Category: Sports

Phew! That was a close one.

Try as they might to give away the last two games with repeated sloppy play and disappearing stars in crunch time the Celtics managed to hold on to win Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals 100-96.

Outside of the final two games, it wasn’t all bad. But beating the Heat in Miami was not easy.

It earned the C’s their first trip to the NBA Finals since 2010. But before we get to the three-time champion Golden State Warriors here’s a quick review of surviving the seven-game series with Miami.

Give Miami Credit for Toughness: With Jimmy Butler and Kyle Lowry limping, they looked dead in the water after a Game 5 Celtics beat down. But somehow they pulled it together, which is what admirable teams do, to be a missed Butler 3 from being in the lead with under 30 seconds to go. Ditto if an eagle eye at the scorers table hadn’t disallowed a crucial Max Strus 3 after seeing his heel catch the sideline in an after-the-play review to see if it was a 3 or a 2.

Tatum’s Hall of Fame Berth Back On Hold: While he’s certainly had some high highs, he didn’t deserve the MVP, because the play in this series was so erratic. And as I said before the playoffs you only get into the Top 10 players group if you dominate in the playoffs. But in Game 6 he disappeared in the fourth quarter and in Game 7 he had the softest 28-point (with at least four missed lay-ups) game I’ve ever seen. Fortunately he has the Finals to erase that. Word to the wise: Ditch the Kobe wristband, ’cause he looked like Kobe when he shot 40 percent from the field and 31 percent on 3’s in the 2010 Finals.

Why Let Marcus Smart Take The Last 5 Shots With Game 7 Slipping Away? Because with Tatum shrinking from the moment somebody had to take them and as ineffective as he was, Marcus had the stones to take them. Plus he was wide open on the 3’s.

That’s The Derrick White We Were Sold: He’s had his ups and downs since arriving in February. But he was the best guy off the bench vs. Miami in making huge defensive and offensive contributions in games 4 through 7.

Bravo – Jimmy Butler: He played through pain. Put his team on his back to score 47, 41 and 35 in the way many expected Tatum to and Tatum didn’t. I’m fine with the 3 he took in the final minute. Strength or not he broke Boston’s backs in Game 6 with 3’s. Standing O for Jimmy.

The Main Event: What to expect from the Warriors.

Previous 2021-22 Games: GS won a tight one in Boston before the January turnaround and C’s blew them out in March in SF in the game Curry got hurt.

Players to Watch

Steph Curry: After all the early playoff hoo-ha over Kyrie Irving, we get to see the real deal here instead. A two-time MVP, three-time champ and the best shooter who ever lived. He kills you with 3’s and off the dribble is a leader and a winner. All the things Kyrie ain’t. So watch out for this dude.

Klay Thompson: After two painstaking years rehabbing tears of an ACL and Achilles that cost him two seasons he’s back to form shooting 38 percent from deep and averaging 20.4 per. The only really bad thing to say about Klay is his father, Mychal, played for the Lakers in the ’80s heyday.

Jordan Poole: He’s their version of Rob Williams. A low first-round pick who came on strong in Year 3 to average 18.5 per game and can go for 30 on any given night.

Who Should You Boo: This is a pretty hard team to not like. So thank goodness for Draymond Green. Loud, abrasive, nasty and borderline dirty. Guaranteed he will raise the ire of Celtics Nation more than once for sure. And, oh yeah, he’s very good, which is what makes his act most annoying.

Best Match-up: Marcus Smart vs. whoever he guards. Because they have a lot of guys who can score and he can cover all of them. Just not at once.

Issues

3-Point Shooting Battle: Both teams can blow you out shooting 3’s. GS takes 40 3’s a game and makes 36 percent. Draymond shoots under 30 percent, so be my guest.

The Boards: GS rebounds collectively as a team with team leader (with 596) Kevon Looney the only one who can hurt the C’s on the offense glass consistently.

