The NFL and mush brains, parasocial sports fans, lucky Bears, surging Bruins, the Chargers and The Grapes of Wrath, Eddie Matthews, er, make that Alex Bregman, and right wing playmakers

Thursday 1/15/26

It's funny when NFL teams make an official statement about how such and such a player will play if he makes it through the concussion protocols, like everything is on the up-and-up. It's lip-service. That player is always going to play. The NFL and its teams don't care if the brains of all the players turn to mush. That's what you're getting into in the first place--that you'll end up with a mush brain. I'd say that it's insulting the intelligence of the NFL's audience to even bother with this lip-service--read: blatant lies--but consider the average NFL fan. Or, hell, your average fellow American.

Next time you're on social media and you see one of those obviously fake female accounts, where it's this AI-generated image of a twenty-seven-year-old women and the text she "wrote" says, "I'm fifty-two is that too old," click on that post and look at the comments from middle-aged, illiterate fat and frightening men who think she's real and are trying to get her to talk to them so they can land their meaty claw hands on some holes. That's your fellow American. Also explains how Trump was elected twice. How many of those guys do you think aren't NFL fans? Pretty low percentage, right? I mean, what are the chances? Concussion protocol. Right. I will see you this Sunday, Christian Gonzalez!

I am of the mind that many people watch sports so that they can complain about the officials. And because that's what everyone else is doing. And to forge creepy parasocial (non-) connections in lieu of real life connections. People love to complain, though. They love to complain so much that they'll invent things to complain about so that they won't have to risk doing without. Meanwhile, there's the real stuff that needs addressing and change, but they usually don't care about that. Complaints about invented and/or insignificant things are preferred.

The first round of NFL playoff games went as I expected. I had little doubt that the Bills, Patriots, and Texans would win, thought the 49ers had a great shot to knock off an Eagles team that was never right this year. Bears-Packers was a toss up.

The Bills will beat the Broncos in Denver. Provided Josh Allen does Josh Allen things, which he did enough of down in Jacksonville. That's the difference, right? One team had Josh Allen, the other had Trevor Lawrence. There's a bit more to it--the Bills probably see this season as their golden opportunity to finally break through. I don't believe they will. I believe their season will end in Foxborough in the AFC Championship game.

That's right--I expect the Patriots to make the Super Bowl. I'm not saying I expect them to win it. Denver isn't a team I believe in. Paper tiger. I don't believe in their quarterback. The Bills may be better suited to go into Denver and win than the Patriots. Which may or may not be ironic, given that I'd pick the Patriots over the Bills should they meet again. Context matters. Experience can matter.

I loved the Chargers match-up for New England. Thought there was next to no chance they'd lose that game unless they self-destructed and they didn't. And when Jim Harbaugh went for it early on fourth and goal and they called that awful play--which seemed designed to produce a low-chance, desperate heave--rather than taking the points, I knew it was over. Same as I knew all I needed to know about The Grapes of Wrath with that turtle on the road.

Justin Herbert always gets a free pass, doesn't he? It's because people don't and can't think. They see someone who looks the part, so they ascribe all these things. I'm being too charitable. Other people--talking head people on football shows--who also aren't smart and don't and can't think. say something about a player. They all say the same thing because they're basically the same unintelligent person repeating what those around them--we'll call them peers--say. Some of them try and say something "wild," just to get attention, which really means saying something stupid as an attempt at extreme noise-making. It's like yelling in a crowd so that everyone will look at you. It doesn't matter what you yelled in terms of the actual words. It's that you were loud and louder than everyone else.

This is discourse in America now. And the world. But Americans are louder because Americans are less well educated than the people in other first world countries. The talking heads say that Justin Herbert is great. Wow. STUD. This becomes the official stance. Then, you have trickle down stupidity. Herbert is associated with this thing, this idea, and the people who watch and/or listen to the talking heads, or who hang out with people who do, adopt the idea as gospel. It's the rub-off effect. Like how people are influenced by the social media-ization of life--their lives, their vitiated, now fraudulent and performative self--via environment, the way of things, the way of others. I'll say it again: The rub-off effect. It's the most dominant, inescapable effect in the world. Herbert looks the part. But he is not the guy. He's a choker. Big game? More like big game fail upcoming from Justin Herbert. He doesn't have what counts the most. He's nothing special. Never will be. It ain't there. You can't make it be there when it's not there any more than you can put life back in a corpse.

