Category: Sports

A closer look at Cam

Finally, there is real on-field news to talk about. The Red Sox opened summer camp last week, the Celtics opened theirs earlier this week and, praise the lord, the Tom Brady saga is not the only thing people are talking about when it comes to football.

Well, that’s sorta the case today regarding the latter. But after having a week to think about it I’m back to talk about who’ll be playing QB for the Patriots in 2020, not who’s not. Thus, we’ll leave the Sox, Celtics and Bruins for next time, to fill in some of the blanks on last week’s Cam Newton signing.

The Snap Judgment: I’m always a skeptic and rarely let my imagination run away on big stories of this type. If you do, the first thing that comes to the mind is the MVP season of 2015 and he hasn’t been that guy since, um, 2015. So the first reaction was they’ve improved the backup QB spot and added a big name to challenge Jarrett Stidham for what comes next at quarterback. However, as I’ve thought about it, I’m warming to his potential upside. The caveat being he’s over his recent shoulder and foot woes.

Primarily because a high-level Cam means we’ll be seeing a different type of QB play than we’ve had for over 30 years (with Drew Bledsoe figured in). As great as Brady was, there have been times I’ve thought how nice it would be to have a QB who could get yards on his own with a run/pass option near the goal line and on third and short, or be able to turn a sure sack into chicken salad with his legs.

As the mind wanders, here are some observations on Newton.

Things to Know about Cam Newton: While Brady routinely has thrown for 4,000-plus yards, 11 times overall and only missed doing it in the Deflategate-shortened 12-game 2016 season during the last nine seasons, Newton has only done it once, as a rookie in 2011.

On the flip side, while I’m surprised Brady has run for as much as 100 (barely) three times, in the last eight seasons his combined rushing total is just 321. Newton has topped every season of his career except last year when he played just two games.

Having said that, the flip side of the flip side is that most running QB’s get beat up or worse as a season goes along. But in missing only five games in eight years before last year, Newton’s durability is better than I thought. But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been the dreaded “game time decision” quite a few times. I don’t recall Brady ever being one of those and that adds uncertainty in a way Brady never did.

Then there’s the accuracy thing. Newton has completed just 59.6 percent of his career passes and been over 60 percent just three times, though the best, 67.5 percent, was in 2018. In 19 seasons Brady has never not been over 60 percent, though he barely did that (60.8 percent) in 2019.

The accuracy difference also shows itself in interceptions, where Brady has thrown for double digits just three times (11 twice and 12) since Newton entered the league in 2011. Cam has never had a non-double-digit pick season with a high of 17 in 2011 and low of 10 when he was MVP in 2015 when he also had his only 30-plus-TD-pass (35) season. Brady has seven 30-plus seasons.

Looking Ahead to 2020: When I hear “mercurial personality” I think Kyrie Irving or Jose Canseco and that’s not good. But my measuring stick actually is a guy I didn’t like, Deion Sanders, because I really hate “hey, look at me, me, me” types. But the rule of thumb is what do you hear about a player coming out of the locker room or after they leave town. In Deion’s case you never heard detractors, so I figured he must have been a good guy. That appears to be the case with Newton as well.

I’ve been harshly critical of Odell Beckham’s commitment to winning over the years, so persistent rumors of Cam’s workout buddy coming to New England got my attention. I wasn’t for Antonio Brown because he’s nuts. For OBJ it seems more maturity issues similar to pre-Foxboro Randy Moss, who worked out great here. At least for a while. So, in a rare about-face, I’m interested, as he’ll certainly help the weapons deficiency. That leaves three questions. Would Cleveland let him go? What would they want back? What would you give up to get him? Oh, plus he’s pricey and they’re up against the cap, so who are you willing to let go?

Passing yards and picks can be a reflection of throwing down field more than the Pats do, as well as not having the great slot guys and third down backs Brady always had. It’ll be interesting to see if the system, play calling and superior coaching can negate Newton’s negatives.

Bottom Line: What the “should have kept Brady” crowd needs to understand is that while TB-12 is the GOAT, he wasn’t that guy last year. He was middle of the pack, with just two vintage Brady games, Pittsburgh in the opener and the second Buffalo game. History tells us he likely won’t be as good at 43 as at 42. Not a Willie Mays on the warning track 43, but not an improvement over 2018. The stats may go up because of his new weapons, but that’s irrelevant to what would have happened here with Patriots personnel. Thus with the team likely transitioning to a more conservative, run-dominated, defense-oriented game to accommodate its talent, Newton’s game may be a better fit than the 2020 version of Brady. So I’d say the likelihood is better than 50-50 that with a healthy Newton the play at QB improves over 2019.

