The dinner was awsome.
Good Food, small cozy setting in one of the luxary suites(one of the new ones added on), Bill was extremely entertaining, and we got an encore from Tippett.
Kirsch was also there too. It was cool to talk to him and I even joked with him how the media is getting so bad we have to turn to him (writes for the patriot run Patriot Football weekly and Patriots.com) for unbiased news and also the NFL network rather than ESPN or the Herald who are supposed be objective....He laughed.
Everyone got a chance to go up to Bill individually and get an autograph. I had him sign my SB 36 ticket. I asked him if he was going to the Celts tonite? He said he wasn't. Than I told him how excited about this upcoming season I was. He than said something like enjoy the Celts(enjoy present don't rush to future) and I was like I will but it is football 365 days a year and he laughed.
I took a picture with him and than he signed for the rest of the Fam and than we took a family picture.
I must say I was a little aw struck speaking to him. (and we did this last year too so it wasn't the first time)
They then served the food as the rest of the group went up.(about 40 people total) I had a filet mignon, those executive chefs at gillette are pretty good.
Than Kirsch introduced Bill and Bill spoke for 15-20 min and opened up to question and answer.
He was talking about how special it is to be A boston sports fan these days. Noting when he got here the Pats were in decline, the sox hadn't won in forever and the Celts in a long time. Now Sox won, Pats have been successful and the Celts now too.
He then went into a story about his trips to the Gahdan this year. Saying all the fans greeted him nicely. Talking about how they put his pic on the jumbotron to get a rise out of the crowd. He was saying that Flip Saunders came up to him in the fourth and said "Bill your killing us, everytime we get some momentum going they put your face up on the board and the crowd goes crazy and we lose some energy." and Bill said that that was his little tiny contribution. It was a pretty funny story.
He told another funny story which was prombted by the Question what was the funniest moment you've had on the field during a game.
Bill with uncanny recall went back to an 84 preseason game when he was the STs coach for the giants. He said they had a Kicker who was a roookie the year before and who had set rookie records for FG in year so they knew who their kicker was going to be but he had tweaked a muscle just before the final preseason game. So they decided not to kick him as a precaution. So they used the other guy. Well the game was close and they were down 2 points and got the ball back with minutes left. Drove into field goal range and had a chance to take the lead. The Steelers called a time out to ice the kicker and Parcells saw the kicker coming over to talk to BB and Parcells yelled over to BB saying what the hell is the kicker doing there is nothing to talk about no strategy we are down 2 we are kicking. BB had to talk to the kicker despite Parells confusion as to what they needed to talk about. Well turns out as you all know Parcells is very superstitous and the kicker came over to talk to BB about the fact that Parcells had always had him kick at the other goal posts and he never had kicked thru this one.
BB is laughing as he tells the story to.
So BB had to think quick of something to calm him down and came up with this.
He told the kicker there was a reason they always used the other one. He told him the one they always kicked into was 6 inches narower than the one they were kicking to know. He said the kicker looked at one post than the other and agreed and excitedly ran out and wound up kicking it thru.
Parcells asked BB what that was all about and BB just shruged it off.
But did joke that the kicker was than cut the next day.
He was really funny last night....he had another funny story too but it slips my mind right now. If I think of it I post it later.
My question to BB was....Can you call a play out as it would be called into Brady and than translate it for us. It was pretty cool to hear him call out the plays...He called a run play 34 toss power and broke it down 3 back to the 4 hole, its a toss, and the blocking scheme is power(there was a little more to it than just that but that was the jist of the run play). Than he broke down a pass play which was way more complicated and i won't attempt to try and write what he said as I will mess it up.
one story from Tippett.
I asked him what the biggest hit he remembers from his career?
And he said is was VS. the Jets ( It seemed like the playoff game in 86 but could have been regular season).
he said he got a free shot on Kenny Obrien the QB and he remembers it being a really nice hit and it had knocked the QB out of the game. He went on to say he didn't find out how bad it was till the Pro Bowl when he had gone out to eat with one of the Jets and the player was telling him how he had messed up their QB. Turns out the O'Brien was on the sidelines and they were going thru the plays and O'brien didn't get one play right...turns out he was calling plays from high school.
He hit the QB so hard he knocked him back to High School.
The cool thing about getting Tipp's autograph.......He know gets to sign HOF.
Such a fun night...I suggest anyone who is in the Pats extra points Visa reward program do this event.
Great job SBB - I was also there.
it is 30,000 points for two.
A few things I recall......
1) Kirsch said if we enjoyed the BB play breakdown - the new Patriots Hall of fame will contain many BB breakdowns as well as a ton of great other stuff.
2) Tippett also mentioned taking all the rookies to the Canton Hall of Fame as they want to impress upon the rooks the magnitude of the game and why they should conduct themselves with class. He also suggested any fan of the NFL, MUST go there.
3) Tippet also told an awesome story about he 1985 AFC Championship game pre - game press conference. He was sitting just off Camera awaiting his interview, he said he made a fist and motioned to a young Dan Marino as Dan was giving his interview. He said he scowled and growled at him and just tried to intimidate him and make him really nervous. He said the press agent that was with him asked him to please not do that saying "Tip" this is just an interview, your scaring him. Tip said to the guy" come on man, thats my game and I mean it - I want him, badly". He said he knew he was getting to Dan and loved every second of it. He went on to say how great that game was and that entire playoff run to go into hostile stadiums and quiet the opposing crowd. He then sadly said no one was beating that Bear team that year, they were just that good.
4) BB signed two family pictures of mine that showed post game SB celebrations, the first was me & my three sons smoking some large victory stogies and the 2nd was my family of five after SB 39 running into a group of our cousins & uncles. I explained that we did not even realize we were all there and just ran into each other and he thought that was cool and actually said how ironic it must have been to just run into them as you exited the game.
5) BB was asked about improvements for the upcoming year and he said Red Zone. He was very disappointed over how the team did in that area and said much of this years preparation was to improve. He said he needs to do a much better job coaching that phase of the game for sure.
6) BB went on to explain how much preparation goes into a week of practice. He noted that the only way a team can get better is in practice. He said baseball and basketball play every day or every other day and they get better while playing. In the NFL, playing only 16 games, no way can a team improve. It must happen in practice. He said right now the 2008 team has a very very long way to go, they are starting at the bottom and building it up brick by brick, practice by practice. He said they have had about 15 so far with mini camp coming up, then a little break and training camp starts.
That's all that comes to mind at the moment...more later.
