There is a chill in the air this morning as the temperatures were in the low 30’s as many began their day throughout New England.

In a related move, the Red Sox made a little news last night, as Chili Davis agreed to become their new hitting coach. Hopefully he does better than the last highly-regarded coach that came over from the A’s.

The Patriots-free weekend made for some interesting viewing and media consumption. The biggest story was Peyton Manning and his quest to overtake Brett Favre as the NFL’s all time leader in touchdown passes.

Manning and the Broncos crushed the San Francisco 49ers last night 42-17.

Notes/Links:

“Friday Night Lights” Author Fails in NY Times Column on Sports Culture – Matt Chatham goes scorched earth Fire-Joe-Morgan Style on a recent Buzz Bissinger column.

What brings Buzz nuzzling in for relevance now is his opinion piece featured in this weekend’s NY Times titled “The Boys in the Clubhouse.” Buzz has no credible experience in sports. but has staked his career on pretending to have sports world insight. As clueless as he is on the subject, he can prose a bit, so his parlor tricks speak well to crowds of similar inexperience.

Definitely worth the read.

Dan Shaughnessy decided to do an all “positive” column this weekend. It was about as dreadful and disingenuous as you would imagine. I don’t recommend it.

Today Steve Buckley says that the Patriots are much more interesting and “fun” to follow this year because it is not a given that they are going to win every game. That’s a media take if I’ve ever heard one. Stories and talking points are tougher to come up with when a team is dominant, easier when the team has ups and downs. Besides, how long has it been since it was a “given” that the team was going to dominate each week?

Why Are Pats Fans Such Crybabies? – I would normally not link to Eric Wilbur in this space, but Eric was nice enough to solicit my opinion for his weekend column on the subject of Patriots. Naturally he and I see things very differently, but he let me have my say, and I respect that.

If Jets don’t want Rex Ryan, TV will take him – Chad Finn looks at the possibility of a media career in the near future for Rex Ryan.

Only in the world of the Boston sports media would you rather have Aqib Talib than Darrelle Revis. A year ago this topic would’ve been laughed off the air. You’d rather have the guy who always gets injured right when they need him the most?? You’re insane! Not to mention all the talk about Talib’s background, and whether he was a bad influence in the locker room. He’s a poor (cheap) man’s Darrelle Revis! Now he was a leader of men, while Revis is a robot who plays on autopilot.

Rajon Rondo feels positive vibe – This really doesn’t read like a guy demanding to be traded. So whatever happened to that big Jackie MacMullen off-air “scoop?” Are was she just saying stuff to sound in the know?

Published by Bruce Allen

Automattician.

117 thoughts on “Chili Monday In October”

    1. Wasn’t everyone complaining about Talib, once he got injured and could not stay on the field, last year? And, then lamenting that he wasn’t as durable as Revis was, save for the ACL injury?

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  2. Bruce:

    Even though Eric Wilbur treated your comments fairly I still would not have linked to his piece. Its starts from a bad premise “Pats fans are Crybabies” and it only gets worse from there. Wilbur who works at the Globe is either blind, stupid, obtuse or a poo stirrer. Either he does not understand that it is the coverage of the Pats specifically done by his paper since 1996 that has made Pats fans defensive, or he does not understand that the coverage of the Pats is different than it is for the Sox, Bruins and Celtics.

    I could get into the reasons…Sox, Celtics and Bruins are downtown Boston teams…Pats are a suburb team. Sox ownership owns the Globe and the resulting conflicts of interests/ biases perception problems that raises. Bill Belichick’s control of the message and lack of access granted to the gossipy side of the business as compared to the open locker rooms and constant leaks in the other three organizations.

    What a guy like Wilbur identifies as “crying” actually is the fans standing up and saying…”Be a professional, do your job!” His article is no different than Shalise Manza Young writing a “no access” column or for Dan Shaughnessy writing a hit piece on Belichick or Kraft because he was not invited to a breakfast 20 years ago. The fact that Wilbur does not see that this type of column is never written about Sox or Celtics fans (it is occasionally written about Bruins fans who complain that Hockey is often ignored), shows his ignorance and bias. Sox fans are enormously thin skinned. Try telling them that baseball is slow, pastural or that it has become ruined by Sabrmetrics. Try telling Celtics fans that Basketball is boring, has become too “ethnic” or that the focus on individual players rather than the team game has ruined the sport and you will see guns drawn.

    Yet Wilbur is writing about Patriots fans being Crybabies. Some things at the Globe never change. Maybe if his sports brethren wrote about the Patriots players, the games, and the results and stopped worrying about the gossip, the access and Bill Belichick he would notice the fans not “crying” as much.

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    1. I can’t up-vote this 1,000 times, but I would if I could. Wilbur is a jackass. Always has been. For him to imply that the Sox, Celtics and Bruins are covered by the media in similar ways to the Patriots is insane. I will grant that the Red Sox, whose collection of beatwriters still includes a lot of the pre-2004, the sky-is-always-falling crowd, do get some harsh treatment when things go wrong. The difference, of course, is that if the Red Sox win 97 games and lose in the ALCS, the criticisms, if any, are somewhat muted and the loss is not treated by some as evidence that management is not competent or that they’re not “all in” on winning. The Patriots equivalent of such a season, which is going 12-4 and losing in the AFC title game (which has happened the past two years, largely due to untimely, key injuries), is treated by the media as “another year of Brady’s diminishing prime wasted by a cheap owner and a mediocre GM, both of whom refuse to do what’s necessary to win another Super Bowl; the cap is crap!!” Last year, for example, should have been treated as one of the BEST years of BB’s and Kraft’s tenure, as getting to the AFC titlle game with six or seven key players on season-ending IR was a testimonial to BB’s philosophy of building roster depth rather than frontloading with high-salaried “stars.” Instead, it was treated as just another “wasted” year of Brady’s prime. Damn right I’m “defensive” about the Pats, but I’m not a crybaby. I’d say the media, who don’t like being held to some of the same standards to which they hold their subjects, are the real crybabies around here.

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      1. Wish I could upvote this one 1000 times as well as the one you are replying to. The Boston mediots are such hypocritical thin-skinned crybabies. I certainly wouldn’t shed a single tear if the Globe shut down tomorrow — good riddance to bad rubbish.

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      2. Tony:

        You make a great point about getting to the AFC conference finals and then having that be considered a failure. In BB’s tenure the team has been to 8 AFC championship games…won 5 of them…been to 5 superbowls…won 3 of them…and somehow he is not considered a good GM, the Owners are considered cheap, and the fans are crybabies because of the coverage. Guys like Wilbur just do not understand how the real world works. They live in an ivory tower where talking about accomplishments is equated to actually performing the accomplishments. So when their ideas are criticized they instantly develop thin skin. I just did a google search and I could not find the article Wilbur wrote mocking Cam Neeley and the decisions he made after the Bruins lost the cup 2 years ago and were bounced by Montreal last year. Nor could I find the article he wrote excoriating Sox management for 3 of the last 4 years being unmitigated disasters. He is intellectually dishonest.