Strategy

Celtics on Defense: Tight, tight, tight D to make the GS guards put it on the floor and take it inside the line. Even if it means them scoring off the dribble, because giving up two is better than getting blown up with a barrage of 3’s, which they can do when Curry and Thompson get it going. The D can get away doing that with Al Horford and Lob it to Rob Williams back there protecting the basket.

Celtics on Offense – Who To Attack: The GS guards. The Warriors are not a big team and have no real shot blocker, so Tatum and Jaylen Brown need to use their size advantage to shoot at the rim and get the foul shots that come with that.

Key Stat: The Celtics hold opponents to shooting 31.9 percent from deep, while for Golden State it’s 36 percent. If that stat holds, edge to C’s because it will throw GS a bit off its game.

Golden State Wins: If the Celtics let the secondary players capable of doing real damage like Poole and Andrew Wiggins have big scoring series to supplement what Curry and Thompson generally do.

Boston Wins: If they control it offensively and defensively around the basket, consistently force GS deep shooters to put it on the floor, while Tatum plays Curry even and Brown outscores Thompson.

It was a busy week again. Here’s a look at some top stories and sidebars.

News Item: NBA playoffs carry on

By the time you see this Golden State may have closed out Dallas (down 0-3 as I write this) for a place in the NBA Finals and it’s possible Miami will have the Celtics on the brink (or on vacation) after their embarrassing “Back To December” non-effort to put them down 1-2 after somehow resting on the laurels of an impressive 25-point Game 2 win. Game 4 on Monday will show whether they’ll bounce back as they did vs. the Bucks or continue with the turnover fests of Games 1 and 3.

As for the Warriors, while they’ve faced a pretty weak field out west, they’re proving me wrong after I said last November I thought their glory days were over. Despite playing less than 70 games for the fifth year straight, 32-year-old Steph Curry has shown he’s still a major force as GS has gone 11-3 behind his 25 points, five rebounds and six assists per playoff slash line.

News Item: It’s not whether Brady will be any good on Fox, but whether he’s worth $375 million

I learned a long time ago not to question Rupert Murdoch when he spends what seems like a ridiculous, unrecoverable amount of money on something related to broadcasting. That moment came when Fox Sports outbid the field by over $100 million to bring the NFL to his fledgling Fox Network. The other three more established networks whined that you couldn’t make money at that exorbitant rate. Except that’s not what he was after. He wanted stations around the country who wanted/needed NFL games on their station to become Fox affiliates. So what he actually bought was an entire network overnight, which made those seemingly titanic rights fees chicken feed.

I have no idea how or whether the 10-year, $375 million Brady deal will be recouped by Fox. But I know they usually have something up their sleeve. So I’m guessing there’s a plan in place, and if I have to bet (no pun intended) it probably will have something to do with the emerging new revenue source sports betting will provide the NFL over the next decade.

News Item: Do people watch games because of announcers?

I’d love to see the research on this question. I know I don’t. I watch for the teams playing and put up with the rest or enjoy it a little bit more if it’s someone like Ian Eagle and Charles Davis or the Van Gundy brothers in the booth.

News Item: Parcells shut out again

It’s becoming an annual thing to congratulate the newest New England Patriots Hall of Fame inductee and then rant over the exclusion of inductee Bill Parcells. First congrats to Vince Wilfork for his most deserving honor. A great player and a true Patriot in every way during 11 years in Foxboro.

But Bob Kraft, what about the Tuna? Since I’m not in the room for the discussions I can’t say it is simple pettiness over the ugliness of his departure and the border war that followed. And far be it from me to pat Parcells on the back, because his behavior at the end was questionable and far from gracious, so I understand the hard feelings.

But enough is enough. That happened 25 years ago and if the Hall is to stand for anything more than a feel-good summer day for Bob it should honor all those who made the Patriots dynasty what it is. Parcells and Drew Bledsoe are Nos. 4 and 5 behind the Big Three for bringing the stability and legitimacy that got every football fan’s attention while laying the foundation for what was to come, including bringing Bill Belichick here as an assistant under Tuna.

