I’m still laughing.

It was put well by BSMW messageboard poster “Kingasaurus:”

This is amazing on so many levels.

-BB (as usual) doesn’t care about the media reaction to anything he does.
-Silver’s sources wrong
-Jets fans confused, nervous and fatalistic
-Local media confused
-National media confused

The whole thing just makes me laugh.

Where do we even begin? The Patriots signing Tim Tebow basically brought Twitter and the Internet to a standstill yesterday.

Immediately national media booked flights to get to Foxboro for today’s mini-camp. This might be the biggest media crowd ever for a Patriots mini-camp, which is saying something.

There’s plenty of talk about how the Patriots have brought a media circus upon themselves, and how basically this is the worst and stupidest thing they’ve ever done.

When media (and fans) say these things, I can only shake my head at the fact that they clearly haven’t been paying attention for the last dozen years.

There will be no circus. There will be plenty of media at the beginning, but as each day goes by, and Tebow isn’t available to speak, and Belichick won’t give them anything, and Patriots players won’t give them anything, the crowds will thin.

Tebow is no lock to even make it out of this week with the team, let alone make it out of training camp. The scenario I keep seeing in my head is Tebow sustaining some sort of injury, being placed on IR, and basically disappearing for an entire year. During that time, he’ll be around the team, be coached on his technique and playbook, and won’t be seen in the locker room or by the media at all.

That’s if they even decide to keep him around.

This morning’s Belichick press conference might’ve been the greatest thing I’ve ever seen. Thanks for coming, fellas.

Meanwhile, there are some of the worst columns ever written out there today. That’s not hyperbole. Check these out:

Patriots’ arrogance on full display with Tim Tebow signing – Typical Pete Prisco. It’s saying something when Dennis and Callahan are saying your column is a little too slanted against Belichick. Kirk Minihane kept asking Prisco how it would be a circus here, and Prisco had no answer. Clown.

With Tim Tebow, Patriots show desperation – This is a tape-measure shot by James (don’t call me J.J.) Walker of ESPN.com. Holy crap. This might be the worst column ever written. Ever. It makes no sense whatsoever.

Bill Belichick accepts the Tim Tebow challenge – Mike Silver, who is becoming the new Tom Jackson/Charlie Casserly, and who wrote the article that said that Belichick hated Tebow’s game, scrambles and doubles-down on his original claims.

Five Tim Tebow coverage tips for the lucky Boston sports columnists – If you want to see basically everything that is wrong with sports media today in one place, Steve Politi of the Star-Ledger gives it to you in one handy (and incredibly annoying) spot.

The sad thing is, everything in that column will happen. The media is all about the media.

On the other side, you’re bound to have a  really good column or two out there too.

Tim Tebow’s reported signing with Patriots puts QB in perfect position – This one from Dan Wetzel might be the best one I’ve seen.

Published by Bruce Allen

Automattician.

8 thoughts on “No Circus Here, Folks”

  2. I just came here to post about the James Walker column. I should have just had faith that something that awful would never manage to elude Bruce’s radar….

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  3. I wouldn’t call Politi’s column the worst I’ve ever read. He was joking, most of the time. You can say that the jokes weren’t funny and that writing a column full of nothing but jokes is a waste of newspaper space, and the time taken to write and read it, and I won’t argue much. But it seems to me Prisco and Walker actually fell into Tip 1 of his list: take a strong position and argue it manfully. Of course, that means they’re probably getting their panties in a bunch over something that’s not very important, but that’s never happened before in the media, anywhere.

    I thought Silver’s column was the worst of the lot, though I’ve disliked Silver’s work for a long time. He loves nothing so much as being the story, and once again he’s the main subject of his own lead paragraph. Flailing to justify what he’d written earlier makes it a little bit sad, and writing that “[Belichick] and I would butt heads over [Tebow getting some snaps under center in actual games]” makes it sadder still. Mike–you won’t be butting heads with Bill Belichick. You’ll be butting heads with the mirror and calling the mirror Bill Belichick.