People are talking about the Texans' defense as though this were the 1985 Chicago Bears or the Orange Crush Denver Broncos or the Purple People Eater Minnesota Vikings. I don't know about that.

The other night, I heard various Boston sports media people--for whom it doesn't matter if they know sports at all--saying the Patriots are playing with house money at this point.

That's wrong. The Patriots are playing at home in the playoffs. That alone would contradict the "house money" notion. Further, they're playing a team from the south here in the northeast in mid-January. Historically, teams from the south and/or dome teams don't go on the road and win when it's less than forty degrees. So it doesn't even need to be that cold and they will usually lose regardless of the opponent.

Additionally, the Patriots have the better all-around team. Houston's strength is their defense. Their offense isn't that good, and their quarterback, C.J. Stroud, has regressed since his rookie year. For all his intangibles, he's average to slightly-above average in terms of play. The Patriots should win this game and I expect them to.

The Bears have had luck on their side this year. Breaks and bounces have gone their way. Had they not, they wouldn't have gotten this far and probably would have been out of the playoffs. Some years just go like that. Contrary to what a team's fans may think/assume, such a year doesn't portend success in the next year and the years following. Sometimes you just had a fluky year bounce-wise. These things tend to even out. I'm not suggesting the Bears aren't on the rise. I see how they got to where they have, though, in 2025, and I'm just hesitant/dubious is all.

Having said that, I think they have a strong chance to beat the Rams. Again: weather. Teams from warmer climes and domes don't go on the road in January and win when it's fifteen degrees. Matthew Stafford has never been a big outdoor guy. Yes, he played for a long time in the NFC Central, but his team, the Lions, played their home games indoors. When you're from a warmer spot or play in a dome, you're essentially taking on your opponent and the weather--so it's kind of like two-against-one--in a contest like this.

Domes are wrong. Football is meant to be played outdoors, no exceptions. Outdoors, in all weather. It's like delivering the mail.

Mike Tomlin leaving the Steelers isn't a surprise. The Steelers are like the Ravens--they make the playoffs most years but have no real shot to go anywhere. It's kind of like a college football team that finishes at or slightly above .500 each season and plays a mid-December bowl game at three o'clock on a day that people may or may not have off but no one really seems to know. The Ravens could hire Tomlin and keep this kind of thing going, I suppose, if they and he wanted.

There are nine coaching vacancies in the NFL. I can't help but feeling that someone will call Bill Belichick. If no one does, it'll be because of the girlfriend. It's not that NFL owners would think it'd be a bad idea to hire him if he banged a different college girl every day of the week. They wouldn't care. These people are themselves disgusting. They don't think in terms of morality, or how a person's character might compromise their ability to do their job well and be, you know, a leader. They think in terms of public perception. Usually, that's all that bad people will answer to. But in the dark? Where no one can see? They'll do and try and get away with all that they can. Look at publishing.

If Belichick's situation hadn't become so tabloid-y, someone would hire him right now. Despite everything else. You'd see him on the sidelines for the Giants or the Ravens or the Steelers--prestige kind of franchises. Hell, someone may even reach out to Josh McDaniels. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me, twice...hell, why don't you fool me thrice!

I watched most of that Indiana-Oregon game the other night. What a beat down. 35-7 at the half. The game was over in the first quarter. Those teams weren't on the same level. Oregon had a depleted backfield with mistake-prone replacements, and to me it said so much when Sean McDonough mentioned on the broadcast how Oregon's "Swiss Army knife" back wasn't there because he'd just entered the transfer portal.

If that's not emblematic of the problem with college football now then I don't know what it is. Your team is in the hunt for a national title, it's the playoff, and you bolt. But more than that was McDonough's matter of fact tone, like this is a non-story and only worth mentioning to fill up time and provide some info for why, in part, the game was such a blowout.