I know you have a rule for one inductee per year voted on by fans. Sorry, break it. If you need a clue as to how dumb fan voters are, look at any starting line-up for the MLB All-Star game. There’s nothing I hate more than Hall voters suddenly realizing a guy like Dennis Johnson or Ron Santo belongs in after he passes on. Parcells is now 80. So, Bob, make an exception. Put Tuna in, because he earned it and you should be a big enough man to make happen.

News Item: Sideline reporter during playoff game

Sometimes it’s prudent to ask what planet people are living on when they make decisions that simply defy common sense. One such incident is the NBA forcing coaches to speak to sideline reporters at the beginning of the second and fourth quarter when a playoff game is going on. I think it’s pretty stupid and generally useless during the regular season, but during the playoffs teams’ seasons are on the line and their being forced to take attention away from a critical moment to answer some question is insulting to players, coaches and the fans whose teams are playing in such important games. Come on, Adam, wake up and fix this nonsense and give greater respect to the game itself.

News Item: Belichick pokes the bear

Bill Belichick gets pounded by the media, often unfairly. OK, make it sometimes unfairly. I get his desire for playing it close to the vest and how the media can cause distractions, often for little reasons beyond bringing attention to itself. But I have no sympathy for Coach B because he brings the vitriol on himself. Take what he did last week. The NFL has a rule that each team must make its assistant coaches available to speak to the media twice each off season. So what does he do, schedule those meetings a month after the draft and five weeks before summer camp opens on back-to-back days in mid-May when no news is going on. An unnecessary provocation just to poke the bear. So you reap what you sow, Bill.

In a week with the Bruins going out in a Game 7 loss to Carolina, Tom Brady getting a record deal to become a game analyst for Fox Sports if he ever does retire, the Patriots finally getting hit with a really tough schedule in 2022 and the Red Sox showing a little life, the surging Celtics continue to be the big local story after knocking off the defending champion Bucks in Game 7 on Sunday.

By the time you read this Game 1 vs. Miami will be history, with Game 2 coming up Thursday. So here are some things to think about as Miami, Boston, Golden State and Dallas battle it out over the next 10 days.

While acknowledging Khris Middleton was a big loss for the Bucks, remember the Celtics won Game 2 without Marcus Smart and Games 4, 6 and 7 without lob-it-to-Rob Williams.

OK, after a rough couple of early Round 2 games, Jayson Tatum’s impending Hall of Fame induction is back on track.

How anyone could think Brooklyn would be a tougher opponent than Miami is beyond me. While they don’t have Kevin Durant, they have more good, tough-minded players, a better point guard and one of the best coaches in the NBA, and everyone plays D to the max. Plus while Jimmy Butler is a bit nuts, he’s a real leader.

I’ve got Dallas in the other series. They had a near duplicate of the season turnaround the Celtics had and own the league’s best record from January after Boston. They also beat the Celtics at the Garden in late March. Plus they have Luka Doncic. I hate to think how good he’s going to be if he ever realizes he’s got to work on his body. Because he’s wreaking havoc right now looking like the Pillsbury Doughboy.

At the beginning of the year I thought this might be the last stand for Golden State’s mini-dynasty. But I’m not so sure now. Jordan Poole has come out of nowhere to be a pretty good player to make Andrew Wiggins a possible trade chip and they have the potential of James Wiseman to move, which they should do quickly before he turns into the bust I think he’s going to become.

It’s hard to make the all playoff awards team before the playoffs even start, but Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer did the impossible this year. It’s getting a lot of play now, but remember who said a month ago in my NBA Notebook before the playoffs started that Budenholzer had already won the award for most idiotic move by a coach for tanking his final game of the year to hand the Celtics home court advantage when/if they met in Round 2. He gets bonus points for the message he sent to his team about being afraid to play a team as feeble as the Nets.

Plus not making any adjustments to his “dare you to beat us with 3’s” strategy as Tatum, Grant Williams, Payton Pritchard and company were raining 3’s on the Bucks all through Game 7 boarded on coaching malpractice.

