after biding his time and rotating in guys like Britt, Cordarrelle Patterson, Corey Coleman, Philip Dorsett, Jordan Matthews and others in 20 moves they made this season at the position.
Sunday was an ugly day for the New England Patriots. I was feeling pretty confident heading in and since I was in the great state of New Jersey I even placed a legal wager on my boys to pull it out. Welp, midway through the first quarter I knew I wasn’t getting that money back ever again. What seemed like a steamrolling by the Jaguars was a game that actually pivoted on just a handful of plays and missed opportunities, which I have painstakingly compiled below. Andddd go!
-Gostkowski missed another bunny in a key moment. Yuck, this guy is basically Tuukka Rask to me these days. He’s not as bad as sports talk radio says, but he’s definitely not as great as the team would have you believe. I know it’s only a handful of kicks he’s missed over the years, but they all seem to stick out in my memory because they all came in key situations. Regardless of his FG percentage, I do not want this guy anywhere near a game tying or game winning kick anymore.
-Refs missed a holding call against Gronk (and a potential roughing the passer) and the Pats were forced to kick on 4th down on their first drive, which as we mentioned above Gostkowski shanked with an absolute duck of a kick.
Gostkowski sends it OB right as Patriots end first drive pointless. Either the Telvin Smith jersey tug or Ngakoue “weight drop” should have been drive-extenders.
-A Jacksonville receiver fumbled a ball that jumped like a magic fucking bean right into another Jacksonville receiver’s hands for the luckiest of recoveries.
-This defense looked like swiss cheese all day, which is alarming, but it would be out of character for any Patriots fan to completely overreact. We’ve seen these early season losses when the team is still trying to figure it out. Whether it was the offensive line or the right linebacker rotation, we’ve seen it before and this year is probably no different especially when it comes to the wide receivers. Hell the Pats are like the high school jock who got a little too high on himself and dumped a perfectly nice girl (Kenny Britt), only to try and get her back after he’s put on the freshman 15 at college.
-Eric Rowe got roasted all day long. One of the plays against him was impossible to stop:
But he then immediately got beat for a TD he should have been able to defend.
-The defense got burned on 3rd down all game long as Bortles scrambled and found an open man or ran for first downs himself. Hell he’s got the third highest Avg Yards per Rush for a QB in the history of the league, just a tick behind Michael Vick.
-The defense was bad yes, but lets remember that it took a career day from Blake Bortles (29 of 45 for 377 yards, 4 touchdowns, 1 interception). Literally the best game of his career to topple the Patriots, which kind of stung after I clowned Bortles all week long and lost a little coin in the process, but hey thems the breaks.
Thats the most concerning visual from the entire game. It kind of felt like Brady and McDaniels were starting to worry that this team might not be able to get them where they want to go. Hopefully it’s just the two of them blowing off some steam on the new guys making mental errors.
-Breathe and say it with me….Julian Edelman will be back in 3 weeks.
-I’m pretty sure Mattes and I have stumbled onto some black magic as the two guys we picked for team MVPs on The 300s Podcast, Rex Burkhead and Trey Flowers, have each gotten concussions in the first two weeks. Another guy Mattes picked as a DPOY was Deatrich Wise, who left the game late with what the announcers speculated as some jumbled finger digits. I’m not comfortable with this type of power.
-At one point midway through the second half the broadcast team pointed out that it had been a full 45 minutes since Tom Brady had thrown the ball. That cannot help gameflow and momentum.
-The non-call of the Jags jumping offsides on 4th down late in the game as the Pats tried to draw the penalty before punting. As the broadcast team, and TV shots of a fuming Belichick pointed out, the offensive lineman needs to touch the the defender if he jumps onside otherwise he can reset and the refs won’t call it. Romo even pointed out in the replay you can see the official reach for his flag before deciding against it. That one hurt.
