Re: Another data point on Brady's rehab
Yeah, I heard Curran say on WEEI that he said it was extremely doubtful he would be ready for the start of the season, that he definitely would not be ready for the start of camp, and more likely than not start the year on the PUP. He pretty much guaranteed that Brady wouldn't be the opening game starter. He did never claim that Brady would miss the season, but pretty much guaranteed he wouldn't play the full 16 game season. As he went on he got more and more adament about those points.
I think Curran really hung his neck out there. He did what no journalist should do, he let his emotions and pride get in the way of him reporting the story. After conflicting reports came out, rather than accept the possibility that he might have gotten bad information he decided to claim the world didn't know what they are talking about and he knew better than everyone else. I lost a lot of respect for the guy.
I was always a bit skeptical about Curran's report, but now I think he was fed a load of horsecrap and he is too stubborn to admit he is wrong. It has been over a month since Curran reported this and not one reporter has been able to find a single source to coorborate the prognosis that Curran was given. If there was some significant truth to what Curran had, someone would be getting similiar information. Even when the Colts tried to hide Manning's infection and second surgery, there were multiple sources reporting that he had an infection and a second surgery. And that was within a week or two of the surgery. We are going on five weeks now.
I think you're being a bit rough on Curran, as well as approaching the situation with a curious idea of how news media should operate.
The first thing we have to remember is how little the media get from the Pats both in terms of public announcements as well as "background" and off-the-record chatter. In most cases, when a star player is coming off injury, reporters have a steady barrage of noise coming from the franchise's front office, coaches, media relations, and even the ownership, tell them how well the players' recovery is going, how he's way ahead of schedule, and how it would be a big surprise if he wasn't ready for game #1, etc.
It's gotten to the point where the absence of this constant reassurance usually is a pretty good indicator that something is really wrong. Of course, for the Pats, it's just an indication that Bill Belichick has not resigned as the HC of the NEP. We can expect a greater deal of hysteria and doom-saying from most of the media than usual, though. Goes with the territory.
Curran, of course, would know better. But there's another side-effect to the Pats' handling of the media -- when a good reporter gets information from a usually reliable source, he knows that no one from the team will officially comment on it. In the silence BB's media policy creates, the noise of the few sources willing to talk reverberate louder. Curran has no choice but to go with his source, in hopes that it will prompt someone else to speak out either to corroborate or to contradict the first one.
And lo', that's exactly what happened -- someone gave Peter King a conflicting account. See, now we're getting somewhere -- maybe we're no closer to knowing the truth, but at least we've got some people talking, and that's an essential first step.
So what's Curran to do next? He can't be expected to back off the story his source gave him, not based on something someone said to another reporter. That makes no sense, and furthermore, it does nothing to further develop the story. Rather, Curran has to stick to his guns, press his source for more details, while King does the same with his source, hopefully forcing one or both to offer something yet more elucidating about Tom's knee.
That's just how the process works. There's no reason to take is personally just because we have an emotional stake in the situation.