Though that could just be my imagination running away with me.

Questions follow reopening

The major sports leagues went about their business last week planning to open their respective seasons. In baseball, basketball and hockey it will be with no fans, with the latter two doing it from one site to reduce exposure to infection to the coronavirus. In football, despite last week’s warning from Dr. Anthony Fauci that we’re not done with the virus and with a second wave likely it’s risky, they’re still planning on games with fans socially distanced.
As usual, those who either don’t like that news or live in fantasy land pushed back on Fauci. Like Boston Globe NFL reporter Ben Volin with a column last week citing several other medical experts who say it can work. He also laid out the extensive plans NFL teams have for creating safe havens at their facilities through social distancing and the like.
I’m no expert, but sorry, I’m not buying it. Somebody explain to me how they can social distance in the huddle. Ditto on the line of scrimmage and while tackling someone about 80 times a game. How about on quarterback sneaks for that big first down that leave 12 people lying on top of each other for a minute or so as they untangle? TD celebrations? Yeah, that can be discouraged or even penalized. Though given that roughly 20 percent of the people I see walking around the grocery store are either clueless or of the “I’m more important than anyone else” types without masks, I don’t think that will take for all.
Throw in everyone on the field perspiring all through the game and violent exhales from ball carriers after getting drilled unexpectedly by a 260-pound guy running at full speed, and the physics just don’t add up. Or is it the chemistry? Or is it the biology? Or maybe it’s all three. As you can see, science was never a strong suit, so that’s why I listen to Fauci on these issues, particularly for what we should do in the grocery store if you get my drift. But I digress.
Then there was the news last week that five Philadelphia Phillies and someone from the Blue Jays tested positive before their teams even officially gathered at their ultra-sanitized facilities to begin pre-season. Both have been shut down indefinitely. That does not portend a smooth start, and baseball is the sport that most easily translates to adopting a social distancing program.
What happens if an NFL team gets hit with a mass of positive tests at one time? Like the six Cowboys who tested positive last week. Can just see it now — NEWS FLASH: Dak Prescott, star runner Ezekiel Elliott (again) and all five starting offensive linemen are among 10 Dallas Cowboys to test positive today and they’re now on 14-day quarantine. How do you replace 10 guys on offense at once when that’s added to the usual three or four normally out every week in a sport where injuries ravage lineups as the season progresses? Especially if among the 10 are also their two other QB’s. Then what? To survive all that they’ll need 80 players on the roster.
Since all their pitchers sit together in the bullpen or dugout it could be the same in baseball. As John Madden used to say — BOOM, there goes the pitching. How are you going run a team with 80 percent of the pitchers gone?
Hockey? What would have happened to the 1970 Bruins if both Gerry Cheevers and Eddie Johnston went down together? Especially after they somehow had let future Vezina Trophy and multiple Stanley Cup winning goalies Bernie Parent and Ken Dryden get away to Philadelphia and Montreal respectively. As an aside, since that was right around the time I checked out on hockey, that’s about as recent an example as I can come up with. Basketball can probably survive the best, because it needs fewer players and there are a million of them around. But it still raises the question of what the product is actually going to be like.
Of course this isn’t the first time sports has had to deal with a possible dire talent drain. With almost every able-bodied man drafted into the Army, baseball was so stretched during World War II that one-armed outfielder Pete Gray played 77 games for the St. Louis Browns in 1945. That he was able to bat .218 with just one arm is remarkable. Though since lefty hurler Jim Abbott is the only player since to make the majors with that disability it does speak to the shortage of available players during the war.
After Pearl Harbor, Commissioner Landis asked President Roosevelt if baseball should be shut down. To which FDR said no, it was important for the nation’s morale to keep playing, and they then did the best they could with the likes of Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio and most everyone else off to war. Of course they weren’t charging $200 a ticket to watch that product in a risky health environment.
Mixed in to all this is the need to restart the economy, which is a very important factor in everyday life. Whether sports fits into the “need” category is up for debate. But not to the folks whose livelihood depends on sports going forward or who have huge investments on the line with the teams. Fortunately, we can watch it all on TV. That brings the risk down to the players, coaches and all the others those involved in playing and broadcasting. And their participation is up to them, as it should be.
Will it work without stopping midway through? The Reggie Lewis case from many moons ago taught us it’s better to go with the pack of docs who agree against the one in dissent. But those docs were on the side of caution for Reggie, which is what Dr Fauci is pushing. I’m with him, because I don’t see it working.
Hopefully, I’ll be wrong.
Email Dave Long at dlong@hippopress.com.