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        1. You can eliminate the word “intellectually” from your final sentence. It will make you even more correct.

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    2. Pats fans have every right to criticize the media and its treatment of the team. I don’t think anyone can argue that the Pats are the most criticized of the local 4 sports teams. They also have been the most successful of the local 4 sports teams during the Brady/Belichick era. Bruins and Celtics have each had one championship during that run, but a lot of mediocrity as well (especially the Celtics). Red Sox have 3 championships as well, but have been very up and down, especially the last 5-6 years. Last 3 years has seen a championship in between 2 last place finishes. Outside of 2013 the Sox have missed the playoffs I believe every other year from 2010 on. The Patriots? The worst they have done since 2001 was to tie for first place and lose the division over a tiebreaker. In one of those years they did that with Brady out the entire season. They have won the division every year but 2 (versus the Sox winning the division 2 years total). They have gotten at least to the AFC Championship game 8 times, and the Super Bowl 5 times. Wouldn’t that track record mean they should get the best media treatment? Yet they get easily the worst treatment of the 4 local sports teams. So yes Eric, I think Pats fans have quite the right to be a bit thin skinned over the way the media treats them.

      And to add fuel to the fire, we constantly have Michael Felger proclaiming that the media is in the bag for the Pats when it is the exact opposite.

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  4. Let there not be any doubt to Felger’s intentions when it comes to his hot sports takez. He admitted today that he wants the Denver Broncos to beat the Patriots, because he doesn’t want to be proven wrong on his argument that the Pats are cheap and are not going for it, while the Broncos are. He’s also admitted today that when repeatedly claiming the Pats are 14 million under the cap, which is a figure not accounting for all the players on the team or on IR, he is using the figure specifically provided by the Players Association, who have incentive to report cap spending as low as possible.

    Quite surprised he admitted to both of those!

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    1. After the epic beatdown Denver received in the Super Bowl last February, Felger took to the airwaves and proclaimed, “They may have lost the Super Bowl, but the Broncos and Manning still ‘won’ the battle against Brady and the Patriots this year.” This, of course, came from the mouth of the guy who pounds the table every day about how the Patriots “haven’t won anything” in 10 years because they haven’t hoisted a Lombardi Trophy since the 2004 season, despite going to two Super Bowls and losing both of them due to, basically, one play, one injury, one bad bounce–take your pick. Same principles applied years ago after the Jets “went for it” and pulled off that upset of the Pats in the 2010 playoffs before losing in the AFCCG the next week. That’s when the cap officially became “crap” in his mind, because the Jets mortgaged their future that year for a run to the conference title game and Felger proclaimed that the “Jets way” was superior to the “Patriot way” when it came to roster building. Of course, Jets fans are still waiting for their team to get back to the playoffs, and all of those “we’re going for it” guys are long gone. Clearly, were it not for double standards, Felger would have no standards at all.

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  5. The only people who fell for the, “On The Bright Side, No Negatives” headline to Shank’s column were people from out of town….

    As far as Shank’s “Mini-Me” Eric Wilbur, I quickly scrolled through and only read when I saw Bruce’s name and quotation marks. It took everything I could muster to click on that thing. That guy is nothing but a super troll. Bruce, next time (if there is a next time) just post your quotes here and save me the trauma from clicking on that idiot’s column. Thank you.

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    1. When you have to tell people you’re being positive, what does that tell you? New levels of mailing it in.

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    1. Hopefully the pattern will continue. Never thought I’d actually miss “Mutt” but Benz is just horrific.

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  8. There has been a lot of media vs fans recently….

    Benz calling out Bruce.
    The Wilbur article.
    Doug Kyed on Twitter Sunday night asking fans to “name names” when they lump all media together
    Tanguay vs the guys at Reds Army…

    Maybe the tide is starting to turn. Maybe the pot stirrers are starting to feel the heat from fans who are finally sick of the schtick.

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    1. I like this Doug Kyed.

      Some of the beat reporters do excellent work and he is among them. Check out Kyed’s ‘film review’ articles.

      Kyed, Mike Reiss, Alex Speier, Jay King, Jason Mastrodonato, Joe Haggerty… This is my current go-to list for coverage of the Bs, Cs, Pats and Sox.

      Masslive.com and nesn.com, are the best websites, in my opinion, for coverage of all four of those pro teams.

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    2. When did Benz call out Bruce? I have never listened to the show so I can’t really speak about it. But Lou lost me awhile ago when the town started to become a Pats town he suddenly got all anti-Pats. And all I ever hear about Benz is that he brings up spygate a lot. Not something I’m interested in hearing. Is there a link or a tweet or something when he called out Bruce? I would like to hear/read it.

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        1. Never thought anybody could be worse than Salk. Was very wrong about that. He has such a “don’t you know who i am? I’m more important than you” attitude.

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        2. It just hit me…if Bruce is “acting” as a “media critic” does that mean Benz is “acting” as an informed and interesting “sports talk host”?

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  9. F&M being utterly predictable yesterday. “Why didn’t the Patriots trade for Percy Harvin!?!” Raaahhh!!! Offense is bad but they should have traded for a malcontent P.O.S. that the Vikings dumped for nothing and the Seahawks got rid of after EIGHT games? A guy who fights teammates, disrespects coaches, and destroys teams and locker rooms…THAT’S the guy the Patriots should have brought in.

    I listened to about 15 minutes of it. A guy called in to try and talk about the Oregon Trail sized amount of baggage Percy Harvin brings and Felger did that annoying and disrespectful “Patriot fanboy voice” he does now and Mazz of all people said that guy is too wound up. Mazz. The guy who spends 4 hours a day literally yelling like a maniac into a microphone, who is wound so tight you couldn’t fit a blade of grass up his backside, telling a caller to calm down just because he is telling them why Harvin isn’t worth it.

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    1. yep…as soon as this trade was made you knew what was comin’ down the pike from old F&M… I give ya credit for hangin’ in for 15 minutes…45 seconds to a minute is all I handle from those 2… I check in every day just to see if they’ll surprise me, but nope, total jackassery EVERYTIME

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  10. October 21st and we’re starting GAME ONE. And at 8:07 EST too. Baseball wonders why it’s demographic is virtually gone in males 18-40. You play the World Series in the middle of football season with start times that no kids can watch past the 5th inning on a school night.

    Heard an interesting stat yesterday. When the Royals made the WS in ’85, 50 million people watched. Now the average viewership for the postseason is about 4.5M. World Series TV ratings have hit all time lows 8 times in the last 12 years.

    Notre Dame/FSU had 8M viewers on Saturday Night. More than any postseason baseball game this year.

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      1. WD is out-rating MNF, not SNF, actually. It’s not the most clearly-written article so the confusion is understandable.

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      2. The number of games, and then the number of timeouts at the end of games. Three per team per half and that’s it. The final five minutes of most NBA games are unwatchable now.

