No, that’s not me being snarky.

Chris Gasper actually wrote “The worst 6-2 team in NFL history bumped its record to 7-2 at its intermission with a 55-31 demolition of the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday at Gillette Stadium.”

I apologize in advance to Gasper if he is just being sarcastic. I’m having a hard time distinguishing what passes for sarcasm these days. (No, apparently Kirk Minihane isn’t leaving WEEI.)

Is this really the worst 6-2 team in NFL history? Worse than the 1999 Patriots, for instance, who went 6-2 in the first half, and then 2-6 in the second half? Or the 2009 Denver Broncos? Or any of these teams?

Again, maybe Gasper himself is poking fun that those out there who are making this kind of statement, if so, my apologies to Chris. I’ll try to keep my sarcasm detector better tuned.

Edit – Totally sarcasm.

Sticking with the Globe for a second, they debuted ‘Score’ today – a special 15 page PDF download (for subscribers) which features expanded coverage of the Patriots and NFL. It’s a nice little perk for subscribers, though the PDF is pretty bulky.

A look at a few of the top articles today:

What we learned: Patriots continue taking steps in right direction – Chris Price runs down what we can take from this one.

Rob Gronkowski Fully Returns To Form, Making Patriots Offense A Force Once Again – Michael Hurley has Gronk showing how important he really is to this team.

Gronkowski’s value to Patriots indisputable – Mike Reiss agrees.

Tom Brady’s not done yet – Karen Guregian says that the “Brady is done” and “Brady is on the decline” talk should be dismissed after yesterday.

Biggest win on Sunday? Evidence of offensive potency – Tom E Curran says that the offensive display was encouraging, but they need to be able to duplicate it.

Tom Brady has vintage performance, gets New England Patriots offense clicking in blowout win over Pittsburgh Steelers – Nick Underhill looks at a throwback game for Brady.

Get everything else at PatriotsLinks.com.

A few other items from the weekend:

Boston Needed Bill Russell’s Statue More Than He Did – Paul Flannery’s Sunday Shootaround is really good.

Ortiz For The Hall – This Sports on Earth column leads off with: David Ortiz doesn’t belong in the Hall of Fame, if you believe that the Hall of Fame has standards. It goes downhill from there.

Consider what even the most advanced of metrics cannot capture about Ortiz. There is the incalculably baller $250,000 white gold and diamond-encrusted necklace that he wears (on the field!). There is his ascetic dedication to fastidious head-bound follicle management that marks him as an apex example of Pristine Latino Male Grooming. There is his perfect “Uh, I dunno?” response to steroid use allegations. This set of criteria is subjective only if you discount the fact that Babe Ruth never hit a home run with 55 carats of ice on his neck.

Sure, it all sounds ridiculous, but the underlying reason why anyone is even discussing Ortiz’s candidacy is that we like him. He’s a cuddle-bear who hits baseballs dumb far and became an icon in one of America’s most historically racist sports towns. If being swallowed up by a David Ortiz hug isn’t on your bucket list, then I don’t know what sport you’re watching.

Wow.

These Red Sox are indisputedly, irrevocably us – You might’ve heard Dennis and Callahan referring to this column from Gish Jen in the Globe yesterday. The column comes around to asking – Did we fail the Tsarnaevs somehow?

Published by Bruce Allen

Automattician.

6 thoughts on ““The worst 6-2 team in NFL history” Wins Again”

  1. I am curious. Is anyone out there as puzzled as I am about the content of the D&C show over the last few days? I am specifically talking about their desire to draw Mike Salk into some sort of made in the media feud? More specifically I am referring to their lack of subtlety and their inappropriate interactions with Kirk Minihane? It all sounds so unprofessional.

    Couple this with Callahan’s “war” on the Globe and as dumb as Gish Jen’s reflections were they were not the worst written thoughts ever…if he thinks they were then clearly he has not read Borges and you get a whole lot of snarky inside media discussion that listeners really can’t relate to. Add in their insistence that people look at revenue when talking about ratings and it becomes a very difficult show to listen to; which is a shame because I like listening to Boomer (oh wait they screwed that up by not calling back and agreeing to some fund raising) I mean Adam Shefter and Tom Brady on Monday mornings.

    D&C seem to really like Kevin Greene the new boss at WEEI. I have no idea what he promised them. I can say that quality does not seem to be demanded in return.

    Like

    1. Same thoughts.

      I get that it’s slow here: Bruins don’t play until tomorrow, Patriots off this week, Celtics BLOW, and baseball will be slow until winter meetings.

      The fake stuff with Minihane/Salk/etc.. ? makes no sense.

      I’m going to think that Greene maybe took a look around the landscape, possibly here and another local forum like SoSH and maybe realized that the best direction is no change. D&C have their style and still pull in a descent demo. The people who listen, either loving this or they listen because they hate them, will continue to listen. Maybe he came in and basically told them to keep it up (just making sure they don’t Dan Sileo themselves)?

      Like

      1. I did not think Greene would make any changes until he got a better feel for the lay of the land, advertisers commitments to talent (I think WEEI is still smarting from Ordways departure on that score) as well as the ratings. Greene’s job is a difficult one…he has to discern who is listening because they want to from who is listening because there is no viable alternative. Toucher and Rich are not a viable alternative to D&C…they are both decidedly different shows. So people who want more of a sports show in the morning really only have D&C to tune into. Green has a decision to make…regardless of the ratings…does WEEI want to be known as angry old white man radio or does it want to be known as thought invoking quality sports talk morning noon and night. Once he figures out the answer to that question then he will make whatever moves he deems necessary.

        Like

  2. Rick…this isn’t true. It was rumored that CBS made the decision but it was reported that in fact Boomer had called WEEI to reup as per usual and he never received a phone call back. Boomer was never paid for those spots instead he only asked that WEEI participate in a fund raiser for the Autism foundation he runs in honor of his son. When WEEI did not get back to him he approached or was approached by 98.5 and he moved. The article was from the Inside Track and it is now archived but you can find it here:

    http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=BNHB&p_theme=bnhb&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_field_fselect-0=&p_text_fselect-0=Sports+Hub+scores+with+Boomer&s_dispstring=all%28Sports+Hub+scores+with+Boomer%29&p_field_date-0=YMD_date&p_params_date-0=date:B,E&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&xcal_useweights=no

    Like

    1. I thought a bit of this also had to do with a lot of the sports networks tightening their grip on talent. CBS has and pays Boomer to be on CBS stations, not competitors. I get that they had a relationship and that he was not paid but was this just fluff to soften the blow or actually part of the decision?

      Like

Comments are closed.