Forgive the clickbait, but let's pretend that we only know what we truly can verify.
Our NE Patriots organization sees value in sending out a fan-friendly explainer, pick by pick, to at least tell the story of how the war room functions, regardless of the truth or falsehood of that story.
Why so skeptical about what we can know? Professional Wrestling 101: they could be gaslighting TF out of us at any given time. so, where can we start from in the exercise of thinking about how we think about the draft?
Someone in the Pats organization won the question of whether to be more transparent about the draft or about a supplemental narrative. Matt Groh is going out there and putting a gloss -- and one that makes pretty good sense -- on every pick and indeed on the process of drafting in general.
When all is said and done, that's a choice by the organization... the rest could be explained by tons of models. The constant is that they now have a guy who explains which model is at play. Whether/how much to believe him is a different story. Further, that person, it was determined, should be a communicator, not an obfuscator.
The BB model was Benatarian, except that for BB all information, not just love, is a battlefield. A battlefield. Anything you say, whether true or false, could have a purpose.
We've made a change now. We have a Churchillian (or Cordell Hullian)* model or something like it, where "a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth puts on its boots," and part if the challenge is to be responsive. That is, people will start talking immediately and we'd better put out the voice of the organization before people get out there and write the "inept war room" narrative. It's more like a crisis communications approach. (I should mention, by the way, that my passing familiarity with communications is not that people hide and twist things ... they mainly want to have bullet-proof answers but quickly and before the careless twisters have dominated the environment with **** they are making up.)
*attribution squabble
So, this is the one change I think I can believe in™. The Groh information environment.
Here are some other things I think (all you guys who think you've got a corner on "things I think," too bad b****s, use the ™ next time.)
I think it's also most likely that Kraft brushed back BB for real, and that yes, the draft approach (picks process) is being.... augmented. I think they clearly staged the mission control moment ("Horizontal positional command is go for launch" "mechanics scouting is go" "medical is go" "Off field issues go" "Measurables go" "We are go across the board" "Roger that, Foxborough, we are go to put the pick in...") ...and no, I'm not about to say they staged the Mac Jones-landing. I am saying we are doing things that conspiracy nuts say you do to put on a show (example, the "collaborative approach showcase.")
But please see my upcoming TikTok, "For All Fankind." Oh, not really.
Point is, I'm not arguing that there is this whole big secret infosphere they're hiding from us, but I think they do see the info. environment differently, and as needing fan care and feeding.
My (unproven) opinion is that when we let Tom go, Kraft brushed Bill back about the draft, and part of that process legitimately is "Hey by the way mumbleflux, let's throw someone digestible at the media and directly to fans, because you tell them nothing. Groh, go tell them however much feeds the beast."
I think the org. was feeling that the castle felt too impregnable, and in actuality, was brittle and therefore on borrowed time. Mgt. could end up mistrusted by fans, something nobody wants but that plenty of his brother owners have experienced. I think we know that as a good businessman, Kraft likes to have a relief valve handy.
Part of being a fan was getting left to the imagination, because BB didn't give a shlitz what you thought or what the narrative is, he wanted to win games and in good years, win the SB. If everybody believed that supernatural beings played dice to determine the outcomes, so be it, who cares. But that leaves a chunk of the football infotainment system in darkness, and if you don't think anything malign can grow in darkness, let's just say nobody's selling yellowcake on the not-dark web.
When you leave the narrative to the imagination, people will start concocting stories. This has always been true. But now, with TB gone and having won a Super Bowl with Tamper Bay, for the first time in decades, when the stories were negative, a ton more Pats fans thought they really might be true, because of the "it was all Tom, theses guys suck" sentiment. We were growing a nation of doubting Tomases. See what I did there?
So yes, I believe, in the absence of information, that there actually is a different, less dictatorial drafting process at work now than pre-Nike. But I don't have proof of that, they just tell/show me that.
The one thing they can't hide is that they see value in sending out a fan-friendly explainer, pick by pick, to at least tell the story of how the war room functions, regardless of the truth or falsehood of that story.
By the way, Groh's good, at least in print/tweets (how I get access to him). I see his arguments quoted all the time after a pick by actual fans... it's like watching thousands of lightbulbs going on over the heads of all the trolls except the most hard core.