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    2. Lowest World Series in history last night.

      World Series Game 1 Rating: 8.0, Lowest in MLB History http://shar.es/1mRVsZ

      MLB’s response “revenue was 7b last year and could not be healthier!”.

      Reminds me of the “what’s revenue?” and all an exec can talk about is how much VC money they raised.

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  14. Correct you are in the minority. I have no idea what you were listening to because Salk was unprepared while Mike Holley is the master of saying absolutely nothing. That show was arguably worse than Mutt and Merloni. Add to that “Answer the Question, Jerk” a segment that could only be successful in Seattle as the rain there has already rotted the audience’s collective brain and you had a train wreck of epic proportions.

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  15. Its how I do it. WHat I do not do is delayed viewing where I start after the game has ended. I think that is what is meant by sports are time shifting proof.

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    1. I wish I had the link on the study but its been proven in studies that live sports are the least “DVR Proof” event available. What you guys both stated is the exception, not the rule.

      Will it always be the case? Who knows.

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      1. I think you contradicted yourself, bsmfan–are sports DVR proof, as you said in your initial post, or are they the “least DVR-proof”, as you stated just now? For my part it’s been hard to get into a game after I know the result, whereas TV shows are watchable anytime. Starting a game a little bit later, but while it’s still happening, isn’t quite the same. And that’s why especially the regional sports networks like NESN and the Comcast subsidiaries are such cash cows, and why they so tightly control video rights. You can get everything online except for local sports, because they are the only remaining DVR-proof programming, across all formats. In most cases you can’t even get the equivalent of a DVR–archived video–without expensive memberships (which still deny the ability to watch anything live). And of course teams and networks have that right–they own the video and rebroadcast rights–but as the video and digital market fragments increasingly, it’s particularly frustrating that watching my favorite local teams means subsidizing a whole bunch of video content I have no interest in whatsoever. (So for now, I’m going without.)

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        1. Advertisers want, above the 18-49 demo, their ads to be consumed (seen or heard). Obviously, if you DVR anything, you can skip the commercials fairly easily. This is also tracked and recorded + sent to Nielsen. People DVR everything now, especially the younger demos. The only type of “TV” that this has not affected is sports. People, in large part, still watch sports live. How much? Debatable. But, the majority of people are not DVRing a live sporting event, only to watch later. (I wonder how many watch it in delay so they can skip commercials, but that’s another topic). DVR “eyeballs” are worth something but a fraction of the cost (I wish I could find out how much).

          For my part it’s been hard to get into a game after I know the result, whereas TV shows are watchable anytime.

          Ipso facto.

          So, my apologies if the terminology caused some confusion there. Did I make sense?

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  16. RIP Ben Bradlee. Maybe not so much sports but is linked at the hip to, arguably, one of the biggest “game changer” events with the media in the past 50 years.

    As many journalists pointed out on Twitter, “Watergate” or events around it was the impetus for them to go into J. Sadly, many of those same people forgot about what being a real journalist was.

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  18. Kudos to the first caller on F&M today who went right after both of them for not only their BS but changing the argument every day just to have something to argue about. Caller made some great points about not only Patriots expectations vs reality but also on Felger and YARM personally. I wonder if that caller posts here….?? lol

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  19. This is the worst column on boston.com in some time and it wasn’t written by Mazz, Wilbur or Kauffman! Instead, some other flunky used scant evidence to suggest that the Patriots are somehow in the lead to sign Ray Rice IF his suspension is overturned this season. The evidence is some random column on NJ website that lumps in the Patriots among 10 teams (or 1/3 of the league) that could consider signing Rice. This will never happen, of course, but the writer uses it as reason to question whether Pats fans will still call him a thug if he signs here.

    He then sort of accuses Pats fans of calling the entire Ravens team thugs (which he suggests is coded language for black people) by citing a Yahoo Answers query and a google search, neither of which implicates NE fans as throwing around that term. He then goes into to a completely irrelevant personal aside about the Orioles and for good measure quotes Dan Shaughnessy. Congrats Victor Paul Alvarez, you’ve earned your spot on Boston.com’s Murderers’ Row of Trolls.

    http://www.boston.com/sports/2014/10/22/will-boston-fans-call-ray-rice-thug-plays-for-the-pats/b4q2wrFrfeswaumZqioO8O/story.html?p1=Topofpage:Carousel_lead_headline

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    1. Well to be fair, he wrote that everyone calls the Ravens thugs, not just Pats fans.

      On the other hand, the “article” and accompanying headline is clearly operating at click bait.

      “And the team people keep talking about is the New England Patriots.”

      “People”, as in the one speculative article that he linked to and “the team”, as in the article that he linked to simply outlines ten “possibilities”. That’s ten different teams. It’s not even ten rumors, just ten teams that one author thinks Rice could be a possible fit for.

      And utter and total garbage “article” on boston . com.

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    2. Maybe Richard Sherman didn’t invent the idea, but he was right on when he said that “thug” is the new n-word. That’s precisely what it is: a euphemism with exactly the same connotations.

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      1. I agree (especially when D&C use it) and that’s what makes the column even worse. The column doesn’t prove that Pats fans use the term to address Rice or the Ravens any more than the general populace. When will Pats fans stop beating their wives?

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    3. This was also rich: “So, if the Lewis events sealed the Ravens’ fate, why have the Patriots evaded such criticism in the wake of Aaron Hernandez’s murder charge?” I don’t think they have by any means, but the big difference is that as soon as Hernandez was charged, the Pats cut him. That is much different than the way the Ravens have lionized Lewis and covered up for Rice.

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      1. The Patriots have evaded criticism in the Hernandez thing? What media outlets has that guy been accessing? In the 16 or so months since AH was implicated, the Patriots have at one time or another been accused of knowing he was a murderer in 2012, and yet letting him play that season anyway, and knowing he was potentially a serious criminal when they drafted him out of Florida. They’ve also been criticized for drafting him “when several other teams had taken him off their draft boards,” and thus loosing this psychopath upon the innocent New England countryside. Bill Polian (I know, big shock) went on TV and sanctimoniously pointed out that his Colts had taken AH off their draft board in 2010….while conveniently skipping over the fact that his Carolina Panthers had drafted eventual convicted murderer Rae Carruth in the first round some years earlier. Oh, and then there was that famous Rolling Stone article about the AH situation, “co-authored” by Borges, in which the parts that Borges “co-authored” easily stood out from the rest of the text, given that those sections dripped with contempt for and animosity toward BB and the Pats organization. Yeah, they’ve really escaped criticism in the Hernandez situation. Unreal. The sad fact is that most members of the media just live in their own confirmation-bias bubble, completely detached from the world, and the other viewpoints, that surround them.

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    4. Much of BDC is either clickbait or collections of anecdotes from social media. That it is considered by some to be a credible news source is laughable.

