Wednesday Patriots Headlines - June 23
TRAINING CAMP COUNTDOWN: 36 days until Patriots training camp.
Sorry for the delay - no internet service again this morning so I had to wait until I had other access to get these up. Thank you Comcast.
Anyway, a limited supply of news on this Wednesday morning, but here are today's headlines.
You can check out a story I added this morning on Julian Edelman, who after looking back at the other players taken in the 7th round last year - it's amazing to see what he accomplished compared to the rest of the class who came out of that round.
Patriots.com reports on the late Mosi Tatupu, who was remembered during a recent comedy event held in his honor. The event sold out and raised over $100,000.
Jeff Howe of NESN.com looks at the Patriots defense and says that rotations will be the key to their success this season.
Mike Reiss of ESPNBoston.com notes an interesting fact as to why the Patriots have one of the older runningback groups in the NFL, and points out that they haven't drafted one since 2007.
The Providence Journal has an article featuring former Patriots Football Weekly writer (and an overall terrific guy) Bryan Morry, who is now the executive director at the Hall at Patriot Place. Morry talks quite a bit about the amazing facility in the article, which if you've never been there is part museum, part technological showplace.
“I don’t think a lot of people realize that it’s an interactive experience,” Morry said. “It’s a place where you can come in and see exhibits on Gino Cappelletti and Bill Parcells and Drew Bledsoe. We have all that. You’re going to see some cool stuff like Tom Brady’s MVP trophy, the Super Bowl trophy, the rings (the Pats gave to their players)."
I happened to come accross an interesting quote from the DailyPress.com from the Steelers Troy Polamalu, who talked about how the team would get along without Ben Roethlisberger. With Roethlisberger likely to miss up to the first six weeks of the season, Polamalu doesn't feel his team will struggle that much.
"Obviously he's been a really big focal point of our team in the last few years, but the thing that the Steelers have built their tradition on is depth and team," said Polamalu. "Our team is not like a New England Patriots or an Indianapolis Colts in the sense that you can take Peyton Manning or Tom Brady away from the team and they would be a completely different team. We've won games without Ben, but I don't think we can win a championship without him – or it would be really tough to win a championship without Ben."
Two terrific reads are Mike Reiss' mailbag, and Erik Scalavino's mailbag. Lots of different topics were addressed, with both Reiss and Scalavino looking at the Logan Mankins' contract standoff and what the team may do about it.
Pete Prisco of CBSSportsline.com goes from hero to zero as he picks the top 50 players in the NFL, and leaves out Wes Welker from the "bottom half" of his list. According to Prisco Welker gets left off his list because Moss (who was listed at 28th) is apparently the reason why Welker had all his success.
As for the end of your Patriot news, we'll post this simply because there's not much else going on. Here are photos of Gisele and Tom, who reportedly were coming out of their son Benjamin's christening yesterday.
OTHER NFL NEWS:
Wondering how the Jets will look on opening day? ESPNNewYork.com's Rich Cimini looks at Rex Ryan's potential opening day roster. I have to say it's almost nice having the rivalry back to where it was back when Bill Parcells started the original border war. Although Ryan does a much better job of making it easier to dislike them.
Speaking of which, the New York Times has an interesting article, saying that "Rex Ryan has a better chance of dropping another 50 pounds by the time the Jets report to training camp six weeks from Sunday than Darrelle Revis has of showing up if he doesn't have a new contract".
The World Anti-Doping Agency is trying to help the NFL beef up their drug tests. According to the article NFL officials traveled to to WADA's headquarters in a high-rise in Montreal last week.
"We've been trying to work as closely as we can with them," WADA director general David Howman told FanHouse on Tuesday. "We want to see them make their anti-doping program as tough as it possibly can be. We have had several fruitful conversations."
Albert Haynesworth apparently is having financial difficulties, which could explain why he's pushing hard for a new contract. According to the Knoxville News Sentinal he's being sued after missing payments on a $2.38 million loan.
Mark this on your calendars: ProFootballTalk.com reports that on Sunday, July 11, the folks at VH1 will be launching a new two-pack of reality TV shows. Ochocinco: The Ultimate Catch debuts at 9:00 p.m. ET, with a 90-minute launch. Season two of The T.O. Show begins at 10:30 p.m. ET. According to the article as of July 18, Ochocinco's show shrinks to 60 minutes, with The T.O. Show moving to 10:00 p.m. ET. I wonder if Bill Belichick would have an issue with one of our guys having a show like either of these.....
We'll leave you with this final note. As pointed out yesterday by John Beattie of NESN.com, there's a movie coming out featuring the late Pat Tillman. The film is called, "The Tillman Story", and will be released Aug. 20, 2010. Here's a video for the trailer below:
That's it for today. We'll have more later on, so be sure to check back later this afternoon for updates.
