Sunday 1/16/22
Patriots game went the way I expected it to. Saw a report from the Seth Wickensham--who I always think of as a slimy guy, like a gossipy teen whose life is built around getting people to say things behind other people's backs--that Brady is going to retire. I don't believe that. I think Belichick is more likely to go. That was a bad year. Spend all of that money, don't fix the quarterback problem, and go 10-8, and only manage that because you got a bunch of teams who were hit hard at the time by injuries and COVID sit-outs? Maybe that's why Belichick was Giggles McGee on the sideline a bunch--trying to enjoy the last ride. I'm seeing people praise Mac Jones on Twitter. Everybody. Fans of the Patriots, fans of other teams, so-called experts, though I think we've pretty well shown at this point that there are no experts for the most part. There are just people with platforms who use the ass voice and have the platform only because of connections and then become a kind of de facto representative for their fellow idiots who then can say, "he's one of us!"
Side note: For a guy who played in the league, it's remarkable how little Matt Chatham knows about football. Some guys are just oxen, I guess.
Mac Jones is not the answer. He's anemic. You've seen his best. It's not that good. He can manage a game--a little--if everything else is going right. He won't win games in this league. In a seventeen game regular season, what did he throw for, 3500 yards? That's awful in 2021. He does not have the physical skills, and mentally he's nothing special--average. He's better than Cam Newton, who didn't belong in the league when the Patriots made him the 2020 starter. I think you really have to question what Belichick is doing. You'd think a coach wouldn't be able to lose it, but maybe he has. The nepotism doesn't help. Don't hire your kids. I think it's embarrassing, personally. Like the team is a clubhouse for his family and he's setting up the boys in business. He's too comfortable. I guess today we'd say the word entitled.
People were actually saying Jones was good last night. He threw for 220 yards, the chunks coming in garbage time, when he still could not push the ball down the field. How can one fail to see how long the damn ball is up in the air? Especially on his sideline passes. He can't throw on a line. He can do those kinds of pop-up throws, with touch, but he's incapable of firing the ball with velocity. He has one of the weakest arms I've ever seen for a quarterback at that level. And why does no one talk about how the guy who came in after him at Alabama was better? Jones was merely a factory worker (but it's a nice, spit-polished factory) at the best program that plugs in the next guy at that position who can do what Jones did which is what all of them do. They have elite athletes with elite speed who create max separation and they're well coached. The Patriots are no closer to being a good team again than they were after Brady left. They don't have a single playmaker on that team either. Not one. They don't have anyone who can change a game. Their best player is their fifteen-year veteran kicker.
You could also see how much more the Bills wanted that game. What I saw out of the Patriots after the bye was a lack of energy, desire, fight. I think it was obvious. You knew, too, almost immediately that the Patriots would get crushed. On the kickoff, the Bills' returner spurted for another seven, eight yards when he should have been brought down. That's effort. Hustle. Desire. And the Patriots didn't show it, didn't have it. A nice passing gain on first down, and the Bills were on their way. After the TD, the Patriots' return guy decided to try and be a hero and run the ball out--which is a symptom of bad coaching--and was leveled at the ten yard line. I knew everything I needed to know by that time. I tweeted as the Bills were driving that if they went up 14-0, the game was over. And so it was. It might as well have been 56-0 at that point. Warm up the bus!
One should come to me--I am rarely wrong with these things, highly variable as they are. But people want to follow the dumb people, who never get it right. I recall that guy who tweeted at me after the Titans game, which was a hugely worrisome game to me. The Titans were missing key personnel with their rushing attack, and they still rushed for like 300 yards. And this sports genius told me it was the game plan. Executed to perfection. Right. The Patriots obviously could not stop the run, and they can't cover man-to-man. So you get this blobby, soft zone. Watching Allen last night, I thought, "damn, this dude is having fun. He can do whatever he wants. Run, pass, do a little dance." And the Bills had more than 100 rushing yards in the first half. Yeah. Clearly not a problem at all. The game plan! It really is shocking--it never wears off on me, I'm never numb to it--how stupid most people are. With everything.
Tuesday on Downtown I'll talk about various avant-garde-related works of art from Kafka, Joseph Cornell, Man Ray, T.E. Hulme, and Coltrane.
Time to get off my ass and get back to working out. Enough sloth and excuses and giving in to suffering.