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  20. Felger’s big thing when I was able to tune in today (5-6) was as usual the disappointment over the Pats not winning a championship in the last 10 years (actually 9, they won the championship for the 2004 season), and how disappointed we would be if 10 years ago we knew that they’d go this long without winning another one.

    At the end of the day, the playoffs, and especially the Super Bowl are impacted by clutch performance by the players and luck to an extent that Felger and the contrarians won’t admit. The best way to get around this is to build your team to be “knocking on the door” as much as possible. The more playoff appearances, the more Super Bowls you get to, the better odds you have at winning more championships. Which has been the Patriots’ approach. “Going for it now” makes it much easier for a clutch performance by an opponent or hitting some bad luck to completely derail things. The team mortgages its future by building up all for a single year. Okay. Then a key player gets injured, or a referee makes a terrible call or something else like that, and you don’t win it all. Now you are in a screwed over position by “going for it now” and didn’t get anything out of it. And you just know that the contrarians would be ripping the team to shreds for every down year they suffered as a result. And often times these other teams “going for it now” aren’t really doing so, such as that Ravens team that won it all a couple of years ago.

    Let me put it this way. Let’s go back in time and make a couple of minor changes that were based on the failure of a particular player to perform well in the clutch. In Super Bowl 38, rather than kick the ball out of bounds near the end of the game when kicking off, John Kasey kicks the ball in bounds, the Pats aren’t able to drive down the field to win the game, and instead Carolina wins it. In Super Bowl 46, rather than dropping that critical third down pass, Wes Welker catches it, the Pats run out the clock and win the Super Bowl. The net result is exactly the same for the Pats, 5 Super Bowl appearances, 3 championships.

    At the end of the day, the building of the roster has not been all that different in the more recent years versus the early years of the Brady/Belichick era. The key difference is that clutch plays were made and luck went their way in the early Super Bowls and did not in the later ones. For the media contrarians to portray this as Robert Kraft going cheap, Belichick the GM letting down Belichick the coach and so on, to the detriment of their championship chances is complete nonsense.

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    1. Well, as two callers pointed out yesterday – winning a Super Bowl is HARD. There’s a reason nobody has repeated since the Pat’s in ’04-’05. This isn’t baseball or the NBA where you can literally buy a championship. To say it’s been 10 years since they won a title and it’s unacceptable is ludacris. They’ve been to two, and had leads inside of 2 minutes in both of them. They’ve been to more SB’s in the last 14 years since the 49ers in the 80’s.

      Which goes back to what one caller said yesterday about Felger “moving the chains” as far as what they can argue, whine, and bitch about each day from 1-5.

      You know things are upside down when Danny in Quincy is calling up and screaming AT them and not with them.

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    2. You pretty much nailed it. I’m not in the business of making excuses, really, but the bottom line is that the Pats, since 2004, have essentially been running a huge deficit in the good luck/bad luck column. It all started with the heart and soul of their three-time championship defense suffering a stroke a month after their third Super Bowl win. He was never the same player after that. Let’s face it. In 2005, they were inundated with injuries all season long, but had recovered enough to still be a solid contender by playoff time; then the Denver playoff game and the two highly questionable calls by the refs happened. Season over.
      In 2006, as much as they’ve been criticized for trading Branch and leaving Brady without much in the WR department that year, Branch’s holdout basically forced their hand. They still recovered enough to get to the AFC title game and take a 21-3 lead in the 2nd quarter; then strange calls, all in Indy’s favor, began to be made (as they always were back in the Polian/Manning/RCA Dome days), the defensive injuries began to mount, and the flu bug began to take its toll. That loss still bothers me more than any other during this Patriots era, because it’s the one game I really felt was “taken away” from them, and because that A-Hole Polian finally got his ring.
      In 2007–everyone forgets that they’d lost Roosevelt Colvin for the season around Week 11 or 12. They were never the same defensive team after that, and his presence was sorely missed in the Super Bowl. Still….Asante Samuel drops the game-clinching INT; then the helmet catch play happened (on which a blatant holding/illegal hands to the face penalty on the Giants O-Line was ignored). In 2008, the league was as weak as it’s been in years, but the Pats lost Brady 7 minutes in and missed the playoffs (at 11-5). If they’d had Brady, and gotten to the tournament, they would have had as good a chance as any team. They spent 2009-2010 rebuilding on the fly and then got back to the Super Bowl in 2011, where Bernard Pollard’s handy work on Gronk’s ankle in the AFC title game rendered him a decoy; where Andre Carter, their best pass rusher, was already out for the season; and where Welker dropped the game-clinching downfield throw late in the 4th quarter. In 2012, they hosted the AFC title game, without Gronk, and then lost Talib in the first quarter; they STILL could have won that game if Welker hadn’t dropped another critical pass in the third quarter when the Pats, up 13-7, were in Baltimore territory and driving for more points. The game’s momentum totally shifted on that play. As for last year, their injury problems have been well documented, yet they still made it to the AFCCG and managed to keep the final margin to within 10 points–and do I have to mention that the notoriously bad cold-weather QB, Peyton Manning, woke up that morning to a 65 degree January day in Denver? What were the odds of that happening?
      The fact is that their luck has been mostly bad since 2004, just like their luck from 2001-2004 had been mostly good. Felger and the contrarians don’t want to hear it, but that doesn’t make it untrue.

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    3. While a big part of Felger’s schtick is trolling the Patriots, he is almost as big a moron with other teams too. He fanatically embraces the loathsome view that anything less than a championship is a failure. Not only is it a failure you SUCK and BLOW if you haven’t won a championship. Or in the case of Brady and Belichick, if you haven’t won enough of them.

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    1. Dale and Holley (and Mutt after Dale left for NESN) were discussing this today. I like baseball but not more than football, not more than hockey or basketball. I watch track and field and tennis as often than I watch baseball. It has nothing to do with the record of the team, as I sat through some abysmal seasons, watching over 100 games per year.

      I wonder which will draw better tomorrow at 8PM, Amazing Race or game 3?

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      1. To get an idea of who is watching, you want to watch the < 55 number of programs. The WS, over the past 10 years, has done nothing but "get older".

        If parents (younger ones) aren't watching, their kids probably aren't watching. Cycle continues and gets bigger, to where baseball is a local-market sport. One could argue that it looks a bit like hockey. Those local TV deals (hello $4/ mo to NESN) are what will keep MLB afloat.

        Considering that Amazing race only did a 1.4 share with 6-7m last week. Baseball, which did a 3.4 share @ 12.19 .

        Friday is also a bad night for any TV, but I’ll take baseball.

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        1. I just used Amazing Race because it is the one show my family actually watches on “live” tv weekly. I get what you are saying about the numbers, they can be fudged any number of ways, and yes, tv is typically a ratings wasteland on Friday.

          What is interesting about the kids argument is this. I work in a middle school north of Boston, most of my kids are athletes who play basketball OR hockey, as well as baseball, and/or soccer. I know it is isolated to this one community but I see plenty of kids who are playing those sports that may be niche sports or that are struggling on tv. So the question becomes, why aren’t they watching what they are playing?

