Quick Hitters: One of the nicer stories to see this week was about a woman in the Philadelphia area who is a huge Philadelphia Eagles fan needed a kidney transplant. She found a matched donor from the New Haven, CT area who, you guessed it is a life-long Patriots fan.
The woman, Patricia Pizzimenti, recognized the irony of all of it, just after their transplant on March 8 and after meeting her donor, Michael Houlihan made up t-shirts that captured the humanity of the moment and the humor in it all. Well done all around.
Bill Belichick was named to the President's Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition by Donald Trump as was former Yankee great Mariano Rivera, Herschel Walker, Misty May-Treanor, Natalie Gulbis and Dr. Oz.
This is a tradition that has been going on since probably the late 1950s and of course set off quick hot takes that seek to politicize everything between "the Donald" and the Patriots ever since that "MAGA" hat was seen in a locker in Foxboro a couple of years ago. Does this mean that the Yankees have a "Trump Problem" like a well-known media outlet decried about the Patriots? How did Bill react?
Belichick's statement attempted to depoliticize this but, I guarantee this will be raised in his next press conference, not as an honor but about his political connection with #45.
Robert Kraft was courtside at the Celtics Game 2 against the 76ers with recently freed rapper Meek Mill, and Gucci Mane (Mane is a C's Fan and a friend of Jaylen Brown) and the three were seen having an animated discussion. Chalk that one up to something you would have never dreamed as a possible scenario a few months ago.
After hearing ad nauseum the latest daily dose of the "tension in the Patriots" between the coach and two of his star players as everyone becomes an amateur profiler from watching "Criminal Minds" and are psychoanalyzing Gronk's tweets, and Brady's body language and piecing together the subliminal messages that may have passed between all three…please.
Is there tension in Foxboro? You betcha there is. Is it new or anything more so than they've ever had before? No. So why is there so much tension there?
It is called a culture of winning. Bill Belichick knows and has witnessed, in his 35+ years in the NFL, the first thing that will destroy a great football team is being self-satisfied and complacent. The "we're the best" and we've earned it" smug attitude will get a team knocked off their perch faster than a speeding bullet.
And this isn't anything new or unique, as I pointed out in a recent Patriots 4th and 2 podcast, while I was never a professional athlete, I spent more than a dozen years as a Green Beret in the U.S. Army Special Forces. If there is a bigger testosterone-driven, Type A personality atmosphere bigger than a professional sports team, that is it.
After everything we did, we'd do an After-Action Review, (Hot washes, we'd call them) and they were very critical of every minutia of the operation. If you had a thin skin, you wouldn't last long. There was tension every day. That is what made us so close to one another. It is also what made the unit so great.
So, how does Belichick stop the Patriots from falling into this trap, and has succeeded far beyond any of his contemporaries? He doesn't allow any complacency or self-satisfaction. As Brady said in the Jim Gray interview, if anyone bothered to watch the entire thing, besides the "I PLEAD THE FIFTH," comment, Brady explained how Belichick would constantly harp in film studies on the things the team did wrong to keep them sharp, even during an 18-0 run during the 2007 season.
Brady did a pretty good Belichick impression and then followed it up with saying, "Humble pie was served," adding "it was a very grounding force for all of us." And this isn't anything new, the Patriots and Belichick have always been known as the never satisfied bunch because Belichick is always working on keeping the players moving forward.
Because once a player or a team is satisfied, they stop growing and will start losing. Is it a difficult environment to play in, feeling like you're constantly on the cusp of being cut and having to prove yourself day after day. Of course, it is. Do players, even great ones like Brady and Gronkowski chafe at that treatment? No doubt. But while they'll chafe at it, they know, they won't reach their full potential without it.
The Patriots have won at least 10 games for 15 years in a row. No one else in this era can come close to touching that. Russ Goldman, our host of the "4th and 2" podcast did a soccer show recently where he interviewed one of the top goaltenders of the English premier league, Asmir Begovic who won a championship and is coincidentally a die-hard Patriots fan. He asked Begovic if he's had tension in a locker room in the EPL (English Premier League) and he laughed. He told him every day there is tension and it comes from trying to win championships.
Hopefully, Russ will schedule Begovic on our podcast again soon and we can revisit that conversation for our listeners. Much rather do that than to respond to quotes from the ultracrepidarianism that seem to be rampant on certain sports talk radio shows.
The Falcons have given QB Matt Ryan a mammoth five-year, $100 million dollar deal with $94.5 million of it fully guaranteed. The other $5.5million is guaranteed for injury only. Ryan's contract will pay him $30 million dollars this season. He is now the highest paid QB in the NFL. For comparison purposes, Tom Brady will make $20.5 million in 2018.
Ryan has always been a good but not great quarterback in his 10-year NFL career since coming out of Boston College. That changed in 2016 when he had a career year and led the Falcons to the Super Bowl where they narrowly lost to the Patriots in the first overtime game in NFL history.