-Before the season I predicted the Pats would split with the Jags and the Texans and be 3-1 after the first month. After Week 2, we’re exactly where I expected so unless they drop a game to the Lions and old friend Matt Patricia
or the Dolphins, who tried their very best to give away a W to the Jets on Sunday, then we’re fine.
-Don’t get it twisted, this defense is somewhere between hot garbage and a cold lunch, BUT its probably a little bit better than the defense that was one stop away from winning back to back Super Bowls last year. So it may not always be pretty, it will probably be infuriatingly bad at times, but at the end of the day it should be good enough to keep the team alive as long as TB12 is under center…..and not a second longer.
-After predicting the Pats would do their best to eviscerate Jalen Ramsey for trash talking Gronk (I may have said something about making his children orphans, but I forget) and they did nothing of the sort. The offense could not get into a rhythm and anytime they did, their momentum was killed by turnovers and missed kicks.
-Cordarrelle Patterson killed a drive when he tripped over the Ghost of Christmas Past on a key third down. After the Pats defense came up huge and forced a quick 3 and out, the offense came out onto the field and these next two tweets came over the span of 6 minutes.
A short series and a terrible punt. The #Patriots have to smell blood here. #Jags
Patterson caught a screen out of the backfield and looked like he had room to run, but his feet would not cooperate as he tripped over nothing and fell down to end the drive in its tracks.
Anddd 5 minutes after that Bortles threw a pick to try and let the Patriots back into the game. Anddd then 3 minutes after that Brady was strip sacked and that was the game.
So I just have to tip my cap to the Jaguars. It’s only Week 2 so I hope they aren’t riding too high….
“It kind of felt like we won a Super Bowl, man,” safety Tashaun Gipson said. “I won’t even kid you. It was that type of atmosphere and environment.
….because we’ve seen this story before (see: Chiefs 2014), but alas I tip my cap.
-Josh Gordon?? I say yes because of the pure ability coupled with the age; 27 whereas Dez Bryant will be 30 soon.
But obviously the guy has been dealing with issues for years. The last, and only, good season Gordon had came back in 2013. Back when Shane Victorino played for the Red Sox. Tom E. Curran makes a pretty compelling argument against the receiver as well:
He’s played in 11 of a possible 65 games since his absurd 2013 season (86 catches, 1,646 yards). He needs full-time supervision, it seems. Permissiveness, understanding and contorting for Gordon’s needs all offseason got the Browns . . . a game. One catch. A touchdown. And then they threw up their hands.
How’s that return on emotional investment and time spent? Not real good. It’s not inhumane to tell a troubled person he is unemployable, which Gordon has been and seemingly still is.
Besides, the Patriots were already down the road with one wide receiver project, Cordarelle Patterson. Then they added Corey Coleman this week.
If feels like they are at capacity when it comes to getting talented but hard-to-reach downfield receivers assimilated. This isn’t July when there’s nothing to do but conditioning, working on timing and getting on the same page. There are games every seven days now, game plans to install, fine-tune and execute.
The reality is, nobody’s got time for Josh Gordon right now.
Despite all that, the Patriots are at least doing their due diligence on Gordon according to Bert Breer.
So that may have been more than just a few pivot points, but I think its just an early season misstep for the Pats (one that I expected) as they build for the longterm and assess what their strengths and weaknesses are. Plus I feel much more confident going against the Jags in the playoffs going for the split, rather than trying to beat Sacksonville twice in one season.
Up next is old friend Matt Patricia and my worst fantasy draft pick in a decade; Matt Stafford.
The NFL overtime system is broken and it’s easy to see why. I’m not talking about two ties in two weeks, though. The fact that the league has to put its overtime rules on the screen every time a game goes to overtime is all you need to know. I’ve never seen Fox or ESPN have to explain how extra innings or basketball overtime works. Even the NHL with its loser point, 4-on-4, 3-on-3, and shootout formats over the last 20 years is still pretty simple – play five minutes and if no one wins we go to a three-round shootout.
