PatsPropaganda

An Independent Patriots Blog

by

It was more training camp than a game,” said McCourty. “Lining up against Randy (Moss), I want to say probably the first five or six times Randy went deep he caught all six of them. So it was ‘all right, am I really going to be good in this league? I think Randy Moss is great, but I’ve got to be able to stop him at least once if I’m going to play in the league

Devin McCourty on his first “rookie moment”

https://www.patspropaganda.com/it-was-more-training-camp-than-a-game-said/

An NFL blogger fans’ take on the CBA circus

by

The NFL owners and players cancelled their negotiations on a new CBA today, and with a March 3rd expiration of the current CBA looming large, fans are obviously starting to feel a little pessimistic. If we get to March 3rd without a new CBA it’s seems likely that, in the words of Peter King, “football games will be lost”.

I find the whole situation to be pretty disturbing so I’ve avoided commenting on it. Of course negotiations of this nature, when so much money is involved, are always difficult. These entities are on a level of trying to make billions into trillions while most of us are just worrying about thousands.

Frankly what bothers me the most has been the rhetoric coming from the NFL and owners. Orwellian terms like “Enhanced season”. Ironically for me it’s real propaganda that has been coming out of Goodell’s NFL for the past year. 

Last summer, when fans would logically ask why negotiations hadn’t already started we were told that they needed the hard deadline of March 3rd to make things get done. Well here we are three weeks from that deadline, and there’s no more progress today than we had last summer. We’ve known for over a year where the two sides stand on the issues. 

How do you push for 18 games and still say you’re concerned about the players health? How can you continue to say fans are for the “enhanced season” when there’s clearly a great majority of knowledgeable fans that I see every day who are dead against it? I have yet to see a fan argue for an 18 game season. I really wish the NFL would stop speaking for the fans and let the fans speak for themselves.

I believe the fans are clearly on the players side. At least the fans that are paying attention. Fans who aren’t paying attention see two more opportunities to get drunk and watch football and say “hells yeah”.

The real issue isn’t about the rich owners versus the rich players like Tom Brady and Peyton Manning. The real issue is about the average NFL player whose career lasts just a few seasons. It’s about the people who put their well-being in jeopardy every Sunday and will never have a million dollar contract. It’s about being responsible and taking care of the people who put life and limb at risk for our entertainment. That should be priority number one! 

What has been apparent for the last couple years since Roger Goodell took over is that his goal as commissioner is to take the NFL to another level. He made the draft a primetime event, they’re want to make a game in London a yearly event. They want to take the NFL brand worldwide, and now it seems like they don’t care if it’s at the expense of the players or the fans.

You can agree or disagree with that philosophy. This is American capitalism, and they have the right to grow their business however they see fit. But such a philosophy is not without risk.

You’re betting that fans will still want to attend regular season football games in mid-January. You’re betting that the rest of the world has the same taste for violent sport that Americans have. You’re betting that the teams that play for the Super Bowl in mid-to-late February won’t just be the teams that won the battle of attrition. 

In the age of HD, and a coming age of 3-D television, and the current difficult economic times that are a reality for many of the fans, I think the NFL is about to leave a lot of us behind.

Given the choice of watching a meaningless regular season game on January 20th with weather in the teens, at a cost of over $100 per ticket, $50 for parking and whatever else you have to pay for beer, or watching the game in HD or even 3D, from the comfort of my own couch, with my car freely parked in my driveway and a store bough twelve pack for $10, well… the choice is pretty clear.

We can only hope that negotiations resume quickly, because a lockout is not in anyone’s interest. But the old adage “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” remains true and the NFL seems hell bent on fixing what isn’t broken.

The only thing that truly appears broken to me is how the NFL treats their players and fans, on whose backs the NFL dynasty was built.

Patriots and Jets in each other’s cross hairs this off-season

by

If you’re wondering what will be motivating the off-season moves of the Patriots and Jets it’s pretty clear that it will be beating each other.

The last two seasons have been fairly identical in the rivalry with the Patriots taking the AFC East title, but the Jets having the more impressive playoff run. While the Jets got in the most recent blow by ending the Patriots season, both teams with continue to stand in the other’s way of a Super Bowl run.