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    2. And Mr. McAdam (who I like a lot and is the only Baseball scribe I read regularly) misses several important points.

      – Baseball’s quest to chase TV money by putting games on only at night has destroyed any interest in kids following the game.

      – Baseball’s guaranteed contracts that force teams to keep and play players who fans can tell are phoning it in frustrate fans incredibly because unlike with football…rebuilding takes years. Further these players become disliked because of the money they are being paid compared to the expectations/results.

      – Unlike a lot of people the actual pace of baseball does not bother me…because as George Will so adeptly observed baseball is a Pastural pastime…what does bother me and most fans is all of the unwanted preening, posing, rituals and other advertising that are force fed on us fans.

      – Lastly, the arrogance of players, umps and owners/management who think their behavior whether it be on or off the field will be accepted by the fans. At some point you say, I am going to purchase entertainment that does not condescend to me. It might be the amazing race, it might be football, it might be soccer, it might be Gray’s Anatomy…the thing is…once baseball loses a fan because of its arrogance…it is very difficult to get them back.

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      1. Wait, you’re taking a word from George Will, the man who opined that blue jeans are a symptom of America’s decline, on baseball? I don’t know, LTD. 🙂 Though I haven’t read Will’s piece (or maybe it’s an opinion he’s offered piecmeal in several different places), I’ll agree with you (and Will), if by “pastural” you mean daytime, with a more relaxed pace. Though I’m susceptible to the pitch-by-pitch drama of a tight playoff game too.

        But baseball is much harder to mold into a TV format than, say, football, which is now worse to watch live and in person than on TV. And I think the masters of the NFL (and NCAA, for that matter) are quite happy with that. (SEC Network, baby!) But baseball, structurally…even if you force pitchers to take no more than five seconds between pitches, it’s hard to see the game becoming much more dramatic on TV, where players are so spread out and you never have ten, or twelve, or twenty-two athletes moving at high speed at the same time. Baseball’s excitement factor is somewhere between soccer and golf most of the time. (And I love the sport, and played it into college…just trying to be honest here.)

        As for the arrogance angle–I’m not entirely sure how different MLB is from any other major sport. Is Danny Crawford, or any of a number of other NBA refs, any less arrogant than the worst MLB ump (Joe West comes to mind)–you know, the guy who once T’d up Tim Duncan on the bench? (Though I’ll admit, Duncan was being a quintessentially passive-aggressive Spur.) Is the entitlement of LeBron (even with his return to Cleveland), or Carmelo, or Kobe any less? (Though Durant and Paul George are definitely humbler.) The NFL woke up this fall–very rudely–to how despised the actions of its players can be off the field, to the point that the commissioner might well be toxic to the league. (I wonder if he’ll be scapegoated after the Rice hearing. I wouldn’t bet against it.) And don’t look to international soccer for any improvement over the Americans. Hmm, this leaves me with…my Aussie Football League, baby!

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        1. The quote from George Will comes from the introduction of his book Men at Work which is to this day my most favorite book on baseball. The other great line he had in the book was he talked about how baseball is a game of failure and for the fans the “what if”. It appealed and still appeals to my vision of why baseball is America’s pastime…maybe not its game but definitely its pastime.

          The rest of what you say I can’t argue too much with although I believe that all the sports that have guaranteed contracts have learned institutional arrogance where the players think…”I have this huge guaranteed contract…so what if I do not perform”. It is infuriating.

          Lastly, baseball did just fine on TV and radio for 50 years. its decline started directly with the ending of day time playoff games and the end of daytime games at Wrigley. The sport fits TV…it does not fit TV in primetime. That small detail has escaped at least 3 commissioners in the last 30 years.

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          1. Okay–as I recall, that was the book where Will consummated his bromance with Tony LaRussa. I remember hearing a lot about it back in the day, though I never read it.

            And a very interesting distinction you make between TV and primetime. I’ll have to think about it.

            Like

          2. He looked at LaRussa as well as Tony Gwynn, Cal Ripken Jr, and Orel Hershiser. More importantly he did it in the detailed long form reporting method that I personally love. There were moments in the book that still make me smile… for example he says that what makes baseball great is that nothing is finite. So if you saw Ted Williams walking down the street you could turn to your friend and say “Hey there is Ted Williams the greatest Left Handed hitter of all time”…you friend, being from St. Louis, might reply “No it was Stan Musial”…your friend would be wrong but he could make the argument.

            In any event it is still a great read 20 years later. As for my distinction between TV and Primetime…look at football. They have grown leaps and bounds by having day time games. The night games are events. The Sunday day games are routine. They allow dads to watch games with their daughters (and sons if you have any I don’t) and allow you to enjoy the nuisance of the game without worrying about having to do something else. Baseball is the reverse. The routine games are at night when you have other things to watch or do. The even games are maybe on Sunday afternoon…maybe. Even Saturday’s game is at night…why…so they can be watched in bars. They are alienating their fans. It has nothing to do with whether the game is too slow to be watched on or fit on TV. It has everything to do with alternatives. Were most games on during the day when people had time to “take in” the game, its action and the nuances of baseball…it would be easier for Dads to pass their knowledge of the game on to their sons and daughters. It no longer matters because the powers that be in MLB have lost sight of why baseball became America’s past time. Here’s a hint…it was not because of TV contracts, International broadcast rights, Pink Hats or guaranteed contracts, It was because the game has always been accessible to its fans. That stopped when revenue became more important than access.

            Like

        2. The word is actually pastoral, which means of a farm or field but also has a connotation of timelessness or simplicity.

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    3. I really think it’s a generational thing more than anything else. My generation (borderline Gen-X, but in the “older” Gen-X category) grew up playing little league ball, before youth soccer seemingly took over every Saturday during the school year. I also came of age just as free agency was becoming a factor in baseball, so while the contracts were good and getting bigger, they were nothing like they’ve become in the last decade or so. Money like that does indeed tend to jade some fans, and who can blame them? Also, the game has gotten slower. When I was a kid, pitchers tried to finish what they started, and managers let them try. Now, you’ve sometimes got three pitching changes DURING THE SAME HALF INNING. That’s made the games longer and slower, as has the “altered” strike zone, which has led to more walks, longer innings, etc. I distinctly remember that back in the 70s, the Yankees home games started at 8 p.m.!! You could never start regular season games that late today. The fans wouldn’t get home until 12:30 a.m. if you did. It’s really amazing when I think about it. The games end at around the same time today as they did in 1977, but they start roughly an hour earlier. That will kill a lot of fan interest, especially the younger fans, who are already distracted enough by iPhones and X-Boxes…..things we didn’t have back when I was a “ute.”

