Idle thoughts - the reality edition

[bbobbo]

He turned in and took FLowers' guy off-balance - that's why the guy was complaining at the end of the play.

Umm.. You see that guy driving #70 of the Panthers back into the #67 of the Panthers? That was Johnson. Because of that, it knocked #67 off balance enough to help Flowers shed his block so he could get to Newton. Your video shows that..

Yup, very heady play by Johnson that allowed his teammate to make the play. I'm sure BB didn't miss that.

thanks for the responses, it's fun to dissect these plays.

i kept looking at that frame-by-frame to try to see what johnson did. while johnson was there and does bump into kalil (#67), i think flowers did most of the work shedding the block.

(click on images to get the full size):

you can see that here that he has a hold of kalil's jersey with his left hand:

he pulls kalil forward and off balance:

then throws him to the side and goes past him:

 

[rochrist]

In the old, old days, you got insightful and objective coverage and analysis locally at least, of all the pro teams. That started to sink in the 80's. That risk you refer to is everywhere now. PFW is helpful, and so is Quick Slants. All Access can be fun...but that's about it...viewers are treated like utter, mindless morons.

Objective coverage? In the old days we had Will McDonough and Kevin Mannix, the absolute kings of running an agenda. If you didn't kiss the rings it was total war. They would anything they could to run you out of town.

 

[oldrover]

Objective coverage? In the old days we had Will McDonough and Kevin Mannix, the absolute kings of running an agenda. If you didn't kiss the rings it was total war. They would anything they could to run you out of town.

Very true... as a teenager, I subscribed to this...

It was like a tropical oasis of information delivered into a desert of Boston football scribe hackery.

 

[Deus Irae]

Objective coverage? In the old days we had Will McDonough and Kevin Mannix, the absolute kings of running an agenda. If you didn't kiss the rings it was total war. They would anything they could to run you out of town.

The "good old days" of objective media never existed, but people forget that in the fog of time.

 

[PScottman]

The "good old days" of objective media never existed, but people forget that in the fog of time.

I think I would caveat it to the lesser proliferation of information allowed us to both be oblivious to it more (ex. if you were a Herald sports page person you'd never read McDonough or Mannix) and on the tv the patriots were so bad most of the time that we got the dregs of announcing which were mainly guys trying to be technically correct to build themselves up the ladder and didn't have the clout to go "agenda" with their coverage.

 

[Actual Pats Fan]

Objective coverage? In the old days we had Will McDonough and Kevin Mannix, the absolute kings of running an agenda. If you didn't kiss the rings it was total war. They would anything they could to run you out of town.

I guess, but Willie didn't mince words when it came to acknowledging the Pats had the best team in football in '76, no matter how much he hated Billy Sullivan...

 

[Actual Pats Fan]

I think I would caveat it to the lesser proliferation of information allowed us to both be oblivious to it more (ex. if you were a Herald sports page person you'd never read McDonough or Mannix) and on the tv the patriots were so bad most of the time that we got the dregs of announcing which were mainly guys trying to be technically correct to build themselves up the ladder and didn't have the clout to go "agenda" with their coverage.

Besides those guys, there were Ryan, Fitzgerald, Whiteside, Visser, Montville, even Collins...they weren't so bad.

On TV, of course it was never perfect, but information got broadcast without insane declarations.

Pats records halfway through the seasons:

1974 6-1
1975 2-5
1976 5-2*
1977 5-2
1978 6-2*
1979 6-2
1980 6-2
1981 2-6
1982 5-4*
1983 4-4 #
1984 5-3
1985 5-3*#
1986 5-3*#
1987 4-4
1988 3-5 #


*playoffs
#lost last game of season with Eason starting when a win would have clinched or continued playoffs

2 seasons out of 15 with a losing record at midseason and no chance to make playoffs at the end

 

[Actual Pats Fan]

The "good old days" of objective media never existed, but people forget that in the fog of time.

I never said "good", but how about tolerable, non-nausea-inducing, at least partially informative, immeasurably better than today...

 

[mosey threetupu]

Hart and Perillo wearing identical outfits, the Bob's Furniture cartoons on the wall in somebody's Mom's basement, and the faux leather barcaloungers remind me of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Only difference is the MST 3000 robots make more sense.