While the ultra-serious Ime Udoka is not exactly a barrel of laughs, the more I see the more I like. The latest example was, with Derrick White and Daniel Theis repeatedlythrowing up bricks, the coach searching out a hot hand by running in the up and down Pritchard right after Tatum picked up his fourth foul in the third quarter. It yielded four 3’s and 14 points along with a couple of scrappy, big rebounds. One of which was kicked to Smart in the corner, who buried it as the lead grew with Tatum on the bench.

Udoka also gets credit for not ducking Brooklyn in Round 1 to earn home court on Sunday.

Fans at the Garden certainly have been on their game the first two rounds. They were loud and energized in Round 2 vs. Milwaukee and totally in Kyrie’s head vs. the Nets in Game 2 of Round 1.

I dig the Van Gundy brothers. So I’m hoping Mark Jackson gets one of the head coaching jobs he’s rumored to be in contention for and that ABC steals Stan from TNT to pair the Van Gundys with Mike Breen. Together they’d be a hoot.

Not sure this means anything, but the Top 5 playoff leaders in rebounds, assists and steals are all on vacation, while three of the top scorers (Doncic, Butler and Tatum) remain. Ditto for the 3-point leaders (Tatum, Steph Curry, Klay Thompson).

Forgot to mention this last time. Of course the New York Post had the best headline after Tatum won Game 1 vs. Brooklyn with a shot over Kyrie at the buzzer. That came not too long after Kyrie had flipped off the fans several times at the Garden. It read “Bye, bye birdie” over a picture of Tatum with his arms raised in jubilation as Kyrie walks by with a look of disgust on his face.

Chris Paul came up small in the playoffs again. This time by scoring 5, 7, 13 and 10 in his last four games vs. Dallas, which included a shocking 33 Game 7 drubbing. My question to those giving the “the playoffs grind is tough, he’s 37” excuse is yes, that may be so, but what’s the excuse in his first 16 years when his personal record in the playoffs is under .500? He may have been a better regular-season player, but give me a prime-of-life Rajon Rondo in a big game any day, any way.

Am I the only one who sees the irony of so many treating Kyrie leaving the Celtics as a calamity, while the Nets were anointed as sure to be champs when he and KD hooked up in Brooklyn?

Know why that didn’t happen? ’Cause, repeat after me, he ain’t that good.

With Round 2 of the NBA playoffs in full swing, here’s a look at the big stories making news.

With the Hall of Fame induction of Jayson Tatum on hold after a terrible Game 1 and an awful Game 3 (4-for-19 shooting, 1 rebound) vs. Milwaukee, with a 47-point effort by Ja Morant in Memphis’ Game 2 win over Golden State it looks more like the playoffs are Ja Breaker’s coming out party to enter the NBA Top 10 player list. His nothing-but-net mid-court buzzer-beater at halftime in Game 3 was a beauty. That dude can play and boy does he have hop and hang time. Yikes.

Give Jrue Holiday and Wes Matthews credit for Tatum’s struggles. Their perimeter D has been sensational and it has totally messed up the Celtics half-court offense.

NBA 101: Who holds the record for taking the most foul shots in a game without making one?

Include me as one who felt a bit sorry for Brooklyn’s Nic Claxton as he went 4 for 22 overall from the free throw line and 1-10 in Game 4, because he’s a good young player and is going to get better. The good news is Wilt Chamberlain was once worse, going 1-11 from the stripe in the famed Willis Reed Game 7 of the 1970 Finals.

Back to the Morant for a second. Was he sending a message to GS coach Steve Kerr when he posted on Twitter about Jordan Poole “breaking the code” after his Game 3 injury? Because that’s the same phrase Kerr used when Steph Curry got hurt after being entangled with Marcus Smart during his dive for a loose ball in March.

I hate to harp on the officiating, but it looks to be a big story line going forward after being a big issue during the first three Boston-Milwaukee. For example: Somebody tell me what the rule is. Been watching missed calls repeatedly on guys stepping in bounds before passing the ball in after a made basket. In Game 3 Jaylen Brown passed one in with both feet clearly on the base line, and Brooks Lopez stepped in bounds with the ball in his hands, then stepped back out of bounds to pass it. In my world that’s a turnover. And they’re in the lane all the time before foul shots are taken.

