C’mon guys.
The Boston Globe. Allegedly THE paper of record for New England sports, is embarrassing themselves with this Tom Brady holdout garbage.
Albert Breer’s lede on the Extra Points blog:
With all the noise of a Tom Brady holdout (which I hear pretty strongly isn’t happening … and was never happening), it’s worth asking this question: How could it really come to this?
Um, what? Yeah, How could it really come to this which was never happening? Does that lede even make a modicum of sense?
Breer then goes on to quote colleague Chris Gasper, who has a few gems of his own:
He shouldn’t have to threaten not to show up to camp to get a new contract.
What threats would those be? The ones solely created by the media to “move the needle?”
The Patriots are playing a dangerous game here with their most valuable asset.
As far as I can tell, they’re not playing any game here.
The CBA has become a rather convenient bit of CYA for the Patriots not to cut Brady a big, fat check.
Right. That’s really all it is. How stupid does he think they are?
Tony Massarotti took his whack at the situation earlier this week…practically begging Brady to hold out. Not only hold out, but not play the entire season.
Meanwhile, Peyton Manning sits in the exact same situation. The only difference being he’s getting a higher base salary than Brady. But isn’t he also risking $50 million dollars by showing up for Colts camp?
Congratulations, Boston Globe, for abandoning any real reporting in favor of trying your hardest to simply stir the pot.
Boston Sports Media Watch 
This kind of look at me shit stirring I expect from Mazz and Bert Breer.
But from Chad Finn? So disappointing. I thought he was one of the good guys.
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since mike reiss left the globe's pats coverage has been an embarrassing mess
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agreed……don't know if it's because Belichick won't kiss the media's butt or what…….but the only guy who's RATIONAL when it comes to Patriots coverage is Mike Reiss……the rest of them are USELESS………..that includes the national media…….ESPN kept running a "teaser" last night about Brady possibly sending the Pats a "message" don't know what the message was because I never stuck around for the main story
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disagree. big fan of ian rapoport. globe's has hired some doozies since reiss left.
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i don't know steve, rapoport seems like a goof to me. he's so vanilla. i don't think he brings any new insight or a particularly unique take on patriots coverage. i also really question if he understands the Xs and Os of football. not to mention his twitter feed is basically stream of consciousness tabloid nonsense and retweets. rapoport was quick to jump on the "growing disconnect" michael silver yahoo story bandwagon too.
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got to admit, I haven't read alot or Rapoport's stuff. But you are correct, the times I have read him he's been pretty good……guess I'm just at the point that the only guy I read regularly is Mike Reiss……..He's so good when it comes to Pats info I don't feel the need to read anyone else
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Breer once wrote well but in his second stint he's gone all Borges but a teenage Borges. And suddenly Gasper is going after the ghetto demographic even though he's very VERY upper middle class (his father is a well respected manager at a local university).
I know The Krafts are very smart people along with BB. As leaders in the NFL they need to not go all Dan Snyder on player salaries but know he's the face of his team. Perhaps Brady is disappointed in the speed of negotiation, but I don't know. But one thing I do know, Breer and Gasper don't know either. They've been asked to create a buzz on the Patriots for the Globe. Blurbs about Mayo living 5 minutes away from the stadium doesn't do it so they're trying to create a monkey-**** fight out of a molehill. I hate stuff like that.
Note, I think Ian R of The Herald does a fantastic job and compliments Reiss very well. He's real competition to Reiss, unlike those eunuchs employed by The Globe.
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I can't stand Gasper, either online or in print. I have no idea what it is, but he comes off like a whiny little know-it-all who thinks people tune in to see HIM and not whatever he's covering.
Totally agree with your post Bruce. The Globe has officially become the anti-Patriot publication of record.
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Totally agree about Gaspar. He has a weekend show on 98.5 with Mark Bertrand(who is also a twerp) and your description of him is spot on. A whiny little know-it-all, with a big sense of entitlement. I've only listened a few times and each time I've turned it off.
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As much as the writers take a lot of flak for what they write and they should. The content that comes out for a big market like Boston is very disappointing. I also feel the editor should take a hefty amount of blame. In this case, Sports Editor, Joe Sullivan deserves the bulls-eye. Does this not seem like an editorial decision? It seems like Joe got together with the writers and said that training camp is just a few days away. What storyline will get peoples blood boiling the most? Brady possibly holding out. Never mind that there may be a less than five percent chance that this happens lets play this to the hilt and see what happens.
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A story about a player holding out really needs a quote from said player to be informational. Or, to use a blunter word, printable.
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Breer did once write well. I remember the article.
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The only sources left for quality Patriots news and articles:
Mike Reiss
Ian Rappaport
Tom E. Curran
Chris Price
Patriots Football Weekly (Perillo, Hart, Scalavino)
Everyone else has an agenda and/or axe to grind and isn’t worth reading.
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Remember the ‘Belichick to the Giants” stories? One writer puts it out there, then another writer quotes the first one, and then “Everybody is saying it!”
Stir the Pot journalism is so lame.
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The Globe should stick to trying to get Erkel and Barry O. re-elected and stay out of sports.
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Never so badly am I rooting for Adam Schefter to be right regarding his Sunday night report on ESPNBoston.com that Brady and the Patriots are making progress towards an extension. It has gotten to the point that I want all the local scribes spouting this Brady holdout hooey to be made to look like the shortsighted uninspired fools they are and to put this topic to rest. In the meantime, at least I can read Reiss' stuff and avoid all that drivel.
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The Globe seems to delight in annoying Pats fans for some reason. It's like the sports editors over there are personally offended that the Pats flew past the Red
Sox in popularity on the Boston sports scene during the past decade (or at least they caught up with the Sox if they didn't pass them outright); I don't think any of them have yet gotten over the result of that 2005 Globe readers poll that ranked the Patriots winning Super Bowl 36 ahead of the Red Sox breaking the Curse in 2004 (and that was back when the Globe was still the "17 percent owners of the Red Sox" Boston Globe). It's like they've wanted to punish Pats fans ever since that poll result was announced. Does anyone really think that the Indy Star people are writing stories like this about the Manning/Colts contract situation?
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The Globe is worthless when it comes to the Patriots. All they want is negative stories about the Pats, and when they can not find anything, they make it up. It is a shame that the local paper can not be supportive, or even objective, about the local NFL team. At a time when newspapers are struggling, they would sell a lot more papers by being at least objective when it comes to the Pats. As it is many, many fans will not buy the paper simply because of their biased view of our team.
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And the other option is the Herald with Tomase's Invisible Ram Walkthrough Tape, Mazz's idiotic anti-Bruschi jersey diatribe, the Bellicheat headline, and Howie the Hostage mocking Brady's knee. It's not like the Globe is ignoring the Pats and you have this awesome second option…
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Sadly, Jon, I do believe you're right.
The Herald (at least after Belichick-hater Kevin Mannix retired) was usually the fair and reasonable source for Pats' coverage in this town, but in the last 3 years they've: 1–overhyped Spygate; 2–published the ridiculous Tomase story ON THE DAY THE BIGGEST GAME IN FRANCHISE HISTORY WAS TAKING PLACE OUT IN ARIZONA; and 3–hired Belichick-hater Ron Borges after he disgraced himself and wore out his welcome at the Globe.
The Herald's Pats coverage has jumped the shark as well over the past few years.
Sad.
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Which is unfortunate because the Globe is doing a crappy job too. And we can't trust the national media because they hate Bill almost as much as the locals do… sigh.
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