      Like

  22. Reiss

    http://espn.go.com/sportsnation/boston/chat/_/id/51281

    (11:13 AM)

    Evan,

    I don’t look at it as a defense of Amendola as much as just telling it like it is. How is calling him a niche player who contributes with a few plays here and there defending him? It’s a disappointment that it’s turned out that way based on his contract, but I don’t understand all the anger towards him that I sense/feel in mailbag and chats. If the Patriots didn’t have Julian Edelman to fill the role they thought Amendola would, then I’d get the anger. So I don’t get it. You want to have some diversity in your receiver corps — and Amendola is your No. 3 slot guy. When you have LaFell (playing very well) and Edelman, those are your X and Z guys. What am I missing here? They finally have it going and we want to change it?

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    1. Belichick letting Welker go, when he might possibly have made a difference for the Pats last year (at least during the regular season), is the reason for fans’ anger. Year 2 of Amendola contributing next to nothing has landed him in the honorary Carl Crawford fans’ penalty box, even though Welker isn’t doing a hell of a lot more for the Broncos at this point (though he did have a very nice fumble recovery for them last night).

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      1. Carl Crawford fans’ penalty box

        Ha! You need some sponsorship for that zinger.

        MF: “Well, Mazz, we all know that Amendola has basically entered the Carl Crawford Penalty Box.

        MF: ” … That HOTTAKE is brought to you by our fine friends at Townfair Tire.”

        TM: “YARM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

        Like

  23. In Finn’s notes today,

    Expect WEEI to announce soon that Jerry Thornton, the Barstool Sports writer and stand-up comic, will be taking on a more prominent role at the station, most likely as the daily third voice on the afternoon drive “Dale and Holley” program.

    Can’t see that generating any discussion here or elsewhere…

    I know he was mainly “fill-in” but I have to think you can thank Ordway here for giving him more exposure (like or dislike him).

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      1. I have to think that not just the time but the contract precludes him from doing work elsewhere (Ordway).

        I thought the same with him. Ordway seemed to get the best out of him.

        I’m interested to know why they added him instead of the rotating “3rd person”. I’m wondering if the weeklies showed a precipitous drop once football season began.

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    2. I don’t think Thornton’s funny enough to succeed. His lighthearted snark, to say nothing of his worse-than-Bill-Simmons nasal whine, works only in very limited doses for me. I’ll pull a phrase right out of their wheelhouse and say Thornton’s already jumped the shark.

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      1. Yeah, the most common complaints about him that I see are the voice and the constant resorting to comedy don’t work–I don’t think it works with anyone. In short doses? Yeah. It’s why he worked w/F+M.

        You also can’t deny the guy’s a huge Patriots homer. As Dave said on a comment 2 days ago in this thread, so many in the market have gone anti-Patriots to where you’d almost welcome it.

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        1. I think there’s room for a borderline character player, an unabashed honk, on sports radio, not unlike Larry Wilmore as the “senior black correspondent” on the Colbert Report (and when he takes the show over, I have no doubt he’ll broaden out beyond that role). Thornton can fill a character role–even if he’s just being honest and himself–well. But it’s just too limited. If Jerry doesn’t want to become a parody of himself he’ll have to drop the comedy schtick much (or even most) of the time.

          There’s a thoroughly mediocre sports station in Portland, Maine (yes, I live in Maine), the Big Jab. The hosts, morning and afternoon, are decent enough guys and know their sports reasonably well. Except for Jim Rome in the early afternoons, it’s a good fill-in when I don’t have a Boston podcast available in the car. But there’s an occasional comic interloper, Bob Marley, who’ll just pop into the studio every now and then in the morning. He’s like Jerry Thornton (even sounds a little like him), only about life in general, and man, I’m tired of that dope after about forty-five seconds.

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    3. I am baffled , bsmfan, and I usually agree with you. You thought in another posting, that Ordway got the best out of him? What was the best? Thornton doesn’t know anything. He is a comedy writer, admitted media whore and fan. He has no sports insight. He has no expertise. He has no insider access. At best he is an entertainer. At worst he will be blamed for that show not getting better ratings rather than Mike Holley. In other words Dale is now forced to carry TWO people who should not be on the radio. What media god did Dale offend to be handed this particular lot in Hell?

      This is not that difficult, WEEI suits, please find a quality sports person to team with Dale so that there is a non HOTSPORTZTAKES alternative.

      Like

      1. Media whore and fan? So he’s Mike Adams?

        I’m not a huge Jerry Thornton fan. I look for insight from sports radio people (hard to find around these parts these days) and if not, I want to be entertained. Unfortunately, I just don’t find him that funny.

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        2. I was thinking the same thing. Mike Adams – over the top, not funny, fanboy. What are they thinking? I just don’t get the fascination with him (said in my best Bob Ryan voice)

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      2. aren’t THEY ALL “entertainers”?. (both WEEI and 98.5)..go down the list. If you’re looking for “insight” you’re looking in the wrong place. Maybe Gresh & Zo on football, other than that, you’re better off using your own eyes.

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        1. Except they advertise that they are going to give insight and impart expertise. They specifically say they are not straight entertainers (other than T&R). The whole point of sports talk radio is the stations employ experts to give insight to us regular fans. The expectation is that they know more than we do…otherwise it would be called fan talk radio and there would be no pretense.

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          1. exactly, I agree..but’s it all false advertising. D&C (and Kirk) what do they do on Sunday that fans don’t?…They sit on their ass and watch the games like the rest of us. They have no “expertise” no “insider access”…..NONE of them do except for maybe Zolak…(Fauria plays a clown, I believe?..don’t really listen to that show but that’s my understanding)

            Either the public doesn’t want SERIOUS football talk or the powers that be won’t take a chance, if they did Matt Chatham would be on radio full time…. In the meantime, since it’s all entertainment, I have no problem with Jerry Thorton getting more air time. At least it’s somebody from the “other side” so to speak.

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      3. As I said before, nothing wrong with some disagreement. It makes for good threads!

        I didn’t like Thorton until he was on BSUNF. Why? I can’t tell you. Maybe it was only after F+M kicked him off for appearing on WEEI, but I thought Jerry did better when he could talk in a group. StroJa seemed to agree (below). Maybe we’re just two out of the many? I don’t know.

        In his other settings, it felt like he didn’t know when to “enter the conversation”, so many of the segues he’d create were partial panic moves, so he’d use comedy. When he wasn’t feeling that way, which I heard more when he was on Glenn’s show, it seemed more natural. Did he still joke around? Yeah. Was his voice just as bad if it bothered you already? Yup.

        Thorton was also on maybe 3, sometimes 2, if at all per week. 3 hours of him per day? That will not work on a full-time show. His “strength” (if you call it that) is the Patriots. That’s it.

        Or, worst case, I’m letting my bias of liking BSUNF dictate my opinion.

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  24. A quick rant here after finishing Reiss’ chat for the week. I am so tired of dumb Pats fans sayin that the team doesn’t have a pass rush. Do these dopes realize that the Pats have 18 sacks so far this year? Do they realize that only 9 teams have more? And that two of those teams are 1-6? Would you rather be Jaxsonville with 22 sacks and a 1-6 record? Or would you rather be the Pats with a 5-2 record, top10 in sacks, oh yeah and the number 1 pass defense in the NFL. Get a clue people before you go spewing that same crap you have for the past few years.