It was pretty rich seeing Mike Budenholzer going berserk after an obvious Tatum offensive foul went non-call. He was right, it definitely was a foul, but, but, but after what his star gets away with on every drive to the basket Budenholzer should shut up and stay on the bench. If they let Shaq get away with all the contact Giannis Antetokounmpo gets away with, people would still be in traction today. Love his effort and fight, but it should be embarrassing for the NBA and unfair to let him get away with it on 80 percent of his drives because it’s not basketball.

Adam Silver needs to do something about it, because refs ignoring his best player breaking the rules in this fashion is far worse than when they let Michael Jordan palm it and/or walk on every possession in the 1990s just because he was Michael. Especially if he’s playing against Joel Embiid with his orbital bone injury in the next round.

Embiid incidentally gets major points for toughness.

The Celtics felt they got screwed on the play at the end of Game 3 that gave Smart just two foul shots instead of three when he anticipated a foul coming and shot it even though he wasn’t in position to actually make it. It was a bogus miss called because it was a shot attempt. But not giving it was consistent with what the zebras called all year on similar plays. Still, heads up plays shouldn’t be penalized.

Having said that, would love hearing what Johnny Most would have to say about all this.

And given all the whining coming from Lopez, I’m sure Buck Nation has a list of their own complaints.

NBA 101 Answer: Shaq is the record holder by going 0 for 11 from the line vs. Seattle in 2000.

Surprised Steve Nash survived the carnage in Brooklyn. Especially with the blank expression on his face as things went downhill vs. Boston bringing to mind Peter Sellers playing Chance the gardener in the 1979 major motion picture Being There.

It is mystifying to me that coaches regularly use their only challenge on inconsequential plays early in games instead of waiting for a big moment at the end of a game. Like the blown call that gave Tatum his sixth foul with 2:50 left in a tight Game 4 vs. Brooklyn. Using it when he got his fifth made sense, but whoever is supposed to see the replay before calling for it blew it because JT clearly hit Seth Curry with his shoulder. And why in the name of Bailey Howell would a coach ever listen to any player? They never think they ever commit a foul. I know I didn’t and I fouled out of 11 games my last season in college.

For the record, the great Kyrie delivered again as Brooklyn was 11-19 in the games he played in 2021-22. If that’s worth the $246 million he’s expected to get as a free agent this summer, the economy’s inflation spiral is a lot worse than I thought.

It was an eventful week with all sorts of things happening.

News Item: Pats Draft Crazy Again

As usual Bill Belichick created a huge hoo-ha with the way he conducted last week’s Patriots draft — most notably, after the usual two trades down, with his pick in the first round of guard Cole Strange. An appropriate name for a guy who went 29th overall when everyone else in the NFL universe had him a third-round-level player. They said it was because they thought he might have been gone at their next pick at 51. That statement is laughable for the following reasons. (1)Coach B had the stones to stay put at 15 last year after Chicago traded up to take Justin Fields at 11 leaving only Mac Jones (of the Big 5) on the board when they absolutely needed to get a QB and QB-needy Pittsburgh, Washington and New Orleans were still lurking out there. So somehow I don’t see the urgency to vault a guard from IAA two rounds ahead of where most had him rated as a third-round pick. (2) Even if they were realistically afraid he might be gone by 51, it’s not like Bill doesn’t have a history of moving around the board. For instance, in 2010 they got Rob Gronkowski in the second round at 42 after starting the day at 51, before going up to 44 and finally getting him at 42.

And instead of strangely reaching for Cole, they could have packaged the saved No. 1 pick with others needed to get into the A.J. Brown sweepstakes and used the second-round pick on Strange instead of doing what recent history says they can’t do, drafting a wideout in Baylor speedster Tyquan Thornton at 51. Then by taking Strange in Round II they fill the OL hole while getting the electric game-breaking Brown to help their young QB from Day 1, rather than waiting for a rookie to figure it out over his first two seasons.