A little Election Day practice

Making the year ahead in this most unusual coming sports year even more unusual is it’s coming as the presidential election and the Black Lives Matter protest appear to be on a collision course. That took a major step forward last week when NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and USA Soccer broke ranks from their previous stance to back their players’ right to protest. The president immediately and stridently assailed those new stances as unpatriotic and said he won’t be watching. Thus with detractors and proponents on each side it’ll be happening every Sunday and with the election growing closer and closer it will likely be a hot campaign topic all through every following week. That means sports may have a greater direct impact on how people vote for president than it ever has before.

So, to get ready, I’m going to practice my voting technique today by voting on the following items that have been in the news of late.

News Items: Automated Balls and Strikes Good for Baseball?

One of baseball’s coming debates is when the not too far off technology is perfected, should baseball have balls and strikes called by technological automation? When replay first arrived I wasn’t a big fan because I thought it might take the human element out of the game. But with the growing regularity of brutal officiating errors happening all through sports that feeling is gone. Now the concern is just about getting an answer more quickly. I particularly like the idea of a computer calling balls and strikes because it will standardize what a ball and strike is according to what the rulebook says it is over the discretion of each ump on a given night. I vote yes on automated strike zones.

News Item: Do Baseball Players Deserve Leeway On Money Talks?

While I have been critical of baseball for its tone deaf fight over money, I will say comparisons to the other leagues is not quite fair. NBA and NHL players were paid through the end of March and missed just one paycheck. For NFL players it’s looking like they’ll play the entire schedule with some fans in the stands, so they won’t miss any checks and the financial hit won’t be as severe for their owners. Baseball players meanwhile haven’t been paid since last year and with no fans at their park and half the seasonal TV revenue gone they’re facing a vast reduction in pay. Plus with 100 years of documented history in the memory bank, their lack of trust in their owners is well-founded. Since it’s not apples and apples compared with the other sports the vote is to give them a little leeway in this battle. Though my advice is keep clueless nitwits like Blake Snell away from the mike.

News Item: Will Young Patriots Receivers Be Better Without Brady?

One of the stories of actual interest in the relentless Tom Brady or Jarrett Stidham news cycle is will the production of the Patriots’ maligned young receivers improve with a less demanding QB in Tom Brady’s place? It’s food for thought, though it’s more complicated than just that. For one thing, the offense will be dumbed down for Stidham, which will make decision-making on the fly less complex for them as well. That complexity probably contributed to Brady’s much discussed “trust issues” with newcomers. Though I’ve thought that it was more simply being set in his ways and pickiness the last few years when his “I know all the answers to the test mentality was a bit of a double-edged sword. It led to complete command of the offense, but his lack of patience for those who didn’t have that led him away from the young guys in ways he hadn’t earlier in his career when he jelled immediately with Deion Branch, David Givens, Gronk and Aaron Hernandez. So, while they won’t be as good as they were with vintage Brady, I’m a yes that they’ll get more from N’Keal Harry and company with a player closer to their learning curve under center.

News Item: Does Mike Bolsinger Have a Case?

You’ve got to love this one. Former Blue Jays reliever Mike Bolsinger filed suit in February against the Houston Astros for damages to his career. The claim is their sign stealing was behind him being lit up for four runs and four hits in 1/3 of an inning in 2017, which immediately got him sent to the minors for good. So here’s the question for a judge and jury to ponder: Did that one game alone get a guy with 1-7 record over two years when the ERA’s were 6.31 (2017) and 6.61 (2016) demoted to the minors? Sorry, those are journeyman numbers and the kind that get guys sent to the minors all the time. Vote to throw the bogus claim out of court.

News Item: Jeter a Lock for Yanks’ Mt. Rushmore

Saw this one on Facebook when a kid I grew up with posted a picture of Derek Jeter looking up at the Yankees’ Mt. Rushmore like Ruth, Gehrig and DiMaggio were waiting for him to join them as the fourth member. Hey, I like Jeter as much as the next guy and think his adulation in NYC is similar to the Tom Brady GOAT stuff around here. But, sorry, the gushing NYC media making him out to be a cross between Joan of Arc and Charles Lindbergh is way over the top. Even the Brady comparison doesn’t work since TB is (or may be) the greatest at his position while Jeter is not the greatest at his. Though teammate Mariano Rivera was and that’s why he’s higher in my Rushmore voting than Jeter. So with him just ninth on my all-time Yankees list behind Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, the Mick, Yogi, Rivera, Whitey Ford, Bill Dickey and Jeter with either Andy Pettitte or Red Ruffing rounding out the Top 10, it’s a no vote for Jeter.

