Category: News

The Big Story – Red Sox Fire Chaim Bloom: That’s all she wrote for Bloom as general manager of your Boston Red Sox. The end came for the stat-loving New Age GM with his badly constructed defense-deficient team in the midst of a free-falling 1-6 week.

It was met with “scapegoating” chatter in some quarters. But when a team finishes in last place three times in four years on the job, as it appears the Sox will, someone’s head usually rolls.

So for the fourth time in 12 years John Henry’s team is again at a crossroads as it begins a search to find yet another head of baseball operations.

Sports 101: Who are the only defensive players to score touchdowns as an offensive player in the Super Bowl?

News Item – Must-Win Game Ahead For Patriots: Hard to believe that could be the case for a Week 3 game. But when you lose a season’s first two games at home and in Week 4 you’re facing the rampaging Cowboys in Dallas after they’ve outscored their first two opponents 70-10 that is the case. Especially after consecutive confidence-sapping losses when the Pats were unable to finish off the kind of comeback-winning drives they did for 20 years with a different QB under center. All of which means Sunday vs. the Aaron Rodgers-less Jets is a must-win, or the “Bill Belichick on the hot seat” chatter goes on full blast.

Thumbs Up – New NBA Load Management Rules: To the NBA brass for saving fans from their sissy players and/or imperial coaches for enacting rules and fines regarding how and when teams can rest star players. It protects people who drop big money to see a star player in his only time in their town from the whims of coaches like Gregg Popovich who treat fans paying the freight like they don’t matter.

Thumbs Down – Aaron Rodgers Injury: I’m not a fan of the Jets, or of Rodgers for that matter. But seeing him go down four snaps into the season is a bummer. Thought his arrival in NJ gave extra juice to the AFC East and I was looking forward to seeing how it all would turn out. Instead, four snaps. Booo.

News Item – Who’s Hot: In the 317 at-bats since Sox rookie Triston Casas left April behind hitting .133, he has hit .297 with 21 homers and 61 RBI to raise the overall totals to 24–64–.263.

The Numbers:
.081 – according to Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe the Red Sox batting average (5 for 61) last week with runners in scoring position when they won once in seven games.
2 – field goals that doinked off the left upright and in during NFL Week 1 where Buffalo’s sent it to OT vs. NY and Philadelphia’s helped send Patriot Nation home 25-20 losers.
3 – interceptions by Jordan Whitehead for the Jets on Monday Night Football vs. Buffalo, which is more than he had in any entire season during his four-year NFL career.

… Of the Week Awards
Why Can’t We Get Guys Like That Award – tie:
Nelson Agholor: Had five catches for 62 yards for his new team and scored the TD that iced the Ravens’ 27-24 over the Bengals.
Nick Folk: Kicked a 41-yard FG in OT to give Tennessee a 27-24 over San Diego, er, L.A. to snap an eight-game Titans winless streak.

Random Thoughts:
Blindly going for it on fourth and short because the analytics say do it is dumb. Sorry, circumstances like score, time left and distance should be taken into account.
With all those layoffs at ESPN how is it that attention-seeking, rarely right blowhard Rex Ryan survived and the superior Jeff Van Gundy didn’t?

Sports 101 Answer: Both times it happened in games the Patriots were in. First as Refrigerator Perry plowed through their short-yardage defense when the Bear annihilated them 46-10 in SB 20, and Mike Vrabel did it twice as a short yardage tight end vs. Carolina and Philadelphia in their second and third SB wins.

Final Thought: Blame, blame, blame. That’s the game being played by Red Sox owner John Henry in firing Bloom as his GM. Done more so to head off a box office fan revolt rather than to face the real problem. Many say Bloom was just doing as he was told and the product reflected that. But as Evita Peron says, don’t cry for me, Argentina. The $180 million payroll he had was double what Baltimore and Tampa Bay have and they’re both 20 games up in the standings. Sorry, he couldn’t judge talent and his beloved analytics rarely see beyond the numbers to let the pieces of a team fit together.

But the real problem is the owner. He’s checked out. And that’s led to a passionless, indecisive leadership that only cares about ticket sales and ratings at NESN.

It all adds up to this: Henry should sell the team to preserve the legacy he earned over his first 15 years as the best owner in team history.