View attachment 13894

New episodes coming to Netflix- Mystery Science Theater 3000 Is Back - My SDCC Interview With The New Cast And The Same Old Joel - Bleeding Cool Comic Book, Movie, TV News

 

[PScottman]

9-7

Pats records halfway through the seasons
2 seasons out of 15 with a losing record at midseason and no chance to make playoffs at the end

Did you leave out the last two years of the eighties and most of the 90s on purpose?

1989 5-11
1990 1-15
1991 6-10
1992 2-14
1993 5-11
1994 10-6 (the trend goes from consistently bad to up-down good then bad)
1995 6-10
1996 11-5
1997 10-6
1998 9-7
1999 8-8
2000 5-11

I think everyone knows the rest. They were pretty bad or average at best for a good stretch of the nineties - eight of ten years (as were some of their AFC East brethren) so even when they were good, they many times got the Solomon Wilcotts and Verne Lundquists (okay on golf and NCAA basketball, not on football) of the world because their opponents stunk instead.

Compare to today where you can likely count on them drawing the top announcing team for at least a third of their games if not more like half. National coverage 24/7 because of crap like Spygate and people with no earthly clue about how gas reacts as it cools within a football and much like the Cowboys of the nineties everyone loves to try and take down the top of the pinnacle. Piling on is the standard.

 

[Actual Pats Fan]

9-7

Did you leave out the last two years of the eighties and most of the 90s on purpose?

1989 5-11
1990 1-15
1991 6-10
1992 2-14
1993 5-11
1994 10-6 (the trend goes from consistently bad to up-down good then bad)
1995 6-10
1996 11-5
1997 10-6
1998 9-7
1999 8-8
2000 5-11

I think everyone knows the rest. They were pretty bad or average at best for a good stretch of the nineties - eight of ten years (as were some of their AFC East brethren) so even when they were good, they many times got the Solomon Wilcotts and Verne Lundquists (okay on golf and NCAA basketball, not on football) of the world because their opponents stunk instead.

Compare to today where you can likely count on them drawing the top announcing team for at least a third of their games if not more like half. National coverage 24/7 because of crap like Spygate and people with no earthly clue about how gas reacts as it cools within a football and much like the Cowboys of the nineties everyone loves to try and take down the top of the pinnacle. Piling on is the standard.

1994 looks like an interruption; the "trend" seems to begin in '96.

We were discussing the quality of local TV coverage, and reference was made to N.E. being "so bad most of the time" when they were in fact mostly competitive...the network's selection of announcers, and schedules, certainly was influenced by a team's records, but mostly reputation and geography. I remember early season games this century, including the first game in 2008 when Tom got hurt, coming off an undefeated regular season and close SB loss, when the announcers were less than first string.

The four (4) seasons leading up to Orthwein's (and Kraft's) image makeover were marked by on-field struggles as several reliable veterans retired (but nothing worse than similar cycles experienced by the Steelers, Cowboys and 49ers, to name a few), and instability and uncertainty in ownership and the future.

The subsequent eight years before Brady took over included four seasons with a winning record and playoff berth, two of which had playoff wins.

By comparison, the Red Sox from 1968-1985 were mostly competitive, despite making the postseason only once.

 

[Actual Pats Fan]

And there you outline the ultimate problem with "sacks". One guy gets the credit, when often times, others are key in getting to the QB. THAT is the problem with stats so often. Football is the ultimate team game. A game where so much of an individual's success is dependant on his teammate's efforts.

Historically all this goes back to TV and the 80's. It was the time when the media started marketing team games by highlighting INDIVIDUALS. So it was no longer the Celtics vs the Lakers, but rather Magic vs Bird. It worked so well it carried over into football. So it was no longer the Colts vs Pats, but Brady vs Manning. Now PFF individualize every play when it is really impossible to do so because so much of a player's responsibilities are interdependent on others.

This could be just ANOTHER reason BB has built such a dynasty of relative success here, because they work so hard on TEAM BUILDING, starting from #53, and physical talent isn't the only quality they are looking for. BB pays a lot more than lip service to the concept of team building, because he understands how important "the team" is to winning.

.....and it seems I am ranting again.

Russell vs. Wilt was a precursor.