The fact that the NFL has to explain the rules every time a game goes to overtime is ridiculous. That’s arena league stuff. Fortunately, the solution is easy. The NFL will eventually adopt the college football overtime system, the Kansas Plan.
The Kansas Plan won’t be coming to the NFL next year, but it probably will be in the next decade or so. A criticism of the Kansas Plan is that it takes special teams out of the game, with no kickoffs or punts. Pretty soon, though, that’s what regular football could look like. With the NFL moving kickoffs up to the 35-yard line and moving touchbacks out to the 25-yard line, it’s clear that they want fewer kickoffs returned. Same in college football, which now treats any fair catch of a kickoff inside the 25-yard line as a touchback. It may be a while before the kickoff is eliminated entirely but it could happen in our lifetimes, and eliminating it in overtime would be an easy way to start.
The NFL said it shortened regular season overtime from 15 to 10 minutes for player safety reasons. Making the switch to the college football overtime system could easily be justified for that same reason.
And all due respect to punters, but if a game can’t be decided in 60 minutes I don’t mind taking the option to punt off the table for OT. Overtime is intended to force an outcome, one way or another. To force an outcome, game play has to be tweaked a little bit. I don’t mind telling a team they lose the right to punt after 60 minutes of play.
While I don’t believe the current NFL overtime system is unfair, the college overtime system is undoubtedly fairer. The Kansas Plan obviously gives each team an opportunity to possess the football. This eliminates the possibility of another Super Bowl (or any game, really) ending without one side getting an opportunity on offense. If I were a Falcons fan, I’d still be upset that Matt Ryan never got to touch the football in overtime in Super Bowl 51.
Unless the NFL wants to play full 15-minute quarters until the deadlock is broken, which it most certainly does not, it’s time they go back to college and adopt the Kansas Plan. College football overtime isn’t prefect, but it’s simpler, safer and fairer. You could do a lot worse than an overtime system that’s simple, fair and safe.
It’s one thing to call Josh Allen and Joe Flacco trash because they are in fact not good at football. However, when Jalen Ramsey starts chirping Rob Gronkowski it kind of rings false.
“I don’t think Gronk’s good,” Ramsey told ESPN.com’s Mina Kimes in a story that was published late last month. He then clarified: “Let me say — I don’t think Gronk is as great as people think he is.”
If I know the Patriots, and I like to think I do, these guys love nothing more than stomping on the heads of their loudest and cockiest enemies before dancing on their graves. With that being said, are Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski going to make a orphans out of Jalen Ramsey’s children?
Not that good? Lets see…Gronk was voted the No. 1 tight end in the league by his peers last year, he is a 4x All-Pro, and thats before we even get into his career stats.
4th all time in Touchdowns for a TE
11th all time in Receiving Yards for a TE
21st all time in Receptions for a TE
1st all time in Receiving Yards per Game for a TE
All of that despite being *92nd* in Career Games Played for a TE. Gronk is one of the all-time greats and a hands down first ballot Hall of Famer at the ripe old age of 29.
Yet Jalen Ramsey has decided to put a target on his back by chirping Gronk for some reason.
Jaguars CB Jalen Ramsey on facing Patriots TE Rob Gronkowski. Ramsey previously said he didn’t think Gronk “is as great as people think he is.” pic.twitter.com/23erBn80vM
In the run-up to a December clash between the two AFC powerhouses in 2007, second year Steelers safety Anthony Smith guaranteed a win against the (undefeated) Patriots. When asked about it, he doubled down
Brady and the Patriots not only heard Smith, they went directly at him when the game began. Randy Moss caught a 63-yard touchdown running past Smith. And the Patriots used a double pass play to exploit Smith for a second score
Brady himself found Smith after one score, making sure his thoughts were understood.
