Jests Name Mo Lewis as Honorary Captain on Sunday

[RelocatedPatFan]

I think that there are a lot of younger Patriot fans (post 2000) who really don't appreciate how good a QB Drew Bledsoe was during his stay in NE. Unfortunately for him he lost his job to the guy who turned out to be the GOAT. No one would fair well when you are being directly compared to the Tom Brady.

Bledsoe was what he was.

1. He was a VERY good QB relative to his peers. He made the pro-bowl several times as well as the playoffs once the team was worthy.

2. He was a super tough football player. He might not have been toughER than Steve Grogan, but he was just as tough. He put up some great stats with some pretty bad OL's, getting the crap beat out hm.

3. He played on some pretty good Pats teams in the 90's all of whom were fatally flawed by a lack of depth and subject to injuries. I think we all understand much better now how important the role of depth and the bottom third of the roster actually is, now that we've been trained so well by BB

4. On the downside, he wasn't the QB to run THIS particular offense for this particular HC. He belonged in an offense like Dallas had at the time of perhaps what the Ravens ran when they were a team that was relevant.

5. While he wasn't lazy or didn't work hard, he wasn't the maniacally driven guy like Brady and BB. He never was the guy who would take that last step to maximize his potential.

BOTTOM LINE - Drew Bledsoe was a very good QB who at this point in time is the 2nd best QB who the Pats ever had. He should be respected as such.

Well said PFK.

As someone who has been (assumed by others) to be anti-Bledsoe because of my poorly worded comment/reaction to the naming of Mo Lewis as captain, I'd like to follow-up.

For us long time fans (and I can really only go back to the late 70's/early 80's), those Patriots had some great talent, great teams, but rarely both at the same time.

Parcells being hired as coach and making the right call of Drew Bledsoe over Rick Mirer really helped turn the franchise around (from perennial losers to playoff contending teams) and really was the conrnerstone of Kraft turning this team around. He gave us some epic games, showed great toughness (recall the game he played through with a broken index finger) and the time he and Marino both combined for what seemed like 400 yards passing each.

So, just because I cheer Brady's ascendance to the starting QB, doesn't mean I don't appreciate everything Bledsoe did for the team. He's a great Patriot player, belongs in the Patriot HoF and while you never got the sense that he was a football "lifer", he gave us everything he had when he played. Bledsoe (with Kraft) helped instill a winning attitude in the fanbase as gave me (us?) hope that we could more than compete every Sunday.

 

[TheBostonStraggler]

over time, with the jets organization, everything has more often been about"incompetence or stupidity.". In this case I think you can take your pick. Seriously, this is like taunting the lion in his cage before you go in to feed it. If they just wanted to honor a good player from their past, there were seven other home games this year, weren't there?

PF74, I agree it is, or possible there is, deliberate intent to make him honorary captain given his historical connection to the Patriots dynasty. It is probable.
But this isn't honoring Zeke Mowatt or Lisa Olsen or Scummy Wells or Ratgini or anything even a scintilla in that approximate direction. I just don't see any BFD here in what the Jets have done...

 

[PatsFanSince74]

And?? They aren't honoring him with a ceremony.. He is just a captain which is not unusual..

Is there anybody left from either team besides TB and BB that was involved in that game??

I don't get the correlation as some sort of snub to the Pats..

First of all, I never said it was a "snub." I just said it was dumb and potentially provocative. And I still do...why remind your opponents of the day one of your players nearly killed an important player on their team...even if it did end up OK for the Pats (and Drew) in the long run? It just seems like a bad idea to me, but it's a free country and you can disagree.

Otherwise "Are you kidding me?" A "snub" is in the mind of the beholder and Belichick has made an art of turning almost anything into a snub and locker room fodder. Heck, he can turn the shade of orange of the Gatorade Coolers on the Pats sideline into a snub.

 

[SunshineSammy]

Pats fans see honoring the guy that knocked out Drew and started the Brady era some sort of trolling.

Hate to admit it but I agree with you. Given the comedy trolling and baiting of the Ryan era, this doesn't even rise to the level of being worthy of a blurb on a third rate football website that's server is hosted in the basement of some stoner guy's mom's house.

I just don't see Boles as that type of guy..

It's not like the game is in NE.. then maybe, just maybe might think there is something to it.. But even then it makes no sense..

I just think that fans buttons are too easy to push..

If it were Ryan he would have TyRee as captain..