News Item: Bloom Is Off The Rose

As Popeye the sailor used to say, that’s all I can stanz, I can’t stanz no more. That moment came when after pitching four perfect innings on Friday, Rich Hill got yanked by Sox manager Alex Cora when hitter 13 led off the fifth inning with a single. It’s the epitome of the Tampa Bay replica Chaim Bloom is turning the Sox into. And while I know TB has had success, I am now rooting for Chaim to fail and be fired. I know I’m a relic and it won’t change anything. But I hate seeing Cora turned into a spreadsheet puppet since his return. And that’s before Xander Bogaerts walks next winter in free agency (though John Henry will deserve blame for that too). Sorry, nothing personal, but I hate TB’s brand of baseball, so Chaim’s toast with David Long the baseball fan. BOOOOO.

News Item: C’s Cut Down the Nets

I don’t want to tell you I told you so, but I told you so. The Nets were not to be as feared, as almost everyone else on the planet (besides me) said they should be. While a bit better than expected, Brooklyn’s D could not contain the Boston O, particularly Jayson Tatum, who averaged 29.8 points per in the series, and the Celtics defense stifled almost everyone, even Kevin Durant,who had a miserable shooting series before getting 39 in Game 4. And Kyrie Irving did what I said he would — put up a 39-point wow game, deliver two chokes (10 and 16 points in Games 2 and 3), with a pedestrian 20-pointer (Game 4) to get him pounded by the critics as well, which we’ll have more on in a few weeks.

News Item: Piling on Durant

The piling on Durant began immediately after that embarrassing sweep, led by Charles Barkley’s “driving the bus” nonsense. Idiotic because (1) KD is right that in joining Houston late in his career in a vain attempt to finally win one himself, Barkley is hypocritical slamming Durant for joining Golden State in 2016. Then again it would be good for KD to understand that while entertaining, Chuck is almost always wrong about almost everything, so it’s best to ignore him. (2) When Barkley mentions Durant has not won a title since leaving GS, he neglects to mention neither have the Warriors since he left them. (3) Being the bus driver isn’t why KD struggled vs. Boston; credit their defensive game plan and execution for that. And he’s also hardly the first bus driver to string some bad playoff games together. How about Houston’s Robert Reid holding Larry Bird to shooting 11-38 when Larry scored 8, 8 and 12 points in Games 3, 4 and 5 in the 1981 Finals. Or how about none other than Chuck’s 12-8-8-points submission when the Rockets got swept by Utah in 1998?

News Item: Celtics Throw Up Game 1 Stinker

You can look at the Celtics’ horrid 101-89 Game 1 loss to Milwaukee two ways. That they immediately coughed up the home court advantage Bucks Coach Mike Budenholzer gifted them by tanking the final game of the regular season. Or that it’s the playoffs and it’s rare for teams to run off long winning streaks because you’re always facing good teams. Either way, what was most troubling was the mental fog their top two scorers played in, with the most notable being Jaylen Brown. Hard to imagine anyone playing a more bumbling, worse game, because when he’s off he can be beyond-belief bad. The good news is plenty of teams have laid Game 1 eggs before coming back to win their series. Most notable was when the Celtics demolished the Lakers 148-114 in the Mother’s Day Massacre of 1985 before L.A. recovered to take Game 2 in Boston Garden on their way to winning in six, showing Sunday was just one game, that’s it.

At least so far.

Today is like Christmas for football personnel junkies, as Round 1 of the annual draft of college players goes off in Vegas tonight.

It’s the first of a three-day extravaganza that creates a lot of buzz around NFL Nation for mock drafts, potential trades and maneuvering around the board.

So as I sit here hoping Coach B makes the bold move I know he won’t — swing for the fences to get the home run-hitting wide receiver they need — here’s a series of thoughts buzzing in my head as Round 1 begins Thursday, April 28, at 8 p.m. in the east.