A bit of good news

After three long months sports fans got good news last week when the NHL and NBA ok’d plans to open camps in July and begin playing in early August. Meanwhile the league that should be closest to returning put its season at risk by doing what baseball usually does with tone-deaf bickering over money between the owners and players at a time when 40 million just lost their jobs. The NFL meanwhile remains on track for the usual September start, though college football is still mostly up in the air.

It won’t be business as usual, however, as normal league schedules will be way out of whack and the return will require concessions to playing with effects of Covid-19. Not the least of these will be playing games with no fans, at least until football season, where social distancing plans are underway to have about 25,000 paying customers on hand at least. There’s also the threat of infections rising for people playing in such close proximity as they sweat, regularly bang into each other and are laying on top of each other after almost every play in football.

And most amazingly, the pandemic is just one of three national calamities that will impact sports in 2020. Depending on how long it lasts, immediate economic difficulties and a possible deep recession likely will restrict spending power for tickets, sponsorships and merchandise. That in turn should affect 2021 free agency, a big thing for the Patriots, who have many players on expiring contracts and up to an expected $100 million to spend next spring. Then there’s the civil unrest following the death of George Floyd while in custody of the police in Minneapolis. The Black Lives Matter protests it sparked throughout the country will likely impact the NFL in a most divisive way that puts fans, players and the less than shy president in constant conflict.

Finally, it’ll be interesting to see if any pandemic-related changes become permanent. Like a new NBA calendar with an early December start to be closer to its real opening day when all those big games are played on Christmas Day with the playoffs ending in August. That would not be great news for baseball, which already has declining attendance and perhaps now a missed season. If you were the NBA who would you rather go head to head with MLB or the NFL?

That’s the big picture. Now here are some more thoughts on the restart and stories related to it:

Interested to see if teams like the Bruins and Bucks who were rolling to their league’s best records restart in similar fashion or will that momentum be gone and it be more like starting a new season.

I’m all in on the Bruins, but “ice” hockey games in the heat of summer doesn’t seem like a good fit.

If baseball does get its act together, will the growing rage gathering steam during spring training stay focused on the cheating Astros? Or, since that seems like 50 years ago and with no fans in the stands did they luck out? Here’s my suggestion: have a special soundtrack for the Astros when crowd noise is piped into their TV/radio broadcasts that has boos, catcalls and hisses mixed in.

Quickly apologizing was a good move by Drew Brees after starting a major hoo-ha with his original thoughts on kneeling during the anthem. Beyond getting killed in the court of public opinion, I’m still wondering if defenders will line him up for a little extra shot if they don’t buy the apology. Hope not.

Buckle up on the kneeling protests, though. Because with his presidential campaign in peril (at the moment) expect DJT to inflame tensions to fire up his base as a likely nasty campaign rages through the NFL’s first 10 weeks. And with Adrian Peterson already saying “without a doubt” he’ll kneel I don’t see the players backing down. So the brass had better have a better plan than the last time.

I couldn’t be more sick of the unending series of stories on Jarrett Stidham and everything you-know-who does in Tampa Bay. I’d rather wait to see what happens on the field. But for the record, Stidham will be better than expectations, at 43 TB won’t meet his and thanks to a year off to get healthy and recharged Gronk has the best year of the three.

It’s just one guy’s opinion, but I like Jalen Rose’s reasoning for why he thinks the Celtics will beat Milwaukee if they meet in the playoffs. He said with the Bucks’ huge home court advantage lost, the games will be more like playing a pick-up game in the park. And if they were, Giannis is picked first for sure, but the next five guys taken would be all Celtics. Meaning the C’s have the overall talent edge and that could be deadly for the Bucks in a neutral site.

Vegas doesn’t buy that, however, as the C’s odds to make the finals have gone up from what they were in February.

Heard this from a caller on talk radio: to reward teams like Milwaukee losing their earned home court advantages, let the highest seed choose who they face in each playoff round from the lower seeds. That would add major bulletin board “I’ll show you” material into the mix, which I love.

I wonder if the NBA doing all play-by-play announcing remotely from home base studios with noise from Orlando mixed is the beginning of the end of road announcers being on site in the future.

No baseball season makes the Mookie Betts trade look even better, as the Sox keep the three prospects while L.A. gets no games from Mookie and still has to swallow David Price’s contract.