 

[PatsFanSince74]

PF74, I agree it is, or possible there is, deliberate intent to make him honorary captain given his historical connection to the Patriots dynasty. It is probable.
But this isn't honoring Zeke Mowatt or Lisa Olsen or Scummy Wells or Ratgini or anything even a scintilla in that approximate direction. I just don't see any BFD here in what the Jets have done...

Agreed. It's not a BFD. It's just dumb...in other words, BAU for the Jets...but if you don't think Belichick won't work it in to his pregame motivation talks, I don't think we've been watching the same team for the last 15 years...

 

[PatsFanSince74]

I just don't see Boles as that type of guy..

It's not like the game is in NE.. then maybe, just maybe might think there is something to it.. But even then it makes no sense..

I just think that fans buttons are too easy to push..

If it were Ryan he would have TyRee as captain..

Agree on Bowles. I live in NYC and have followed him closely all year and have been impressed by him. So, while he would have to have approved it, I also think we have to remember that the J-E-T-S is still a dumb organization, so I suspect the idea came from somewhere "upstairs" that hasn't been cleaned out yet and Bowles probably didn't give it a second thought or just decided it wasn't a battle he wanted to fight.

And, this didn't push any of my buttons...I just think it's dumb to poke a lion in its cage before you have to go in and deal with it. This isn't a "snub" and it isn't a big deal, but it is dumb...and it's the kind of thing that Belichick knows how to exploit with his players.

Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

 

[strngplyr]

Bledsoe and Brady should walk out for the cointoss to greet Lewis.

 

[JarOfMayo51]

On the one hand, it is pretty sleazy to name a guy as captain whose most well known accomplishment is injuring another player.

On the other hand, that hit was probably one of the best things that ever happened to any franchise in the history of sports, so (as others have pointed out) if anything, he should be our honorary captain.

Exactly this...

I think them doing this is pretty disrespectful because its essentially celebrating a guy that almost killed another QB. I also think it can be taken as a subtle threat/intimidation factor towards Brady and the Patriots for this upcoming game. I'm sure any Jets player that successfully takes Brady out and ruins the Patriots post season run would be given a key to the city and celebrated as a hero.

TL;DR
F*** the Jets

 

[TheBostonStraggler]

I think that there are a lot of younger Patriot fans (post 2000) who really don't appreciate how good a QB Drew Bledsoe was during his stay in NE. Unfortunately for him he lost his job to the guy who turned out to be the GOAT. No one would fair well when you are being directly compared to the Tom Brady.

Bledsoe was what he was.

1. He was a VERY good QB relative to his peers. He made the pro-bowl several times as well as the playoffs once the team was worthy.

2. He was a super tough football player. He might not have been toughER than Steve Grogan, but he was just as tough. He put up some great stats with some pretty bad OL's, getting the crap beat out hm.

3. He played on some pretty good Pats teams in the 90's all of whom were fatally flawed by a lack of depth and subject to injuries. I think we all understand much better now how important the role of depth and the bottom third of the roster actually is, now that we've been trained so well by BB

4. On the downside, he wasn't the QB to run THIS particular offense for this particular HC. He belonged in an offense like Dallas had at the time of perhaps what the Ravens ran when they were a team that was relevant.

5. While he wasn't lazy or didn't work hard, he wasn't the maniacally driven guy like Brady and BB. He never was the guy who would take that last step to maximize his potential.

BOTTOM LINE - Drew Bledsoe was a very good QB who at this point in time is the 2nd best QB who the Pats ever had. He should be respected as such.

I'm more old than young......just old enough to have recollection of 'Goodbye Chuckie' so take it FWIW.
((shout out and big deference to brother Joker for being the godfather of Patriot Fans on this board))

Appreciate Bledsoe? Absolutely. Anyone that doesn't appreciate Bledsoe is either too young to know (which if too young to know it is completely understandable) or too entitled by BB/TB to understand what it means to be the team that needed luck just to rise to the level of an 'also ran'. The Patriots sucked the big one pretty badly for a handful of years. I mean there were two seasons they were far worse than what Miami is right now. Taxing my memory a bit but I think it was Rust and McPherson who put back to back seasons together of 2 total wins. A 2 and 30 record over 2 seasons. ((or was it three seasons with 4 win season sandwiched in? anyone who remembers better more precisely feel free to correct)). My friend who was a stinkin Raiders fan would get to say stuff like 'hey, we got Plunkett and Haynes from ya - but we gave you Marc Wilson, right?" (I should seek him out and play the tuck game for him again just for having that memory ).
I 'straggled' from the Boston area late 80s (to Cali). This was when the Internet was essentially barely more than POTS lines connecting a few gov and tech company minimal networks, and convenient affordable satellite TV did not exist (though you could buy a satellite dish the size of a car, move it around to point to the different satellites and get games. I think it was referred to as the K Band). You had to go through a lot to watch a game, a game with a team that makes the lets of the last few years look like the BB Patriots.
Thanks to Bledsoe some good football/potent offense was brought to us starving fans (can't ever forget the huge Minn comeback). Him, Parcells and Kraft were most of the key parts to returning the team to respectability and competitive entertaining football watching on Sunday. In effect those three guys raised the dead hull of the Patriots ship that was sitting at the bottom of the sea to the surface (BB and TB eventually made it into a Sultan of Brunei worthy Yacht).

