Tuesday 9/10/24
Had written the other day that I thought the Patriots had a great shot of winning their opener against the Bengals in Cincinnati and if they lost it would at least be close and get their victory they did. Then I keep seeing how this was the biggest surprise of the first week of the NFL season.
If it's such a surprise why did this person who doesn't think the Patriots are going to be very good say with confidence that it very well could happen? I figured that the Patriots would play hard for Jerod Mayo in his first game as coach, especially the defense. Meanwhile, Cincinnati has their own problems--they often do--and I don't think nearly as highly of Joe Burrow as everyone else does.
I don't think too highly of many quarterbacks right now. There are golden ages for QBs and this is not one of them. The game is also cyclical. As I've been saying for a bit now, offense is coming back to earth. The game is balancing out. Defense is on the rise. We've been seeing lower scoring games, less shootouts, reduced passing numbers.
The Monday paper--back when there were papers and people got them--used to list the 300 yard passers and 100 yard rushers for the week. You would have seen a bunch of the latter for this week, but only two of the former, and one of those quarterbacks got there because of a single long-gainer, which is different than getting to 300 yards by consistently carving someone up. At least for me. Ken Stabler might have thrown for 300 yards but he'd do that on the back of chucking it long and connecting a couple times on low percentage throws, whereas, Dan Marino, say, would be firing thirteen-yard lasers all over the field all day.
In my estimation there's only one great quarterback in the league right now in Patrick Mahomes, and I think he's slipping and isn't consistently great like he used to be. His game has come down some. Not a lot, not like twelve percent, but like five. He makes plays when they must be made, but he's isn't the same play-making machine. Maybe he will be again. Still early.
These things play to the Patriots advantage, and they're going to need every advantage they can get to win what games they're able to win. Belief is big in sports. Start believing, you can start winning. A lack of talent is a bear to overcome, obviously. I said I thought the Patriots would win four games. They could start 2-0. People seem to think the game against Seattle this week is in the bag. I don't think that. They can definitely lose their home opener. League play is down.
Look across all of the sports. There are no great teams. You can be around .500 and be subpar, if that makes sense. Everything in our culture gets worse, including sports. Great teams are better, no? Leagues with great teams are better. The Chiefs have won two titles in a row and they're not a great team at all. There's a principle right now that, to me, dominates sports, and it's this: Someone has to win. Teams often win because the other team loses. That's not the simple thing you might think it is. Have a look at baseball. Who is great? Who is very good? The answer: No one. We're unlikely to have a single team win 100 games.
For the Patriots, if you play hard, play disciplined, limit mistakes, capitalize on mistakes, and wear teams down with your strength and conditioning, you can beat them. If you start 2-0, you have a much greater chance of winning six games, don't you? What's the Patriots' ceiling? Six? Seven? But it's a four or five win roster in a not-very-good league. That doesn't mean they can't win more or less.
After the game, hearing some interviews, it was clear that Mayo had guys ready to go--emotionally. Belichick didn't have his team ready to go for a bunch of years there near the end, and those include Tom Brady years. They were always starting slow. I don't mean figuring out what they had, ramping up into form. I mean they weren't ready. The man who preached no days off had a team--once Brady left--taking a lot of summer days off it seemed to me. I don't think they were even in shape--or not the shape they should have been--when the season started. I don't think players wanted to play for him, either.
Belichick, as I've written, had become a fat cat. A laurel-rester. Any time you stop trying to go forward as hard as you ever have, you get worse at that thing, no matter what it is. Whether that's coaching football, running Monument stairs, paining watercolors, writing stories. Sometimes, people don't even know that's what they're doing. They're just doing it and it happens.
Weight gain is that way. You don't necessarily notice you're putting on the pounds and then one day, you see it. Or, you see it after you've lost the weight and you look at some photo of yourself from earlier and you can't believe you didn't see it. Bigotry can work in this regard, too. A person can get themselves to believe--usually by not thinking and leaving the matter uninvestigated--that they're doing something for whatever other reason, when the real reason is their prejudice against someone.