Thoughts?
Our NE Patriots organization sees value in sending out a fan-friendly explainer, pick by pick, to at least tell the story of how the war room functions, regardless of the truth or falsehood of that story.
Why so skeptical about what we can know? Professional Wrestling 101: they could be gaslighting TF out of us at any given time. so, where can we start from in the exercise of thinking about how we think about the draft?
Someone in the Pats organization won the question of whether to be more transparent about the draft or about a supplemental narrative. Matt Groh is going out there and putting a gloss -- and one that makes pretty good sense -- on every pick and indeed on the process of drafting in general.
When all is said and done, that's a choice by the organization... the rest could be explained by tons of models. The constant is that they now have a guy who explains which model is at play. Whether/how much to believe him is a different story. Further, that person, it was determined, should be a communicator, not an obfuscator.
The BB model was Benatarian, except that for BB all information, not just love, is a battlefield. A battlefield. Anything you say, whether true or false, could have a purpose.
We've made a change now. We have a Churchillian (or Cordell Hullian)* model or something like it, where "a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth puts on its boots," and part if the challenge is to be responsive. That is, people will start talking immediately and we'd better put out the voice of the organization before people get out there and write the "inept war room" narrative. It's more like a crisis communications approach. (I should mention, by the way, that my passing familiarity with communications is not that people hide and twist things ... they mainly want to have bullet-proof answers but quickly and before the careless twisters have dominated the environment with **** they are making up.)
*attribution squabble
So, this is the one change I think I can believe in™. The Groh information environment.
Here are some other things I think (all you guys who think you've got a corner on "things I think," too bad b****s, use the ™ next time.)
I think it's also most likely that Kraft brushed back BB for real, and that yes, the draft approach (picks process) is being.... augmented. I think they clearly staged the mission control moment ("Horizontal positional command is go for launch" "mechanics scouting is go" "medical is go" "Off field issues go" "Measurables go" "We are go across the board" "Roger that, Foxborough, we are go to put the pick in...") ...and no, I'm not about to say they staged the Mac Jones-landing. I am saying we are doing things that conspiracy nuts say you do to put on a show (example, the "collaborative approach showcase.")
But please see my upcoming TikTok, "For All Fankind." Oh, not really.
Point is, I'm not arguing that there is this whole big secret infosphere they're hiding from us, but I think they do see the info. environment differently, and as needing fan care and feeding.
My (unproven) opinion is that when we let Tom go, Kraft brushed Bill back about the draft, and part of that process legitimately is "Hey by the way mumbleflux, let's throw someone digestible at the media and directly to fans, because you tell them nothing. Groh, go tell them however much feeds the beast."
I think the org. was feeling that the castle felt too impregnable, and in actuality, was brittle and therefore on borrowed time. Mgt. could end up mistrusted by fans, something nobody wants but that plenty of his brother owners have experienced. I think we know that as a good businessman, Kraft likes to have a relief valve handy.
Part of being a fan was getting left to the imagination, because BB didn't give a shlitz what you thought or what the narrative is, he wanted to win games and in good years, win the SB. If everybody believed that supernatural beings played dice to determine the outcomes, so be it, who cares. But that leaves a chunk of the football infotainment system in darkness, and if you don't think anything malign can grow in darkness, let's just say nobody's selling yellowcake on the not-dark web.
When you leave the narrative to the imagination, people will start concocting stories. This has always been true. But now, with TB gone and having won a Super Bowl with Tamper Bay, for the first time in decades, when the stories were negative, a ton more Pats fans thought they really might be true, because of the "it was all Tom, theses guys suck" sentiment. We were growing a nation of doubting Tomases. See what I did there?
So yes, I believe, in the absence of information, that there actually is a different, less dictatorial drafting process at work now than pre-Nike. But I don't have proof of that, they just tell/show me that.
The one thing they can't hide is that they see value in sending out a fan-friendly explainer, pick by pick, to at least tell the story of how the war room functions, regardless of the truth or falsehood of that story.
By the way, Groh's good, at least in print/tweets (how I get access to him). I see his arguments quoted all the time after a pick by actual fans... it's like watching thousands of lightbulbs going on over the heads of all the trolls except the most hard core.
Thoughts?