In the history of the NFL there have been very few Brady caliber QBs. Because Bledsoe wasn't Brady's equal is no shame on Bledsoe. He was better than most and all things considered we were starkly lucky to have him. With that said I agree with another poster who commented that his wife then him started to realize: Bledsoe was missing an intangible(s). Drew just didn't have the command-poise in the way that Brady had so much of it was coming out his ears. While I think we would have definitely been successful and even probably won a SB with Drew, it just definitely was not going to be the kind of success we have had with TB. No disrespect at all of what Bledsoe did bring to the table, just the way it was.

 

[BTTA]

Exactly this...
I think them doing this is pretty disrespectful because its essentially celebrating a guy that almost killed another QB. I also think it can be taken as a subtle threat/intimidation factor towards Brady and the Patriots for this upcoming game. I'm sure any Jets player that successfully takes Brady out and ruins the Patriots post season run would be given a key to the city and celebrated as a hero.
TL;DR
F*** the Jets

Yes, and this as well.

So posters are seriously suggesting that it is just coincidence that the Jets are honoring this particular player in a home game against the Patriots? The odds against that happening by chance are pretty enormous.

And while Bowles may in fact be a good coach, no evidence has been offered here that the management philosophy of the Jets has been turned on its head so that the coach is the one who initiates and/or controls this type of decision.

 

[Gwedd]

Whenever Brady gets inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame, he ought to have Mo Lewis introduce him.

 

[1960Pats]

I think that there are a lot of younger Patriot fans (post 2000) who really don't appreciate how good a QB Drew Bledsoe was during his stay in NE. Unfortunately for him he lost his job to the guy who turned out to be the GOAT. No one would fair well when you are being directly compared to the Tom Brady.

Bledsoe was what he was.

1. He was a VERY good QB relative to his peers. He made the pro-bowl several times as well as the playoffs once the team was worthy.

2. He was a super tough football player. He might not have been toughER than Steve Grogan, but he was just as tough. He put up some great stats with some pretty bad OL's, getting the crap beat out hm.

3. He played on some pretty good Pats teams in the 90's all of whom were fatally flawed by a lack of depth and subject to injuries. I think we all understand much better now how important the role of depth and the bottom third of the roster actually is, now that we've been trained so well by BB

4. On the downside, he wasn't the QB to run THIS particular offense for this particular HC. He belonged in an offense like Dallas had at the time of perhaps what the Ravens ran when they were a team that was relevant.

5. While he wasn't lazy or didn't work hard, he wasn't the maniacally driven guy like Brady and BB. He never was the guy who would take that last step to maximize his potential.

BOTTOM LINE - Drew Bledsoe was a very good QB who at this point in time is the 2nd best QB who the Pats ever had. He should be respected as such.

I think the difference between #1 Brady and #2 Bledsoe is, in general, as great as the difference between #2 Bledsoe and #3 Grogan as well as between #3 Grogan and #4 Parilli, and all of them deserve our utmost respect. What separates TB12 is his ability to pass without forcing the ball and his incredibly clutch play. When the Pats offense really needs to move the ball at the end of games, no matter how much they struggled prior, Brady comes through more than any QB, let alone the former Pats.

 

[1960Pats]

I really don't get the Parcells love that goes on here now and then.
- First of all, the Pats had similar success in the 70s and 80s before Tuna arrived. He didn't bring anything new to Foxborough.
- Tuna himself claimed that he didn't get to "buy the groceries" so I don't see how we can credit him for all the players that were drafted.
- He sabotaged our SB season in 95 by working behind the scenes with the NEW YORK JETS
- He smooth talked Curtis Martin while preparing to leave and then created a ridiculous "poison pill" contract to get him to the NEW YORK JETS.
- He then tried to use a phony retirement to keep Belichick from coming here.
Tuna Crap's greatest assets were his ability to pick and choose his spots when he joined a team and his DC coordinator, one Bill Belichick.
Screw him.