I didn't see any of the Red Sox game last night, but I did catch some of the two middle games over the weekend against the White Sox. A broadcast observation: Dave O'Brien and Lou Merloni talk about this team as if they're at its wake. You hear it in their voices. Like talking about a deceased person. The game might not be over, and Merloni is speaking about it as an official loss.
This isn't a criticism. Just an observation. I'm sure it's frustrating for O'Brien in particular as he does many more games. I think we all understand the roster deficiencies and ownership's culpability with that, but it's the other stuff that is more frustrating yet--the boneheaded plays, the walks, the errors. So many errors, year after year. Can we just field and throw the baseball?
The Red Sox played seven games against the White Sox this year. People cite the 1962 Mets as the team the White Sox are trying to "beat" for the worst record. It's not the Mets--it's the 1935 Boston Braves, who were actually a fascinating team, more on which later. But if the White Sox don't go down as the worst team ever--record-wise--they may have the Red Sox to thank, because that's who three of their wins have come against. How do you go 4-3 versus the White Sox? If that's not 6-1, you've really messed up.
Tyler O'Neill has four home runs in three games, to give him 29 on the season. He hits them in bunches and usually off of bad pitchers. He's going to get 30, which I've been following, because I want to see his final stat line of 31 home runs and 60 RBI. He's missed time, he's streaky, you never think of him as this formidable bopper, and yet, he's going to clear 30.
That's the number, right? 30 homers, big power season. That means something quite different than it used to. Now you can get 30 just by sort of being there and not even all the time at that. He's been useful for them. This isn't mean slighting Tyler O'Neil. If you told me before the season he'd hit 30 plus home runs, I'd have thought that was great, and I do. But his 30 home runs will serve to remind how long the baseball season is and how your season can come off as it does because you connected a bunch of times for solo jobs off of weak starters with 4.40 ERAs who are lucky to go five innings.
I heard a lot of Tom Brady's debut as a broadcaster the other night. He was stiff in the pre-game portion--when he was out of his element, because at that point you're like a host welcoming people but in what's ideally an entertaining way--and then early on the game, but he loosened up as it went along and got better. Brady talked faster and more naturally the more he got into it. He's smarter than most guys who fill that role, at least when it comes to football. That's obvious. Already he gives you more than many others can. But to be a great analyst, you need your own thing. You have to offer something different. A bit more insight--which will be lost on most people anyway--isn't enough.
Tony Romo's thing was predicting plays, but I always thought that was stupid and he wasn't good at the job. Why was it stupid? Because everyone was going to find out what the play was in four seconds anyway, so what did it matter that you predicted it? So there would be less drama? Is that good? Or like some parlor trick? "Look at what I can do?" Who cares? When that wore off for all of the stupid people out there, Romo's appeal went down.
I headed out to Chestnut Hill on Saturday to watch BC beat Duquesne 56-0. The Eagles played as they should have played--which is to say, hard and with discipline. In seasons past, they wouldn't have. Then they found themselves ranked in the AP poll at number twenty-four on Sunday afternoon. This may last for only a week, given that they they're playing six-ranked Mizzou at Mizzou on Saturday, but BC football appears to be in a better place than it has in some time.
The crowd was pretty good, considering that it's BC and given the opponent. A cool front came through, so it was very comfortable. Lots of cloud cover as well. These September games can be super bright. Nice not to have to squint or put my hand above my eyes.
What I'd like to see against Missouri is a component, hard fought game. Strong play on both sides of the ball at the scrimmage from BC, some toughness, clean, crisp play. You do that week in, week out, you'll be okay. You can be a consistent top twenty-five team and that should be the aim at Boston College. They're not going to be more, but they can be somewhere in there as the twenty-fifth to twentieth best team--by rankings, at least--in the country. That can be your program with the occasional--albeit temporary--spike, some gritty wins, a big upset now and again.
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