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    1. I believe it was Kyed on Twitter today that basically said he was sick of hearing “what’s wrong with Revis” questions…Really people expect him to be like Ty Law in 96-97 (?) where he took plenty of PI penalties but didn’t have a td completed against him in over 16 games? The game was vastly different then.

      As you stated, they have the best pass d in the league, top 10 in sacks, and are 5-2, a game off of the best record despite all of the sky is falling talk over the first month. Some people just cannot be happy.

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    2. Right on, Trip. What concerns me–and it’s gotten worse with the loss of Mayo and the injury to Jones–is that the Pats’ defense is kind of threadbare. Their pass defense–secondary and rush–is very good. But that’s come at the expense of their run defense, in getting smaller, faster guys, and that has cost them hugely in a couple of games (and would have cost them in the Jets game if Marty Mornhinweg were a smarter playcaller). Even a good-to-very-good pass defense isn’t worth much if you have to sell it out to stop the run. And the running game still matters enough in the NFL that you can’t ignore it.

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      1. The loss of Siliga, who really hasn’t been healthy since training camp when he injured his hand in the first pre-season game, which came before he came down with this latest injury, has been an overlooked, yet key issue in the decline of the run defense. He played extremely well last year and they were very good against the run in 2013. When he comes back the run D should improve, even without Mayo (though that’s a huge loss, to be sure). Also, while I think BB the GM gets far too much criticism, in general, releasing Tommy Kelly halfway through training camp wasn’t one of his sharper moves. He’d come in mighty handy right about now. This Walker guy they picked up from Carolina does show some promise, however, and hopefully Easley, as he continues to work his way back into football shape after last year’s ACL surgery, will begin to make an impact.

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  25. While I’m not a huge fan of Thornton, frankly, he’s the least of WEEI’s personnel issues at this point. Even if he’s an admitted “comedy” writer, his Patriots takes (“Patriots honk!”) are more insightful than anything on the mid-day show at least…faint praise as that may be (and it IS faint).

    Like

  26. Not addressing any topic from the post, but Schilling is back in the news, talking on ESPN about the World Series and about his own tribulations over the past few years, from 38 Studios to the cancer. And it’s reminded me of why, to my mind, Schilling is so endearing in public. Obviously, in New England he’ll remain a sports legend because of 2004. But even as he was campaigning for Bush, there was a part of me that admired him. I’m a progressive, and it’s probably a safe bet that 90% of Curt’s political and social opinions I disagree with, and strongly.

    But why do people like him, and I’d include Charles Barkley in this, remain so popular, even as they polarize? Obviously, the athletic success is part of it–that’s the only reason we care about them. (Not as many care about what Adonal Foyle has to say, even though he’s a really interesting and accomplished guy.) Charles is, socially at least, almost as liberal as Schilling is conservative. But why are both so popular?

    I think it’s because both guys love the storm, love to engage, and relish not only exposure in general, but the conflicts inevitable with the exposure. It’s hard not to admire guys (or women) who happily toss themselves into a fight, take their lumps with aplomb and do it again later. Sir Charles threw a man through the window of a bar, spit on a fan (by mistake), said “the Republican Party went insane”, and might have defined his persona in the commercial, “I am not a role model.” But he remains a magnetic draw on TV. Schilling is not quite in Charles’ class, but he’s on that end of the scale. Contrast this with someone like Tim Thomas, who’s been pretty damn successful as an NHL might be no more conservative (ha…check that…he’s probably just a bit more conservative) than Schilling, but is entirely passive-aggressive and wanted to snipe with impunity.

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    1. On the politics, I forget the quote but look back to when Jordan was at the height of popularity, and I think a local candidate, who he knew well, asked him to campaign for him, and he said something about I’m just here to sell shoes (or about if he did it, he’d lose 50% of his customer base). We bring this up when discussing talking politics. You lose 50% of your audience by doing it, unless its a Howard Stern-style.

      On why Barkley is liked? I don’t care who he votes for or believes in because when he’s on TV, I believe he’s trying to be as honest as can be. I think his DNA is to ‘tell it like it is’. Contrast that to watching stuff even around here where you wonder if anyone is honest with you? It’s become more of a game to pick out who isn’t honest because they’re campaigning for a job on NESN.

      Schilling might not have such an acerbic tone but I got the impression that he tried to be insightful on telecasts and in the studio. That’s just me.

      I wish there were more Barkley types out there. Maybe I disagree with what type of butter we put on our bread in the morning, or how we vote, bud I’d rather have more of him on TV doing analysis. This day and age of “everything on TV, more shows, blah” … it’s one gigantic PR firm for something. Maybe Barkley isn’t as honest as he’d like to be but please tell me he’s more enjoyable to listen to then, say, Tom Carron?

      Like

      1. Yeah, Jordan’s “Republicans buy sneakers too” is legendary. I’d say it’s on par with Barkley’s “I’m not a role model” in defining his persona. Off the court, he was more concerned with marketing than anything else. And I couldn’t agree with you more on the Tom Carron point. I mean, troll that he is, at least Felger has opinions, right? Four hours of Carron in the afternoon? Might as well be four straight hours of commercials.

        That’s why I can’t stand house men like Gammons and Clayton. Whenever they’re on a story, you know you’ll be getting the most stripped-down, vanilla version they can craft, for fear of displeasing someone. Gammons’ cop-out on the entire steroids issue is why I ignore him now. And just last week there was Clayton saying that Percy Harvin hadn’t worked out in Seattle because of “locker-room conflict”, or some even-worse euphemism. Way to go, John, really flesh things out for us there. I realize Clayton’s a reporter, not a columnist, but there’s a willingness to piss people off, and say/write what you think matters–be that the established facts of a situation or your own opinion–that’s common to both.

        Though squelching that is part of big online, cable and broadcast biz. Remember what happened to Arash Markazi when he had the temerity to report something–which he was there to witness with his own eyes–non-complimentary about LeBron? Why, Markazi was chastised, for “not properly identifying himself as a member of the press”, and his story was removed. It’s not news–Peter King and his ilk have disgraced themselves many times over this fall–but even when such protect-the-shield bias emerges even a little bit in reporting or commentary, I leave.

        Like

        1. And I couldn’t agree with you more on the Tom Carron point. I mean, troll that he is, at least Felger has opinions, right?

          Years ago, I would have disagreed with you. I’d rather a “Tom Carron” than a Skip Felger. Now? I’ll take an hour Jim Rome over the “PR firm” approach everyone takes. All of this stems from watching journalism die on all news fronts. However, I wonder with how CBS is, if they’d let Felger get away with what he does, if the ratings get dull.

          Maybe Gammons was good before but he became a mouthpiece for FSG. When F+M used to have him on (remember that?) he’d prefix everything with “Well, John Henry, who is inventing a cancer drug” to where you’d just vomit with how much of a patsy the guy was.