For a change there hasn’t been much rumble about QBs in this draft, the most discussed subject being the undersized hands of the guy at the top of the QB board, Kenny Pickett of Pittsburgh.

It’s a stark contrast to last year, when the likely five first rounders were the catalyst for two major pre-draft trades, as they captured all the conversational oxygen in the room. That the last picked of those five, Mac Jones, had by far the best rookie year was a big story through the entire year, even as the Pats’ December fade helped Ja’Marr Chase deservedly sneak by Mac to be Rookie of the Year for his dramatic impact in Cincy.

Instead QB’s in the league already have dominated the pre-draft headlines. This included the Packers bowing to Aaron Rodgers’ bluff of wanting out of Green Bay to give him what he really wanted — being the highest-paid player in the NFL. Russell Wilson got his wish to get out as Seattle headed to a rebuild. Denver paid a king’s ransom to get him to end their playoff-less streak since Peyton Manning retired after 2015. Here’s hoping it doesn’t end as I hate when ungrateful quitters come out on top after walking out on teams that took a big chance on them at the start.

A similar price was paid to finally put an end to the Deshaun Watson saga in Houston and bring his enormous baggage with him to Cleveland. I’m hoping he hits rough seas too, both for his alleged sexual misconduct activities and so Cleveland Browns’ slimy, ends-justify-the-means owner Jimmy Haslam doesn’t benefit either.

That move sent Baker Mayfield into pout mode because he somehow can’t see why the Browns would want to start over at QB over committing ginormous money to a QB with a most uneven record.

Seattle and Carolina are rumored to be likely places to land. Not sure which is worse as Panthers Coach Matt Rhule looks to be a year away from the firing squad and Seattle puts him back in the same situation he was in when he got to Cleveland.

Big paydays also came to wide receivers in various ways: extensions (Stefon Diggs), free agency (Davante Adams to Vegas) and trade (Tyreek Hill to Miami, as their growing influence on the game in the 2020s becomes more evident by the year.

With both Diggs and now Hill in the AFC East, and the flush with draft capital Jets looking for a big play guy, those moves are why the Patriots need to get in the DK Metcalf and Deebo Samuel sweepstakes, as over the next five years to win in the East you’re going to have to outscore the other guy. Similar to Coach B deducing in 2007 he needed to bring in Randy Moss and Wes Welker as outscoring them would be the only way to beat Manning and the Colts. And with an evolving QB who could use the extra help and on his rookie contract it will never be more affordable than right now.

Anyone know the Vegas odds for Jacksonville taking the wrong guy with the top pick? Since they only fired Urban Meyer and not the GM who hired him, I’m betting it’s worth the investment to lay down a few bob on a blown pick.

Finally, something to bear in mind as the so-called draft insiders yack about measurables, intangibles and great value picks while gushing over every player taken as if they’ll be the second coming of Barry Sanders, Jerry Rice and/or Lawrence Taylor. It’s an inexact science where only about 25 percent turn out to be as good as they were bloviated about, and sometimes after thought 199th picks turn out to be GOATs, and first overalls like JaMarcus Russell can’t start for the local YMCA.

Exhibit A is Mike Mayock, a talking head who was considered the draft “guru” while analyzing drafts on TV before and after all the picks were made. That is until the crystal ball he was oh-so confident in magically became quite foggy when he had to do it for real as the personnel chief of the Raiders under the defrocked Jon Gruden.

The record is pretty mixed with 2019 picks Josh Jacobs in Round 2 and wideout Hunter Renfrow in Round 5 being the highlights. The lows were character misses on 2020 first-round picks Alabama wideout Henry Ruggs III and DB Damon Arnette. Ruggs is now sitting in jail with his career likely over, after a woman was killed when he crashed his car into hers while allegedly intoxicated and driving 150 MPH on the Vegas strip last October. While Arnette was released a short while after that when a video surfaced of him brandishing firearms a la Aaron Hernandez and making violent threats.

Evaluating all aspects of the talent package is a lot harder than the yackers make it out to be.

OK, Jaguars, you’re on the clock.