The Patriots lost only three games in 2010, but two of them were to the Jets. The Jets meanwhile just can’t seem to sweep the Patriots, something they’ll need to do if they want to take the AFC East crown and the potential for home field advantage that comes with it.

Already this offseason we’ve heard Rex Ryan comment that while they’ve been able to beat the Patriots, no one else seems to be able to, and how it will be essential to play some home playoff games for once.

There’s no arguing that the Jets last two playoff runs have been extremely impressive, no matter how much it pains me to write that. But the fact remains that they have nothing to show for either season. They cannot expect to win three playoff road games every year to get to the Super Bowl. That’s why not only beating New England once, but sweeping them, is essential.

As for the Patriots the last two seasons they’ve flip flopped between playing flat and lifeless against the Jets to dominating them. Some of that has to do with Mark Sanchez’s corresponding performances, especially in the regular season at New England. But it’s clear that Rex Ryan’s defensive schemes give the Pats fits when they’re not firing on all cylinders.

When the Patriots traded Randy Moss, one common observation was that it was a move made specifically with beating the Jets in mind. They were abandoning the slow-to-develop deep passing game and going to more of a horizontal passing attack. It appeared to be a genius move after their 45-3 late season blow out of New York.

But after the playoff game the old voices were heard again… that the Pats needed to stretch the field to help open up that horizontal passing game. Perhaps they do. Perhaps it was more just a flat game where they couldn’t execute.

Either way each and every personnel move that these two teams make this offseason must be viewed through a prism of how it will correspond to defeating their chief divisional rival.

While the Patriots hold a distinct advantage in number of draft picks and less big-name free agents who need to be re-signed, the Jets will certainly attract high profile free agents.

For the Jets they must continue to surround Mark Sanchez with weapons, especially if they lose Braylon Edwards and/or Brad Smith. It seems to be a consensus that they will make Santonio Holmes a priority, but they must add talent around him. The Jets did not draft well in 2010, and while they were able to overcome it with some solid performances from unheralded veterans like Matt Slauson and Drew Coleman, the biggest thing that was effected was their depth.

Even in Hard Knocks it was pretty clear that the Jets lack of depth was frightening even to the coaching staff. They’ll need a good draft to start developing more talented depth.

The Patriots meanwhile had a great draft in 2010, but most would agree they went 14-2 in spite of a defense that was anything but shutdown. With Leigh Bodden and Ty Warren back in the mix they should be immediately improved, and even more so once they add another haul of draft picks.

I expect both teams to attack their off-season’s entirely differently. One will be a team whose primary focus is on free agentcy… re-signing their own and bringing in a collection of new veterans who want to play for Rex Ryan. The other will continue to add more youth via the draft, and hope for progressive improvement out of the young players who got a lot of experience in 2010.

One thing is for sure, the Patriots-Jets rivalry should reach new levels in 2011… if there’s a season.

Offseason changes begin for Patriots

by

It seems like the first thing to always happen as the off-season gets underway are changes to the coaching staff and today it was announced that defensive backs coach Corwin Brown would not return for a second season and long time strength and conditioning coach Mike Woicik appears to be headed back to Dallas.

If you don’t know much about Woicik I suggest you check out this video. Surely if you’ve watched a Patriots game this past decade, you’ve seen Woicik at some point with his hat pulled low, spitting sunflower seeds into a cup. Harold Nash, Woicik’s assistant strength and conditioning coach appears to be his replacement.

Brown’s departure is an interesting one, especially since he was just in New England for one season, coaching primarily the safeties. Hard to speculate what his impact was or wasn’t but clearly it was not good enough on some level.

Doug Flutie’s Patriots Drop Kick

by

Here’s Doug Flutie executing the first successful drop kick in decades. This is yet another reason why I love BB. He has an appreciation for obscure records like this.

Growing up a couple towns over from Flutie’s hometown of Natick I used to play pick up hockey with him at West Suburban Arena. He would show up and play goalie, and seeing that I was pretty good he would ask me to take shots on him. He was competitive even then. A really great guy, and it was always fun scoring on him even though he wasn’t that good.