Tom Brady and Randy Moss took that to heart and ruthlessly attacked Smith, roasted him, and just went out of their way to embarrass the guy on national TV for having the gall to question the Patriots.
Hell even Belichick got into the mud to put the finishing touches on the battered, bruised and beaten safety.
“We’ve played against a lot better safeties than him, I’ll tell you,” said the Patriots coach. By the game’s end, the stats told a stark picture. The Patriots passed 46 times for 399 yards and four touchdowns, barely bothering with a run game.
Now obviously Jalen Ramsey is no Anthony Smith, rather he was All-Pro last season, but you keep knocking on the devils door and sooner or later someone’s going to answer.
ProFootballTalk – Corey Coleman is getting his third chance in the NFL. The Patriots are signing Coleman, Ian Rapoport of NFL Network reports.
So for all those OBSESSING over how the Patriots are going to supplement their depleted wide receiver corps, here is your answer. The Pats have added their third former first round pick in Corey Coleman, who joins Cordarrelle Patterson and Philip Dorsett on our personal island of secondhand Lexus. He comes to Foxboro via the couch, as Coleman was inauspiciously cut in training camp this year by the Bills seemingly minutes after being traded to Buffalo by the team that drafted him, the Browns.
To address the headline, Corey Coleman has broken his right hand twice. In 2 seasons. And I am no expert in human biology nor a pro athlete, but I believe you may need a right hand to play Wide Receiver, otherwise known as catching, in the NFL. If you break your right hand twice, there is simply no fuckin way that thing still works. Corey Coleman is a one-handed wide receiver, plain and simple. Therefore, unless we plan to get him the ball via end-arounds and other “gadget plays” (coughhandoffscough) then I really am curious as to how the hell this is going to work.
In the end, I suppose my loquacious colleague was correct when he said we are better off with Coleman than Dez Bryant. The more that I think about it, I can’t remember a bigger possession receiver like Bryant really adding much to the Pat’s, aside from Brandon LaFell, who also bought ALL THE WAY IN to the Patriot way. Maybe Coleman will too. Better than buying into Buffalo or Cleveland.
So I am going to start posting this every week. An opportunity for you the reader to both revel and commiserate with your favorite (Me, maybe Big Z) or least favorite (Bills Fan) 300s blogger. So without further or do……….
Papa Giorgio (Joey B’s Note: PG’s starting quarterback IRL is Nathan Peterman)
“Two words: Total Domination. Was it easy? No. Did I almost throw up blood when Aaron Rodgers was carted off the field with a knee injury? You betcha! Someone I managed to come out of week one 3-0 in all my leagues combined. As someone who does not take fantasy football too seriously, it was a nice start to what inevitably will be a horrifying, disastrous finish.”
Big Z
“I kept Le’Veon Bell in My keeper league. I picked up James Conner as his handcuff, but played Devonta Freeman instead in Week 1. Figured Pittsburgh had lots of other weapons, and might not lean too heavily on the second year player. Conner outscored Freeman by a cool 28 points, as I lost my Week 1 matchup by 12.”
Joey B
I had a solid, straightforward week 1 win. I only do one team because I honestly just can’t keep track of more than one. Team-wise, I grabbed Gronk in the first because it’s smart and I picked up/started James Connor because the Steelers have relied heavily on the run since Lincoln still had the back of his head. The only thing grinding my gears a bit is that I lost out on the league high score for the week because rather than having even an underwhelming, sub-average game Matthew Stafford shat the bed completely. Oh well, 1-0.
Now we get to the absolute novels written by Red and MATTES GOOOODDDAMN. Asked these guys for a blurb on their fantasy football week and I got Will Hunting’s thesis on the market economy in the southern colonies.
Red
“Ya know, I was initially pretty upset about accidentally drafting Matt Stafford in the 8th round because time ran out on my pick, but now? Well now I’m fucking furious. Thats what I get for playing chicken with the Yahoo fantasy football draft pick timer.