    For my part, I’m intrigued. I think if Tebow will have much of an impact on this team at all, it would be at tight end. Maybe he won’t play there at all, but I don’t think Tebow’s such a bedazzling athlete that he’ll revolutionize the offense at fullback. But he’s athletic and seems to be a team player and it seems like New England could use some depth at TE. Maybe they actually do look at Tebow as a long-term QB project, but I feel pretty safe in saying that Belichick’s a good enough coach not to mess with Brady’s role in the offense right now.

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  4. Teams pick up players not so much for what they can do, but for what they know. And what Tim Tebow knows is the NY jets playbook.

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    1. you’ve bought into an old, “media myth”.. first off, The Pats have OWNED the Jets the last few years. You really think they brought in Tebow to grill him about the Jets playbook??…secondly, these teams have so much film on each other (legal film, no “spygate” jokes please) to think teams bring in players for the express purpose of milking them for info on another teams playbook is RIDICULOUS…..It’s an easy, simplistic column for the scribes nothing more.

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  5. Three predictions on the Tim Tebow experience:

    1) Within a day he will be an afterthought here. Belichick will not talk about him unless he does something well football related in front of reporters and that will not happen at Mini camp. Because there will be no information there will be no story. The blogs will do an obligatory update as to his progress but they are doing that with Mallet and have done it with other back up QBs for the last 8 years here during mini camp.

    2) If Tebow makes the team it will be as the third QB. It is actually a shame that he does not have practice squad eligibility because that is where he should be relearning how to throw. Chris Weinke and Vinny T are all over the media saying that they have corrected his footwork and that has resulted in him throwing a much better ball…its not that i will believe it when I see it…its that no matter how well he throws there is no role on this team for him other than back up QB.

    3) Speculation that Tebow will be moved to HB or TE seems silly to me. His value if he has any, from a football standpoint, is that he can run like a running back when he is playing QB. If he were to play h-back as rumored then he is undersized and at best average. He is not a good blocker. So his future is tied at QB.

    Having made these observations the thing that strikes me is that we will have the perfect test case that will demonstrate how the Boston Media is infinitely better than the NY media. They are not going to get sucked into the circus, partially because the team will not allow there to be a circus and partially because they will realize pretty quickly that there is no story here other than maybe…and I emphasize maybe… a reclamation project. If that becomes the story it gets written 9 months from now. In the mean time the NY media will still be writting stories about how Tebow destroyed the Jets missing the bigger picture of how Rex allowed Tebow to be come a distraction all so Woddy Johnson could sell t-shirts. To paraphrase Mel Brooks from Spaceballs…for the Jets it was all about “Merchandizing, Merchandizing”.

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    1. Mel Brooks… brilliant. One of the best comedies/parodies.. ++ on the quote.

      Honest question, how much has the “Tebowmania” become more about Bristol than actual interest? We’ll all agree on Tebow being a polarizing figure. I like the guy but don’t think he can play at the level required for a NFL QB. However, the way the media (not just ESPN) obsess over him makes reasonable people, even fans, want to vomit. I’m dismissing the hardcores, who do exist in droves, like the Broncos fans mad at Elway for replacing Tebow with Manning. Is there this much actual interest from people instead of the obligatory story from media either not obsessed or who have their producers telling them to be obsessed? And, if ESPN continues their heroin-like addiction to ESPN, will that force the media here to respond in the same way? (If you’re not aware, execs there make a concerted effort to force Tebow on their programs. See comments by Beadle and Doug Gottlieb on DP Show about this.)

      Felger said it best about “only Tebow could distract us from Bruins talk”, which I think lasted one hour of their four, but part of that had to do with having Wiggens in-studio. They also stopped talking and taking calls after the segments. Nothing wrong there. ESPN didn’t give up the bone, though, as they tried hard to over analyze and milk the abridged comments by BB.

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  6. Although Boston Celtics team president Danny Ainge
    has stated that Doc Rivers will return to coach Boston next season, Rivers believes it “may be time for a change,” according to a source close to the situation.

    From: http://es.pn/15WZCnI

    One show on the radio did make this prediction a month ago..

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