But it is telling on how hard it is to find…and keep franchise QBs in the league. Of the top five paid NFL QBs in 2018, (Ryan, Kirk Cousins, Jimmy Garoppolo, Matthew Stafford and Derek Carr) only Ryan has a playoff win (4-6 career record in the postseason). Carr and Garoppolo have yet to appear in the postseason and the other two are 0-4.
More than a few eyebrows were raised this week when the Patriots declined their fifth-year options on defensive tackles, Danny Shelton, Malcolm Brown, and Phillip Dorsett.
On the Wednesday deadline, the Patriots are betting on the market for the defensive tackles being less than the $7.1 million that would be their financial boon in the final year of their rookie deals. And call it what it is. This is a financial decision, not one based on performance.
Brown has been generally good for the Patriots on the field and Shelton hasn't played a down yet. The team still has the option of signing one or both with extensions during the regular season. Dorsett, on the other hand, is more of an open and shut case. He's hardly a lock for even making the roster at this point with a crowded field during the upcoming training camp. Dorsett had trouble getting in tune with Tom Brady and the offense in 2017. He had only 12 catches on the season.
Reps are going to be hard to come by in the Patriots offense next season. With Julian Edelman and Malcolm Mitchell back, Chris Hogan healthy, and Rob Gronkowski back in the fold, reps will be earned. My player to watch is Jordan Matthews for the wide receivers, but we shall see who earns the looks this summer.
Right now, on paper, the Patriots have a ton of depth at tackle. Tackles like cornerbacks is something you can never have too many of. But when the OTAs and minicamp begins, don't expect to hear of too many of them being on the field.
Although Tony Garcia was supposedly given a clean bill of health after his blood clot issues in his lungs, expect the Patriots to be particularly cautious with him in the spring and allow him to acclimate back into playing shape.
Ditto for top draft pick Isaiah Wynn and Trent Brown who the team recently drafted in the 1st round and then traded for soon after. Both had shoulder surgery in the winter and while they both claim to be healthy, the team will probably take things slow with both. And Marcus Cannon, the team's starting right tackle from 2017?
He was placed on IR due to a foot/ankle injury late last season and isn't expected to be ready until June, which probably puts everything thru the team's minicamp out of the question.
The first time we'll probably see all of these players on the field at the same time will be training camp. That will give them time to carve out roles for themselves. But at the same time, the other players on the roster, who will be fighting for reps/roster spots will get a leg up on the competition.
The Buffalo Bills have made a solid hire with the signing of Dan Morgan who will head up Buffalo's scouting department. Morgan was an All-Pro linebacker for the Carolina Panthers during his seven-year playing career.
He became a scouting intern for the Seattle Seahawks and worked his way up through the ranks as a pro scout and was eventually promoted to Assistant Director of Pro Personnel in 2013, and the Director of Pro Personnel in 2015.
He takes the place of Brian Gaine who left to become the Houston Texans General Manager. Bills GM Brandon Beane spoke to the media about Morgan and believes he is prepared for the job.
The Miami Dolphins didn't wait long to snag QB Bryce Petty after he was released by the New York Jets. Petty was without a team less than 24 hours when he was scooped up by Miami.
Petty has started in seven career games while with the Jets going 1-6 and completing just 53 percent of his passes. With Ryan Tannehill expected to be fully healthy this summer after missing all of 2017, Petty will be battling Brock Osweiler and David Fales for backup QB duties.
The New York Jets head coach Todd Bowles is usually a quiet, presence on the podium during the Jets press conferences. After Sam Darnold's first rookie practice on the Jets, the media rushed to ask Bowles his first impressions of the Jets rookie QB.
That cracked up the media members who have to ask these questions but it also diffused the questions for a bit…at least. As Bowles was saying, Darnold has a long way to go to learn the Jets offense and it is going to take time. But they won't hold him back, they want him to progress at his own rate.
Darnold said all the right things, calling himself a naive rookie just trying to fit in, but in truth he's anything but. Expectations are thru the roof with him, whether he wants it or is ready. The team will have patience but Darnold knows all eyes will be on him all summer.
For now, Josh McCown is the starter and Darnold, Teddy Bridgewater and Christian Hackenberg will be all in the mix, but once he's deemed ready, the job will be his to lose. Jets fans, hungry for a franchise QB since the days of Joe Namath, are expecting much, much more.
This entry was posted in 2018 Patriots Offseason, NFL Commentary, NFL News, Patriots Commentary, Patriots News and tagged 2018 Free Agency, 2018 NFL Draft, 2018 Patriots Draft, 2018 Patriots Free Agency, 2018 Patriots offseason, Bill Belichick, Buffalo Bills, Chris Hogan, Dont'a Hightower, Isaiah Wynn, Julian Edelman, Marcus Cannon, Miami Dolphins, New England Patriots, New York Jets, NFL, Patriots, Patriots tackles, Rob Gronkowski, Tom Brady, Tony Garcia, Trent Brown on May 6, 2018 by Steve Balestrieri.