I understand why it happens, people and the world now being what they are, but I'm still taken aback by how Red Sox fans talk about Alex Bregman. Can people really not be bothered to look up a player's numbers? Can they not understand what the numbers means if they do this? Do they not know how time and age work?

Before the Sox got Bregman last year, during Bregman's one-year stint with the team, and now that he's signed with the Cubs, Red Sox fans have talked about him as though he were Eddie Matthews with a better glove. He gave you 61 RBI last year. I know, modern analytics are what matter! His best days were back in 2018-19. He hasn't come close to being that player since. This will be his age thirty-two season. He's likely going to keep getting hurt.

Red Sox fans appear to be incapable of understanding that, yes, the team is cheap now and mostly unconcerned with producing a legit contender, and also that the Bregman deal was atrocious and the Sox shouldn't have come anywhere near what the Cubs ultimately gave him. Chicago will regret this signing.

I saw one post from a Sox fan praising Bregman's plate discipline, an idea which I thoroughly debunked in these pages last year when talking about his precipitous decline in bases on balls. His walk total rebounded some last year, but it's not great, he doesn't hit the ball hard as often as you'd like, and you were supposed to pay him all that money, for that term, and give him a no-trade clause? That would have been a poor decision. He's not that good.

Is he better than what you got right now at third? Sure. Doesn't mean you get stupid. There's also something that strikes me as self-centered about him, even by baseball player standards. My suspicion is that he's not the glue guy he's touted as. He and his agent--Scott Boras--seemed to use the Sox the whole time. Bregman didn't have better options last winter, he was always going to opt out--as I said here--and the Sox' interest helped land him the deal with Chicago.

The Red Sox did make a signing yesterday, landing Ranger Suarez who'd spent the whole of his career with the Phillies. This guy has been pretty solid by the standards of the day. It's depressing to me when the best pitchers now finish with 12 wins. I want to see 18. Give me a couple guys in the rotation, one who wins 20 and the other at 17, and you are going places. But sure, wins don't matter. They're not why you're there and why you play. It must be "vibes" and WAR, right? My bad.

Suarez has been excellent in the postseason, and not just in one year either. His track record there suggests that the big stage, the big moment, isn't something that fazes him. He's a potentially bigger asset than Bregman would have been. If the Sox added Bo Bichette, they could be on to something for 2026. I'm not enamored of him--he's kind of like Xander Bogaerts--and I don't think he'll have much sustain, so to speak, in terms of stringing out productive years, but he'd be a plus for the near future. The Red Sox seem to be banking on a healthy and productive Trevor Story, which is rather wishful thinking in my view.

The Boston Bruins are surging. They downed the Flames last week, then followed that up by hanging a ten-spot on the Rangers on Saturday, then shut out the Penguins on Sunday, and blanked the Wings on Tuesday. Their best stretch of the season. In the ten-goal game, David Pastrnak had six assists. He's had a very interesting and unlikely career as a scorer. Guys who are goals-first guys will sometimes become more productive on the assist front and their goal and assist totals will get closer together, but you don't see what you have thus far with Pastrnak. He was a shooter first and foremost, and now he's more of a playmaker. Mark Messier scored 50 goals for the only time in his career in the 1981-81 season, while recording 38 assists. He then became a 70 assist type of player. Another unlikely one.

To me, six assists in a game is perhaps more impressive than three goals and three assists. In the latter case, a couple of the assists probably came off rebounds. Six assists in a game is pure playmaking. Wayne Gretzky's high for assists in a game was seven. He did that three times. Mike Bossy also had six assists in a game as a right winger. People don't understand Bossy. What he was as a player becomes lost more with each passing year because you always hear about him as a sniper, a pure goal-scorer. And, again, the associative dictates that you are just one thing, and once that thing is determined, then that thing holds.

Bossy was a marvelous passer. I'm sure there are few people, including hockey historians or what passes these days for a hockey historian/expert who have any clue that Bossy once tallied 83 assists in a season. Not a typo. 83 assists, and as a wing no less. Also scored 64 goals that year. Mike Bossy has a better case for being one of the top fifteen hockey players of all-time than anyone realizes.