I won a fantasy league I was in with Donovan McNabb as my QB that I picked up in like the 15th round. It was his last year in Philly and his last year as a productive NFL starter, which was perfect for me. Drafting a QB late has been my template ever since. Welp, not this year.
Sure you could attribute my opening day loss to lack of preparation (I didn’t buy an $11 draft magazine this year) or the fact that I continue to rely on Seahawks running backs not named Marshawn Lynch prior to 2015, but I prefer to point out that Matthew Stafford threw 4 picks in the same week Alvin Kamara dropped 38 points on me.
Here’s to hoping Sam Darnold continues to do just what I had hoped and throw the ball to my sleeper pick, Quincy Enunwa, more than anyone else on the Jets. Quincy had 10 targets last night compared to 11 for the rest of the team combined.
On my bench, of course.
Goddamnit, why do I play this game?”
Mattes
“I tell ya, it really sucks to be 0-2 after just one week of football. BOTH sqauds lost this weekend, and neither matchup was close in either league. Even worse is the fact I was expected to be the week’s high-scorer in my full-point PPR league – with guys like Larry Fitz, Michael Thomas, David Johnson, and Jarvis Landy – but only two of those guys actually showed up. There was a few fleeting minutes of hope in my matchup against our very own Papa Giorgio, when Aaron Rodgers looked like he was about to be placed on the shelf for the second straight season. But alas, the legend came back and put up another THIRTY-TWO points to crush my Week 1 dreams. Although, with Amari Cooper putting up two whole points on Monday night, maybe it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. It also didn’t help to have the Saints defense in both leagues, who fell victim to some serious FitzMagic and blew chunks in their home opener. In one league, the got me -4, and the other they got me -8.
So I literally would’ve been better off not even starting a D/ST this week. COOL. I did have one particular Saints player, though, who went absolutely BANANAS, catching 16 balls for 180 yards and a score; his name is Michael Thomas, as previously mentioned, and I’m glad I snagged him for the second year in a row. Jordan Howard and Carlos Hyde look like a decent back pairing in one league, but David Johnson and Alex Collins didn’t live up to expectations in the other. Hopefully Kerryon Johnson, my sneaky pick for Rookie of the Year, takes the job away from a hopefully-washed-up LeGarrette Blount and serves as a solid No. 3 behind Howard and Hyde. And if Rex Burkhead ends up being the Patriots offensive MVP, as I predicted in the Pats preview podcast, I could be OK in my other league, too. Russell Wilson also proved he’s matchup-proof, putting up over 30 against a nasty Broncos D. Philip Rivers and Kirk Cousins look like a solid pairing in my two-QB league as well, so I’m not getting too down after the first week. It can only go up from here…right?”
As I sit here and write this, the 2018 NFL season has already officially begun, with the Eagles beating the Falcons in last night’s season opener, 18-12. We are now just about 48 hours away from REAL and MEANINGFUL Patriots action.
The team is set to square off against the Houston Texans at Gillette Stadium on Sunday. Before we get into a game preview, here’s a couple quick hits on when and where to watch the game along with a few of the latest lines:
This will be a matchup between what should be two of the AFC’s premier squads in 2018. Although the Texans missed out on the playoffs last year, that’s most likely due to the fact they lost then-super-rookie quarterback Deshaun Watson to an ACL tear just before Week 9, when the team was 3-4. Sure, they technically had a losing record with him under center before the injury, but of those seven games four were against playoff teams, and another was a mere three-point loss against a solid Seahawks team in which Watson threw for over 400 yards and four touchdowns to go along with another 67 yards on the ground. Watson also had 21 total touchdowns on the season at the time he went down.
I do think that Watson will regress a bit this year, as his touchdown rate was just silly last season, but he’s still probably the most talented quarterback the Texans have ever had in their 15-year history. Let’s not forget Watson also totaled 342 yards and two touchdowns against the Pats when the teams squared off last season, in what was just his third-ever NFL game. He, DeAndre Hopkins, and Lamar Miller form a pretty solid trio on the offensive side of things.
