The Patriots improved to 4-0 with a 30-23 win over the Atlanta Falcons last night. New England suffered a big blow however, as they have likely lost defensive anchor Vince Wilfork for the season.

Get all the links this morning at PatriotsLinks.com.

Here are a few of the top links for today:

What we learned: Aqib Talib, defense rise up in win over Falcons – Chris Price runs down the items of note from last night.

Patriots switched offensive strategy at half – Ben Volin has a look at the halftime adjustments.

The Patriots are still Brady’s bunch – Tom E Curran says that the Patriots are making this offense work thanks to their quarterback.

Talib continues to have things covered – Field Yates has a look at the big-time performance from the cornerback.

Kenbrell Thompkins breaks out – Karen Guregian looks at a huge night for the rookie wideout.

Now, for the media performances.

Three Up

Shalise Manza Young, Boston Globe

Broke the scoop in the middle of the night that Vince Wilfork’s injury is a torn achilles, which will likely end his season.

NESN Halftime Show

I enjoyed the live halftime show with Adam Pellerin, Mike Salk and Matt Chatham. It was nice to be able to avoid the NBC halftime show and have something local on the television. They were also pretty good following the game in the times I looked over there, while trying to split time between NBC, CSNNE, WBZ and NFL Network.

Tom E Curran, CSNNE.com

Slow clap for this Sunday Notes piece yesterday from Curran which looked at the relative noise-meter for recent NFL scandals compared to Spygate, and also called out selective scrutiny from the Boston Globe when covering business deals by the Red Sox and Patriots.

Also – Jeff Howe for his report Saturday about the seeming divide of opinion between the Patriots and Rob Gronkowski’s camp on when the tight end should return to game action.

Three Down

Ben Volin, Boston Globe

I feel like there was some rookie hazing going on last week with his source telling him that Gronkowski and Amendola were going to play last night, when just about everyone else was saying they likely would not play. Volin got hung out to dry. Welcome to the beat, Ben.

Toucher and Rich, 98.5/Cris Collinsworth NBC

If you really think Cris Collinsworth is a Bill Belichick suck-up, then you haven’t been paying attention over the years. Yes, he gushed over Belichick and the Kraft family last night, especially when talking about Jim Brown’s appearance on Inside The NFL on Showtime (which Collinsworth appears on) where the Browns legend called Belichick one of his three heroes (along with Bill Russell and Bobby Knight) for his work with inner city kids and prison inmates.

Collinsworth went too far though when talking about all the troubled players that come into New England and how they all straighten out once they get there. The Aaron Hernandez elephant in the room was too much at that point. Collinsworth through the years though, has never shied away from being critical of Belichick and the Patriots, and was one of many calling for a ban of the Patriots coach following Spygate.

For anyone to think he’s just a Belichick suckup is ridiculous.

Gerry Callahan, WEEI

Rough morning for Gerry. His premise that “the Patriots are the only team that gets all the calls on the road” is a little flawed if you watched that game at all. (Edelman whacked on fair-catch, Dobson held and hit in the head in the end zone, iffy PI call on Talib.) Can you imagine the national outrage if the officials replay machine failed during a game in Gillette Stadium. The tin-foil hat wearers would be up in arms. Also, when a caller brought up Andre Carter, who the Patriots worked out recently and mentioned he had been in Oakland after leaving the Patriots, Callahan confidently corrected him by saying “Buffalo.” His co-host repeated “Buffalo.” Andre Carter, Mark Anderson, what’s the difference?

The Red Sox have wrapped up their regular season with homefield advantage, and await their divisional round opponent.

What does home-field advantage mean for Red Sox? – Alex Speier looks at the importance of home field.

Red Sox have decisions to make for postseason – Peter Abraham looks at some of the last spots to be decided.

The Celtic have media day this afternoon, and camp starts tomorrow.

Wait ’til next year, or maybe longer – Steve Bulpett has a quick preview.

Advertisement

Published by Bruce Allen

Automattician.

9 thoughts on “Patriots Knock Over Another Tomato Can, Media Ups and Downs”

  1. So Collinsworth reveres Jim Brown while criticizing the off-field activities of some Patriots? Not to get all D&C here, but Jim Brown is a wife beater who has a long history of violent activity, including charges that he threw a woman off a balcony (she refused to press charges for attempted murder, which wouldn’t happen today). He is far worse than anyone on current Patriots’ roster, and has more incidents than even Hernandez.

    Here is an old column on his violent past. The column itself is terrible (which goes without saying b/c it’s Sacaceno) but provides a list of incidents). http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/comment/saraceno/2002-04-10-saraceno.htm

    Like

  2. Going to be funny hearing all the same media pundits who took to the airwaves yesterday asking “where’s Vince Wilfork?”, wondering if he had “lost a step” or was injured, go back out today and scream “this is a devastating loss!!” now because he’s done for the year. Wilfork’s loss is going to be felt more in the locker room than on the field IMO — he hasn’t been a presence at all this season.

    Like

  3. According to the local media, Atlanta goes from a Superbowl favorite to a tomato can after we “barely” beat them?

    We were a -3 favorite at most books before kickoff, even with Ryan’s record in the Georgia Dome and how well the Falcons play after a loss.

    Like

  4. Only saw one source here but worth repeating:

    @fangsbites Sources telling me that the Red Sox are looking for a buyer for NESN and have approached Comcast and Fox. NESN may play one off the other.

    Like

  6. Everyone repeat after me:

    “These wins don’t tell us anything until they play the Broncos.”

    “Player for player, the Red Sox do not match up with the elites of the AL like Oakland, Detroit, Cleveland, Tampa, and Texas.”

    “Nothing the Bruins do is relevant until they prove they can win in April and May without Nathan Horton.”

    Have I covered everything? Okay, you can stop reading the media for the next six months….

    Like

    1. The ESPN MNF pregame talking heads (boy, that was a mouthful…) were all gushing over the “new” Patriots last night talking about how this reminded them of the Superbowl teams.

      Like

    1. Let’s be real, Brown was getting fired if he didn’t leave. You don’t make a lateral move from a prominent role in a sports market like Boston unless it’s NYC, Chicago, LA, and maybe Philly. Atlanta may be the worst pro sports city in the country, so no way Brown went there for a similar job unless he was told his days at Entercom were numbered.

      Maybe someone with a clue is finally making some decisions over there. Can’t think of one good move Jeff Brown made during his entire tenure at WEEI, and he may have put the last nail in WEEI’s coffin with the hiring of God-awful Mike Salk. So much for Brown’s dream pairing of Salk & Haggerty in the afternoon – too bad we won’t get to hear the two most self-important personalities in the Boston media blather on about the trivial banalities of their lives for 4 hours a day.

      Other than Jeff Brown, I don’t get the feeling that anyone at WEEI much cares for Salk. Hope he didn’t sell his house in Seattle yet. There’s a reason why he chose to live with his parents for months after taking the gig.

      Like

Comments are closed.