          We can go on and on here.

          How many descent journalists are left? Part of it is culture of the “organizations” themselves. Most of the sports-rights holders are also “news” organizations, and you read time-and-time again about the ‘culture’ where its enforced that if whatever network is either a rights holder or beholden to one political party, that’s it. You won’t hear anything else. I hate both sides so all of them drive me nuts.

          Yeah, I’ll rail on PK anytime, anyday. It was nice that he finally got exposed to those of us who don’t pay attention to the media stuff, but nothing really happened in the end. He’s still one of the league’s PR mouthpieces and heralded as ‘a good journalist’. I said earlier this week that so many of the guys we read now went into journalism because of Watergate. Do they realize they’re just as bad as them now?

          This is one reason I’m cancelling cable in 2 months. I’m sick of paying these sports networks and companies money for nothing more than PR. If anything, they should be paying me to listen to all of the bullshit they push out there. Remember back when cable was supposed to be where you paid NOT to be bombarded by advertisements? It was going away as I grew up but man .. what a thought.

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          1. Tom Caron’s job is not to provide opinions; it’s to run the pre- and post-game shows. And considering the flotsam of “talent” he’s had to work with over the years (Jim Rice, Corsi, Sam Horn, post-stoke Gammons) I’d say he does a decent job at that. You don’t expect opinions from James Brown on Fox pre-game coverage, that’s left to the analysts. It’s not Caron’s fault that his analysts for the most part are incapable of providing any valuable insight.
            There are numerous posts from yesterday (rightfully) castigating Tanguay for his trolling and hot takez. Why do we want that from Caron.

            Like

          3. Not saying Carron’s bad at what he does–but when he’s on talk radio, he’s pretty dull. Carron’s perfectly fine in his NESN role. I don’t think he’d want anything else, either.

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  27. My god, if there isn’t a more cliche filled, Milquetoast radio program than WEEI’s NFL Sunday hosted by Dickerson, I have not heard it yet.

    I don’t play fantasy football and I’d rather listen to Rich Keefe’s fantasy preview by a factor of 10.

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    1. there really is no hope for sports radio anymore locally…..that fantasy site better be paying alot for that commercial/show , cause it’s pretty pathetic.

      Like

  28. So, how about those Patriots?

    @NEPD_Loyko “Mike, Brady looked furious they put in Garoppolo when they did, it’s obvious he’s not happy”

    &

    @NEPD_Loyko “I mean is Alshon Jeffery or Brandon Marshall really that good?” “No, Mike they’re not they suck, wait until they face a real QB” –F&M

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    1. I was stuck in my car driving home during and after the game today and I mistakenly decided to listen to the post game show where Andy Gresh was the voice of reason and sounded obviously frustrated with Tanguay and his “provocative” questions and negative insights. To me it sounded like even Gresh today realized that Tanguay was both baiting and insulting Pats fans after a game that demanded a certain amount of positiveness. When Tanguay said that Chicago was not a good test 3 hours after he said that it was a trap game, he was no longer being a host…instead he became a troll. Gresh knew it and spent three hours trying to get Tanguay to walk back his comments with no success. It was one of the more interesting train wrecks I have listened to on the radio in a long time.

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      1. After GearBear got his Green Team Membership card torn up by CSNNE, in what seemed like a cost cutting move, it seems like he took a turn for the worst. I don’t recall him being “oh gotta tune into hear Gary’s insights or #HOTSPORTZTAKEZ” but now it seems like he’s in this “Felger does it and makes bank, why not me?” mode. Is there a reason he’s put on SportsHub? I wondered if its due to them being cheap and he’s doing whatever possible to get back on the radio or TV. The # of things I’ve either heard or seen pasted here in the past 6 months was more than you heard about him in the past 3 years.

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        1. I have no idea. I still think the comparison to the fictional Ted Knight is the most apt. i think in the end he has a great radio voice but just is not that bright. He sounds bright but in reality lacks both insight and a feel for how a conversation with his audience should go. It is the reason the original Gresh and Tanguay show failed on the Sportshub…people forget that before Gresh was reunited with Zo he did 6 excruciating months with Tanguay.

          I think Tanguay is probably a good guy and easy to work with. Like I said he has a real professional voice. The problem and it is a huge problem is as Eddie Andelman so famously said about certain people “He does not get IT”. In any event after yesterday’s show, which was very very painful I wonder if the suits who produce the Post game show are going to look at ways of minimizing Tanguay’s ability to opine.

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          2. I think Gary would like to act or play a role but like I said above…I don’t think he is bright enough. So when he tries to be the contrarian he really looks like a buffoon. If he was quick like Felger then we might be having a different discussion. Tanguay unfortunately appears to be an empty suit. As such he the things he says besides being idiotic reflect badly on the official broadcast partner of the New England Patriots, and on the official post game show.

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          3. There’s some teaser on the CSNNE website this morning about Tanguay apparently cautioning about Zdeno Chara’s injury, and how it could mean that the “golden era” of Boston sports is over, or some nonsense like that. I guess he couldn’t muster up enough to worry about after the Pats game yesterday, so he had to shift his hand-wringing over to the Bruins, and the Boston sports scene in general. The mind boggles.

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          4. Felger’s not acting. He chooses carefully what part of his opinions he’ll discuss–always the most trollish–but he doesn’t act. He’s being honest. Tanguay does act, which is why he’s so ridiculous and unconvincing when he tries to do the Sportztake! routine. It just doesn’t suit him. I do remember the Gresh & Tanguay show on the Sports Hub–for the first few days I liked it, until it became clear that Tanguay really couldn’t give the show any direction. Maybe, like LTD says, it’s because he isn’t bright, but I’m not sure. I think he just conditioned himself to be noncontroversial in what he says, and now that he’s trying to be a little controversial at times, he’s awkward. Holley is the best local example of someone who has knowledge, and personality, but avoids using both on the air. Sean McAdam also comes to mind, a guy who’s seen a lot of baseball but has very few meaningful observations to give. Maybe it is just a lack of brains in all three, but I think it’s more a matter of their professional grooming. Gresh has the bombast to anchor it but outside of football particulars he has little to offer.

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          5. I don’t know, I can remember a few times when it felt as if I was listening to (Felger on 98.5, not the old days) someone that was on the verge of breaking character.

            Take this whole “YOU” business…

            Like

    2. He doubled down on that last night, which I give Gary credit for. Far too often these ass clowns alter their opinion with the changing of direction of the wind.

      Kirk Minihane, who even earlier in the season than Gary, declared that the TB12 window was closed for good, is this morning working on climbing back on the bandwagon. Kirk just said, “I’m not ready to declare them a Super Bowl team, YET.”

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  30. @WWIIFelger Monsters of Midway? Come on. Another tomato can. Even Admiral Numbnuts couldn’t screw this one up. Lay the 5.5 sunk carriers today.

    Dear Mr. Twitter Troll,

    Bravo. A+. You’re killing it.

    Like

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