But enough about Watson. The Texans will also have two of their top defenders back this season, J.J. Watt and Whitney Mercilus, both of whom played just five games each for the team last year. Not only have the two combined for ONE HUNDRED AND FREAKIN’ EIGHT sacks since Mercilus’s rookie year in 2012, but Houston’s defense – which was a top-three unit in both 2015 and 2016 – fell all the way to 20th without them last year. I expect Houston’s D to be solid once again in 2018 if both guys can stay on the field. This offseason, the team also added safety Tyrann Mathieu – aka the Honey Badger and one of my absolute favorite players in the league – and he is expected to inject some much-needed skill and energy into the team’s defensive backfield.
He’s baaaaaaaaack.
OK. OK. But what about the Pats?
Well, this game is going to be all about timing routes and quick passes. (Hello, James White!) Brady is going to need to get the ball out quickly, and as long as he doesn’t get knocked around by Houston’s nasty pass-rush he could carve it up between the 20s. Aaron Colvin and a 34-year-old Johnathan Joseph are also a pretty lackluster pair of corners, so TB12 shouldn’t have too much trouble moving the ball as long as he stays standing.
The Texans actually were a top-15 team against the run last season, so I wouldn’t expect a huge game on the ground for the Pats offense. White and Rex Burkhead will likely be sent out of the backfield quite often, especially with the team being expected to take it slow with the latter. Jeremy Hill could actually get a little bit more burn than expected as well, as the team will still need someone to move the chains between the tackles and on the goal line.
As far as the defense goes, the Pats (hopefully) improved pass-rush should be able to do some serious work against the Texans HORRENDOUS offensive line, which was ranked dead-last by Pro Football Focus this offseason. It may be tough to corral Watson, though, which will probably force him out of the pocket and on the run quite a bit. Therefore, Dont’a Hightower and the rest of the linebacking corps will need to be on high alert throughout this one.
Storylines to Keep an Eye On
(Welcome to New England, Trent Brown): Brady’s new blindside protector certainly has his work cut out for him. As mentioned above, the Texans feature one of the league’s most ferocious pass-rushing units, and this will be Brown’s first chance to prove himself in a Pats uniform. He’s received very positive reviews throughout most of the offseason, but let’s just hope Watt & Co. don’t give him fits in his home debut.
Hopefully he’s still smiling around 4 p.m. on Sunday afternoon.
(James White is the X-Factor): With the team’s thin receiving corps and the need for Brady to get the ball out quickly in this one, I expect White to be HUGE for the Pats on Sunday. Not only can Brady check down to him in a hurry, but White’s underrated ability to carry the rock can also help keep the Texans D guessing, especially when the team runs out the Pony offense, which I also expect to see a lot of.
(Who Will Step Up Behind Hogan?): Barring another freak injury or Johnathan Joseph traveling back in time to his Pro Bowl days, Chris Hogan will be the team’s leading receiver in Week 1. But after that, who is going to step up? Will it be Phillip Dorsett, who looked solid in the team’s dress rehearsal? Will it be Cordarrelle Patterson, who has the skills to be a unique offensive weapon? Will it be Riley McCarron, a dark horse who was just promoted from the practice squad on Thursday? It’s anyone’s guess at this point.
Prediction
Save for some minor worry regarding Brady’s protection in this one, I still think the Pats are far and away the better overall team. Belichick won’t let Watson light him up two years in a row. Plus, Trey Flowers, Deatrich Wise, Adrian Clayborn, and the rest of the boys up front on defense should be able to consistently get in his face and throw him off his game. There are also still enough weapons on the Pats offense for them to move the ball and score some points against Houston’s D, as long as their fearsome crew up front is kept at bay. The Pats take this one 24-14.
The 300s 