A day of sports

Tuesday 9/22/26

I watched a lot of sports on Sunday. I probably shouldn't have done this, but I do other things for work while watching, which included working on a new short story in my head on this day. Plus, I'd completed doing something I had set out to do earlier in the week and had also been decently productive. Still, I didn't feel great about this, as one can probably tell.

Anyway, I saw a good chunk of the Patriots game. They looked awful, which may sound like a strange thing to say given that they won 20-3, but what can I say? They did. The Steelers resembled a group that would have been beaten by whatever NFL team they happened to be playing that day.

Pittsburgh was basically non-competitive, save insofar as the Patriots made them competetive, score-wise--for a while anyway. It was late in the fourth quarter and the Steelers were driving and they were walking to the line of scrimmage, taking their time, down by as much as they were down. I couldn't believe it. I can actually believe anything from humans, no matter how stupid it is, but this still had me double checking the clock and thinking at first I'd gotten all mixed up and it was the third quarter rather than the fourth, and even then it would have been strange.

As for the Patriots--Drake Maye...no. This isn't working right now how he's doing it. He threw an interception in the red zone that was this wounded duck of a pop-up to nobody. Threw it to throw it. "I can throw it so I will. Limply. Softly. Without conviction." He has a head problem and an arm problem. He's not a deft thrower of the football. For him to be successful, it looks like he needs to run around a bit, play the hero, and chuck it deep.

This isn't the way to be a dominant NFL quarterback. The dominant NFL quarterback isn't a deep passer, contrary to what just about everyone else thinks. I don't know why people can't see this. Well, I do. I hate feeling like I need to make those qualifiers. The dominant NFL passer is a carver. He carves you up with short and intermediate throws on a rope. Line drive passes. Bullets and lasers. Zipped in there. He carves and slices and you are done.

You know when Tom Brady was actually less good or, if you prefer, more beatable when it mattered most? In 2007 when he spent so much time dropping back and heaving it deep and up for grabs in the general area of Randy Moss. That's not who Brady was. He was an aberration of himself that year. Don't be fooled by the gaudy regular season numbers. That had a fluke, random component to it--the imprecision of the jump ball that your guy could always go up and get until he couldn't--rather than a greatness-of-Brady aspect.

The Patriots' receivers are limited and Maye isn't good enough to make these receivers something they're not outside of a span of games like last year when everything is going right and the opponents are weak and even then I'd say that was something else. Sometimes when it's rolling for you and everything clicks and goes your way, your thing is largely that. It isn't repeatable because it only had so much to do with you.

Patriots fans will want to cite the game that Romeo Doubs had with his 96 yards receiving, but that came off broken plays, rather than within the context of the executed offense. That's just fluke stuff, not efficient player stuff. They tried to get him going in that context of the offense manner early, and he fumbled the ball out of bounds. Rhamondre Stevenson, the true fumble king, did his thing and put it on the ground. Kicker had a miss. All in all, it was about as discouraging a 20-3 victory can be.

Aaron Rodgers looks like a guy that should be done. I don't mean that he can't play at all. He just looks like he shouldn't be out there, that there's no point to him being out there. He isn't helping the team, he isn't doing anything for himself, he's just there, which is how most people are in their lives.

Then I watched the Red Sox fall to the Rays in a game in which they were noncompetitive. They may not win another game this season, but they don't need to--in the regular season portion, anyway--because they clinched after they lost and waited around to see the Braves finish off the Astros. So, these Boston Red Sox will be playing postseason baseball, which you can't automatically call October baseball, because there is a chance they're eliminated before October starts. Considering where they were in May/early June, I never thought we'd be here. 14 games under .500 is a huge amount of games to come back from.

During the postgame broadcast--which centered on updates of that Braves-Astros game--I had to listen to Tom Caron tell me I should be thankful for Alex Cora. "We all know he's a great manager..." Are you kidding me? He blows as a manager. So, no, I don't know that he's a great manager. That's something I definitely do not know. And he's also a passive aggressive little prick-weasel and if he had remained in place this team would have made a run on 100 losses, so spare me. Honestly, what was that from Caron? Why would you be bringing this up now? Are you his boyfriend? Have some integrity.

For the Red Sox, I'd say win some of these last few games. Don't go into the playoffs on an extended losing streak. Unfortunately, doesn't sound like they could have Garrett Crochet for that first round. If we were to see them, the Red Sox would need to make a push, and that he isn't back already--with some regular season games left--suggests to me he won't pitch no matter what (and that the brass has determined the risk to their investment isn't worth it), but of course I could be wrong.

You need Contreras and Rafaela back and relatively up to speed. The latter's extended absence is a little baffling and concerning. It'd also be nice if Roman Anthony could go a game without striking out, which never seems to happen. He averages close to 200 strikeouts per 162 games, which is bad enough, but without any power, too?

Then I watched the Bruins-Capitals game that followed, the first of the Bruins' four preseason affairs. You have guys trying to make the team, so this isn't a go-through-the-motions type of deal, even if the team you're watching on the ice isn't the team you're going to be watching in a few weeks. It matters a huge amount to a number of the players out there and their futures.

The Bruins came from behind twice, tying it late in the third on a Charlie McAvoy one-timer from the point, and then won in the shootout. You'd think they wouldn't do the whole bells-and-whistles OT and shootout thing in the preseason, but they do. You get the full show if you attend that game same as you would a regular season affair, no ties.

It was a fairly entertaining contest for a preseason game. As Andy Brickley remarked on the broadcast, everyone left the rink happy. The Bruins players, the guys looking to make the roster, the fans. Nothing else really needed to be said.