Email Dave Long at dlong@hippopress.com.

The Big Story: If someone needed a working example for the term “beyond belief” they could use that all it took was two plays into the 2023 season for the Patriots to start getting the same kind of stupid penalties that killed them all through the 2022 season.

In this case it was Deatrich Wise lining up in the neutral zone (how does a seven-year veteran do that?) on the second play of 2023 to turn a second-and-20 situation into a free first down leading to an Eagles field goal on the season’s first drive.

That was followed by a pick-six from their under-the-microscope QB in their first offensive series and a lost fumble on their next offensive play leading to a 16-0 deficit with 2:56 still left in the first quarter. Oh, and, as usual, they wasted a timeout on that first Eagles drive as well. Grrrr!

However, that was the low point of the opener. As after that they settled down to turn it into a pretty good game.

Football 101: Which QB has the most career wins without winning a Super Bowl?

News Item – Beyond Belief Coach B Decision: Fourth and 4 with the Pats down 8 and 9:26 on the clock, Coach B goes for it from his own 22. They turn it over on downs with no points.

Take the FG, it’s a five-point game with plenty of time left to get the TD they still needed. But if they eventually got that TD (which they did), it’s also not a do-or-die two-point conversion to tie the game. It’s a two-point lead instead or maybe three points if they make a two-point conversion. It also stops Philly from making it a two-score game with the FG they eventually got to put the Pats down 11 (25-14) with 5:33. So when New England eventually scored it was 25-20 after missing the two-point try they were forced into taking to leave them still needing a TD. Thus they had to go for six on fourth down in the final minute instead of kicking a FG to tie it.

Bottom line: Passing on the FG that early in the game cost New England the game.

News Item – Who’s Hot: In the 317 at-bats since Sox rookie Triston Casas left April behind hitting .133, he has hit .297 with 21 homers and 61 RBI to raise the overall totals to 24–64–.263.

The Numbers:
6½ – over-under betting line set by Las Vegas odds makers for 2023 wins by the Patriots. They also gave them a 19.1 percent chance of making the playoffs.
9 – consecutive losses by the Bears to the Packers after Sunday’s 38-20 even with newbie Jordan Love at QB for GB.
13 – magic number to be eliminated from the playoffs with 19 games left as the Red Sox started the week.

… Of the Week
Sports Headline of the Week – Royce Lewis: A grand Beatlemania-like eight-day week for the Minnesota rookie could have been celebrated with the delightful headline “Royce Rolls Again!” after he hit his third grand slam in eight games.

Nitwit Protest Award: Goes for the sticky situation at the U.S. Open tennis tournament, where a protester wearing an “End Fossil Fuel” T-shirt delayed the Coco Gauff-Karolina Muchova semi-final match for 40 minutes by, among other things, gluing his feet to the cement floor to prevent his ejection from Arthur Ashe Stadium. Yes, that’s right, he glued his feet to the floor.

Gauff eventually beat Machova 6-4, 7-5.

Why Can’t We Get Guys Like That Award – Mookie Betts: In hitting .455 with 51 hits and 11 homers in August, Mookie joined the two greatest hitters who ever lived, Babe Ruth (1923 and 1924) and Lou Gehrig (1930), as the only players to have a .450–50–10 month in history. It also helped him reach a career high in homers with 38 and counting.

Random Thoughts:
Separated at Birth: Lions QB Jared Goff and Academy Award winning actor Ryan Gosling. Dead ringers.

Football 101 Answer: Dan Marino is the record holder for most career wins with 155 and no SB titles.

Final Thought – Tom Brady: With Bengals QB Joe Burrow just signing a salary cap-eating $275 million contract on the eve of TB-12’s return to Foxboro, it underscored perfectly the most under-appreciated aspect of why Tom Brady was so important to the Patriots dynasty evolving into became what it became.

It’s because he always took a below-market contract that no other top NFL player did for their team, which let the brass repeatedly fit more good players under the cap to make the Pats more talented and deeper. In the end, the great failure of both Coach B and Bob Kraft was in not appreciating/rewarding that sacrifice enough.

While all the wins were great, his demonstrated interest in t-e-a-m is what I admire most about the great Tom Brady.

Email Dave Long at dlong@hippopress.com.