The Red Sox will be in the World Series for the third time since 2004 as they will face the St. Louis Cardinals starting on Wednesday night.

It has been a season of constant surprise – of the pleasant kind – so unlike what happened the season prior. It’s a team that no one thought would be here, (and when we say no one, we mean no one.) It’s a team that has been doubted all season, but has answered those doubts at every juncture.

While people outside of Boston are annoyed that there is yet another local team playing for a championship, here we’re appreciative of this group because while we have come to expect success, we did not expect it from this team. It’s a bonus.

Of course, that’s the fan perspective. From the media side, literally minutes after the team clinched the World Series berth on Saturday night, Gary Tanguay was on CSNNE asking Lou Merloni and Tony Massarotti “Does this game shake your confidence in John Farrell heading into the World Series?”

Spring’s shortcomings long forgotten – Gordon Edes looks at all that this team has overcome.

Red Sox, Cardinals match up well against each other – Nick Cafardo thinks that the Red Sox might’ve finally met their match in this series.

‘There are no brakes’ : Xander Bogaerts arrives on big stage – Alex Speier looks at the quietly historic postseason the Red Sox phenom is having.

Slight edge goes to Red Sox –  But John Tomase says that the Cards will be the Red Sox biggest challenge yet.

Get more at RedSoxLinks.com.

The Patriots lost their second game in three weeks yesterday afternoon, falling to the hated New York Jets 30-27 in overtime.  The end of the game was marked by confusion over a call that was made for the very first time in an NFL game yesterday, a 15-yard penalty on rookie Chris Jones during a failed Jets field goal attempt in overtime.

NFL muddled explanation of fateful rule change – Tom E Curran was out in front last night in showing how, while the call made was correct, the confusion over the interpretation of it was well-founded since the league saw the need to update the wording on NFL.com soon after the game regarding the rule.

Misinterpretation costly for Belichick, Pats – Mike Reiss places the blame on the head coach for not knowing the rule.

Reiss did go back and look at the game-tying kick by Stephen Gostkowski in regulation and observed that the Jets did the same thing:

But he also has Belichick taking responsibility for the play:

Gresh and Zo this morning talked extensively about this rule and play, and noted that the video that the NFL showed to the team in the preseason was the one that included the second-level wording. They also think that the Jets or the Saints reported to the league that the Patriots had done this before, and that perhaps Rex Ryan even tipped off the officials just prior to the kick, knowing he’d get the call, and get a free 15 yards. (Which would be why the officials didn’t call the push on the kick above noted by Reiss.)

I did like this exchange:

All I know about this incident is that had this rule been called in the Patriots favor, and there was the ensuing wording changes on the NFL web site and so forth that there would be national noise approaching tuck rule/spygate levels.

Instead, we get Jets fans like Fred Toucher on the air saying to Boomer Esiason that the Boston media won’t let this go and are just a bunch of homers who are trying to capitalize on angry hoards of fans.

What we learned: Near misses, ill-timed errors mark surprising loss to Jets – Chris Price looks at what else we can take from the game other than the push rule.

Get more at PatriotsLinks.com.

Obviously had the Patriots played better in the second half, they would not have been in the situation where the call would’ve made the difference in the game. That’s on them.

Advertisement

Published by Bruce Allen

Automattician.

10 thoughts on “Sox In The Series, Patriots Shoved Aside”

  1. Ron Borges is on a nice little Monday Morning “typical Patriots fans” twitter rant. I truly for the life of me cannot understand how he has a job in this city covering a team and a fanbase he despises. I do not know one person who enjoys his work.
    And imagine if the Colts/Broncos game went to overtime last night, and the Broncos were called for the same penalty as the Patriots, costing Peyton his home-coming win? I’m sure Ron and Peter King (and Tom Jackson, and Cris Carter, etc) would have said “rules are rules”. PLEASE.

    Like

    1. Borges’ shelf life expired at least 10 years ago. Who still bothers to read this bitter little has-been troll — either online or in print? It’s a waste of time, not to mention brain cells. We all know the drill: The Pats/Kraft are cheap, BB is an egomaniac, the fans are jerks, and in the matter of labor disputes it’s ALWAYS management’s fault. Think that about covers everything. His tired and pathological anti-Pats shtick SHOULD be an embarrassment, if not to the writer himself then to his employer. Borges is a DB’s DB. Eff him.

      Like

  2. Whereas I think at best it was correctly called but a bad call because it did not effect the play and at worst I think it was a bad call only made because of outside influences/lobbying…can we please put the blame where it belongs…and that is on the Patriots. If a team gets themselves into a situation where a bad/botched call by a referee can influence the outcome of the game…they deserved to lose.

    What I want to know is why the media is not screaming about the drive that followed Edelman’s put return to the Jets 20. The Pats were up 21-10 at that point in the game. They had momentum and Gronk. All they need to do is score a touchdown and it is a 28-10 game over. Instead the Pats go back 6 yards in 3 plays and end up with a field goal. They looked awful from that point on for the rest of the game on offense.

    lets look at other issues. I am all for a youth movement at the WR position. But no one seems to be able to catch the ball…not the kids (I counted 4 rookie drops) nor the adults (I think they had another 5 between Collie, Edelman, Bolden (his might have been the most atrocious and Gronk). They are playing offense too tight to succeed and too timid to do anything other than fail. Blaming the refs may make interesting radio for an hour or two…but looking at the real root cause of the issues…that would actually take smarts.

    One last thing…The Pats defense made Jerome Kerley look like Wayne Chrebet. If this is what life without Mayo, Wilfork and Talib will look like the rest of the year…the Pats have major issues.

    Like

    1. If you’re a young receiver and you don’t know all 581 pages of the team’s playbook by your sixth professional football game, I can cut you some slack. If you’re not sure to cut inside or outside depending on the coverage, I can cut you some slack.

      However, If the ball hits you in the hands or chest, catch the damn ball.

      Like

    2. Refs, except to PI calls on ‘uncatchable’ balls, don’t get to make their decisions based on whether a penalty affects the play. Besides, this penalty was put in place for player safety, not its effect on the play.

      Like

  3. Here’s a #hotsportztake for you. This offensive disaster was a TWO YEARS in the making. Forget arrests and injuries for a second.

    Isn’t this the Patriots offense, at least at WR, that New England was trying to move toward through the first three games last year? Remember the “phasing out” of Welker in favor of Edleman? Isn’t that basically what they have now at that position?

    The frustrating part of watching the Pats this year is that organizationally they already got a glimpse of this in 2012 and yet they STILL decided to try to replace a known entity like Welker with a lower-salaried, injury-prone risk. Last season, Edleman got hurt and luckily they still had Welker to fall back on.

    Fast-forward a year. They foolishly opt to replace Welker with a lower-priced, injury-prone replacement in Amendola and now that replacement is injured. Except this year, they don’t have a Welker at WR to fall back on. They have last year’s lower-priced, injury-prone replacement.

    Talk about a precarious approach to filling out your roster at WR! Here’s hoping Edleman can get through the whole season.

    Like

    1. I think the real plan last season was replacing Welker with Hernandez, and when he got hurt early on they had to go back. And don’t forget, Welker left this spring before all the Hernandez stuff went down. They were counting on him being a major piece.

      Like

      1. Perhaps .. but wasn’t Hernandez hurt the year before as well? My point is relying on players with injury histories is a very precarious approach.

        Like

Comments are closed.