Finally, I’m fine with baseball not getting started because with all the problems going on around them, if they’re too clueless to work it out, so be it.

Good, bad and ugly

With the arrival of June a bit of normalcy is returning to everyday life. Not totally, of course; that’s still a long way off. But while the pandemic hasn’t abated, sports is talking about getting back to work sooner than later, though to start it will be in arenas that are more like TV studios with no fans in the stands. At least until football season, which is messing with plans for having crowds of 25,000 or so socially-distanced fans on hand. We’ll leave that for a future discussion as plans become clearer in the next few weeks.

In the meantime, let’s take a look at some of the good, bad and ugly things that happened in and to sports while most of us had our heads down.

So what’d you do during the pandemic? For Bob Kraft it was raising $1 million to help folks affected adversely by the Covid-19 via auctioning off his Super Bowl ring from the Atlanta comeback, along with sending his plane to China to deliver medical supplies to NYC. For Tom Brady it was his TB-12 company capitalizing on it by pushing 30-day supplies of “immunity supplements” for $45.

Ex-Patriot Chad Johnson also dropped a $1,000 tip for a $37 tab at a Cooper City, Florida, restaurant with this note written on the receipt: “Sorry about the pandemic, hope this helps.”

Loved the great Red Auerbach line Dan Shaughnessy mentioned in his column on her Celtics connections upon the passing of sportscasting pioneer Phyllis George. She was married to one-time Celtics owner John Y. Brown, whom Red hated, and when John Y. was running for governor of Kentucky not too long after selling his interest in the C’s he advised bluegrass voters, “you better watch out because he’ll probably try and trade the Kentucky Derby for the Indianapolis 500.”

Also dying during the siege, though not all from the coronavirus, were:

Tom Dempsey – the New Orleans kicker whose miraculous record-setting 63-yard FG to beat Detroit as the gun sounded in 1970 happened despite a birth defect that cost him half his kicking foot.

Bobby Mitchell – the Hall of Famer RB/WR was the first African American to play for the Redskins when the NFL’s most southern city became its last team to integrate in 1962. He was traded there by Cleveland for reigning Heisman Trophy winner Ernie Davis to form a spectacular all-Syracuse backfield with Jimmy Brown. Sadly the doomed Davis died of leukemia before ever playing a down for Cleveland.

Bob Watson – A solid .295 lifetime hitter who hit .334 for the Sox in 1979, four years after scoring baseball’s millionth run. He later hired the then-maligned Joe Torre to manage the Yanks during a short stint as GM.

Best local back-in-the-day Twitter line goes to political gadfly Grant Bosse, who wrote after the Pats got ripped off in the Rob Gronkowski trade, “if we can only get a fourth for Gronk, what can we get for John Hannah?”

The best pandemic Twitter video was the “you get what you deserve for not social distancing” moment of a guy drilling his just-two-feet-behind-him nitwit friend in the head with his backswing while hitting off a batting tee.

On the bright side the likely cancellation of the rest of the regular NBA season probably gives us an extra year of LeBron James, which based on his 25.7 scoring average cost him 514 points.That leaves him exactly 4,300 (34,087) behind Kareem Abdul Jabbar’s all-time high 38,387 points. That means instead of being in range to pass Jabbar near the end of 2021-2022, it’s now more likely he’ll have to play in 2022-2023 for the record to fall.

The Patriots unveiled new uniforms. While I do really like the new/old home blue on blue uniforms they’ve worn on Sunday and Monday night games, my only reaction is, would the Yankees go away from the pinstripes for the sake of merchandising? Classic, iconic teams like the Pats have to stick with tradition; otherwise they’re just like everyone else. So boooooo!

I can’t wait for the games, any games, to start just so talk radio, the newspapers and pundits will stop blathering on about everything Tom Brady, and I mean everything — Belichick, golf, TB-12 and the 97 “real” reasons various experts are saying for why he left. Ditto for exhausting and redundantly vapid chatter on Jarrett Stidham. Get over it. Brady’s now one of them and Stidham’s the guy.

Finally, to those who think Coach B can’t win with a fourth-round choice as his QB: Forget the “Brady was taken 199th” argument. In 2008 he won 11 games with a guy taken 230th overall who hadn’t started or played meaningful time in any game since high school. By year’s end Matt Cassel had put four 40-plus-point games on the board, including 49 and 47 in Weeks 15 and 16. They did miss the playoffs, but after tying Miami for best record in the AFC, it was on, like the 58th tie breaker, which made them the only 11-win team this century to not make the playoffs.

So relax, people.

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