 

[turkeyneck]

Drew was great for the team when he was here. But, havng said that, he was incredibly frustrating to me because it seemed he didn't get the most out of his ability. Drew always seemed ok to go with what talent he was born with without trying to build on it. This was in sharp contrast to Larry Bird, whose career overlapped, who spent every off-season trying to identify and perfect some weak point in his game. If Bledsoe had had Bird's or TB's drive to perfect he would have been a much better QB.

 

[Bill Lee]

I really don't get the Parcells love that goes on here now and then.

Parcells's importance shouldn't be underplayed. Kraft was an unknown at the time and BB was coming off his failure at Cleveland. Parcells gave the team a big lift right when they needed one badly after a few terrible years on the field and off.

Screw him.

That too, for the way he was screwing around when he should have been focusing on the Super Bowl.

 

[BTTA]

If Bledsoe had had Bird's or TB's drive to perfect he would have been a much better QB.

Very possibly true, but asking him to have that drive is like asking him to have a third hand. It is about brain chemistry; people are born with it and some of them are fortunate enough to have circumstances where it can prosper. Drew is just a different guy than Brady/Bird/Orr/Russell..., and this was evident when he was drafted.

 

[JoeSixPat]

I think that there are a lot of younger Patriot fans (post 2000) who really don't appreciate how good a QB Drew Bledsoe was during his stay in NE. Unfortunately for him he lost his job to the guy who turned out to be the GOAT. No one would fair well when you are being directly compared to the Tom Brady.

Bledsoe was what he was.

1. He was a VERY good QB relative to his peers. He made the pro-bowl several times as well as the playoffs once the team was worthy.

2. He was a super tough football player. He might not have been toughER than Steve Grogan, but he was just as tough. He put up some great stats with some pretty bad OL's, getting the crap beat out hm.

3. He played on some pretty good Pats teams in the 90's all of whom were fatally flawed by a lack of depth and subject to injuries. I think we all understand much better now how important the role of depth and the bottom third of the roster actually is, now that we've been trained so well by BB

4. On the downside, he wasn't the QB to run THIS particular offense for this particular HC. He belonged in an offense like Dallas had at the time of perhaps what the Ravens ran when they were a team that was relevant.

5. While he wasn't lazy or didn't work hard, he wasn't the maniacally driven guy like Brady and BB. He never was the guy who would take that last step to maximize his potential.

BOTTOM LINE - Drew Bledsoe was a very good QB who at this point in time is the 2nd best QB who the Pats ever had. He should be respected as such.

First of all, props to Mo Lewis - a player who I think every Patriots fan appreciates - it's no coincidence one of our long time Patsfans members is "MoLewisRocks"

But I honestly believe that Belichick could have won a Super Bowl with Bledsoe had there been no Brady.

Belichick = Depth in my opinion. Add Brady to that mix and you've got something amazing, but Bledsoe with depth - even a Bledsoe who had a flawed game in some respects? I have no doubt that Belichick would have done much better with Bledsoe than say, Casssell - and yes, that includes a Super Bowl (as long as they didn't have to face Brady

 

[1960Pats]

Parcells's importance shouldn't be underplayed. Kraft was an unknown at the time and BB was coming off his failure at Cleveland. Parcells gave the team a big lift right when they needed one badly after a few terrible years on the field and off.

That too, for the way he was screwing around when he should have been focusing on the Super Bowl.

As I remember his coaching job in the SB it didn't seem like his heart was in it. and as we found out it definitely wasn't. That alone should bring him the scorn of all Pats fans.

As far as improving the teams, that was his MO wasn't it? Take a team over at it's worst moment, usually with very good draft picks if not the best, and then have his mediot friends overplay his importance to the improvements. I could have improved those teams.
These are the records of the teams in the year before he took over as HC:
Giants 3-12-1
Pats 2-14
Jets 1-15 (that team was much better than their record)
Dallas 5-11 (this was after his claim that he was retiring from coaching so he could keep Belichick away from the Pats)
He never won a thing without Bill Belichick.

 

[goheels22002]

Mo Lewis to serve as Jets honorary captain on Sunday

Really odd. Not sure if they are trying to troll us or not.

The Patriots ought to send Steve Gregory out to call the coin toss as our Honorary Captain.