Patriots Fall To 3-0, Media Ups and Downs

The Patriots still haven’t beaten anyone, and yesterday another hapless foe folded like a kid’s camp chair in front of the Gillette faithful. Or so goes the sports radio storyline today.

Get all the links from the game over at Patriotslinks.com

Some of the good and bad from the media yesterday:

Three Up

Mike Reiss, ESPN Boston

Prior to the game, Reiss broke the story of the Rob Ninkovich contract extension through the 2016 season. It seems like Mike might’ve had an inkling this was coming down, or else he was extremely prescient in his Quick-hit thoughts column yesterday (see #3).

Gerry Callahan, WEEI

Yeah, he and his cohorts spent plenty of time on the “they haven’t beaten anyone” meme, but Callahan did point out and call out the hypocrisy of the national media in two different storylines yesterday, first, what the national outrage would’ve been had it been Bill Belichick who chose to let a player play after it had been determined that the player was going to enter a treatment facility the next day. The second one was the criticism by Shannon Sharpe, Tom Jackson and others over Tom Brady’s outbursts on the field, acting like he is the only QB to ever react that way.

An aside on that, this was what Sharpe said yesterday:

SHARPE: I played with a guy in John Elway who was every bit of Tom Brady’s equal in his prime, and he never disrespected me and showed that kind of outward emotion even when I ran the wrong route and missed blocks and got sacked. There is a right and wrong way to handle everything. And that is clearly the wrong way.

This is from the January 12, 1998 Denver Post.

On the floor of Three Rivers Stadium, John Elway cannot see or hear his father. Everywhere the Broncos’ quarterback looks, 60,000 terrible towels wave in the hands of Pittsburgh fans. Everywhere he turns, there’s a teammate straining to grasp the details of a play called on third down and 6 from Denver’s 15 yard line.

“Just go get open!” Elway screams to tight end Shannon Sharpe, who doesn’t know what pass route to run.

“Just go get open?” Sharpe replies in a daze. “OK.”

How quickly they forget.

Ron Borges, CSNNE, Boston Herald

Ron was on his best behavior during his TV spots last night, and his column today is an example of what he does best when his head is on straight. Good, solid football analysis.

Honorable mention – Hector Longo is pretty good today. He also gets credit for asking Adrian Clayborn about the play in which the defensive lineman ended up trying to cover WR Kenbrell Thompkins.

Three Down

Jackie MacMullan, ESPN Boston

In the middle of an otherwise very good column, she slips this in:

The buzz word for the New England Patriots is fortunate. They are fortunate they are 3-0 as they continue to buy time for the return of Rob Gronkowski and an extra week of healing for Danny Amendola.

They also are fortunate that Tampa Bay was in the house Sunday. The Bucs could have (and should have) jumped out to a double-digit lead as the Patriots’ offense initially stalled, but their kicker missed a 38-yard field goal, the referees missed a third-down interference call that should have drawn a flag on Alfonzo Dennard and their quarterback, Josh Freeman, simply couldn’t close the deal when his team got into New England territory.

Why is it that if the Patriots lose a close game and the “what ifs” and “could have/should have” and the “referees missed the call” lines are brought out, it is evidence of a a “homer” and someone with “blinders on” but it is perfectly OK to apply them to the other team during a win?

Tom E Curran, CSNNE

Actually nothing on Tom’s work, which was up to the usual high standards. But Tom, you’re killing me by retweeting all the negative nitwit Patriots fanz (yeah, fanz) who are incapable of enjoying a game, and want to proclaim Brady and Wilfork done, the schedule soft as tissue paper, and take victory laps on Danny Amendola. Tom, I work very hard at actively trying to ignore these idiots, I don’t need to see them in my timeline courtesy of you, even if you are just exposing their idiocy to a larger audience.

Boston Globe Magazine

Do we still trust Bill Belichick? – That was the featured story yesterday. Does this mean we’ll see a “Do we still trust Larry Lucchino?” piece next week? The piece itself isn’t that bad, but leads off with a dyed-in-the-wool Red Sox/baseball guy in Glenn Stout (not someone I associate at all with football) who worries about the worship of Belichick, and also includes an essay from Gregg Easterbrook, who slips this in:

Belichick’s ethics leave something to be desired — troubling because NFL figures are role models for young people. His open contempt for the sports press is puzzling, given that the sports press has helped make him a multimillionaire. Maybe he’s just an ungrateful, heartless SOB. But he sure can run a football team.

Has the sports press made him a multimillionaire, or is it the 207 career wins (most of any active coach) or the 18-8 postseason record (also best of any active coach)? It seems incredibly arrogant to me to suggest it is the media who has made Bill Belichick.

On yesterday’s FOX broadcast John Lynch was talking about the relationship between Belichick and Greg Schiano, and told how the relationship started – Belichick’s son Steve was a long-snapper on the Rutgers team, and then Belichick invited Schiano and his staff up to Foxborough to observe practice, and at the end of that, Belichick asked Schiano what he liked and didn’t like about how they did things, and said he learned some things from Schiano.

Lynch said “that’s what makes Belichick great, he’s not above anyone, he’s willing to listen to a college coach about what they do well and don’t do well.”

But yes, he’s an ungrateful, heartless SOB, not to mention he thinks he’s smarter than everyone else and has all the answers.