Ray Bourque got traded. Anything can happen.
The way Dan Duquette operates, you have to wonder what he would do with Nomar Garciaparra if he ever directed something like his dig at Sean McDonough at him personally. Next thing you know, Nomar’s reunited with Big Mo just down the street from Disneyland, and Vaughn will be a regular dinner guest at the Garciaparra homestead up the 605 freeway in Whitter. Duquette keeps his vanity, and replaces his big mouth shortstop with some stalwart such as Deivi Cruz. All in the name of manners and priorities, of course.
|
|||||||||||||||
Rick Pitino may never pull the trigger on a deal that involves Antoine Walker. Too bad. Salary cap problems are worse on the Celtics than anywhere else on the planet, but Walker’s cap number is too high for another team to assume it. Walker has had ample time to step up and be the superstar/leader the Celtics need. He might do it someday, but most likely it won’t be with Pitino.
Drew Bledsoe was right there with Garciaparra and Pedro Martinez as the “most untradeable Boston sports icon”. Not that you would trade the two diamond jewels of the Red Sox for anything at all on the planet, but Bledsoe might have been perceived by everyone as on perhaps a higher level of untradeability than Nomar or Mr. Pedro. Whereas the two baseball immortals-in-the-making more or less share the team’s brighest spotlights, Bledsoe has the Foxborough spotlight all to himself.
Since his drafting in 1993, there has been no question whatsoever as to who the star of the show is on Route 1. He is like John Wayne in westerns and war movies. He is like Errol Flynn in swashbuckling movies. He is like Fred Astaire in dancing movies. He is like Esther Williams in swimming movies.
Going further, he is like Sinatra the crooner, Copperfield the magician, Houdini the escapist, and Dangerfield the comedian. This is what Bledsoe is to New England. He is the Patriots, their star, their brighest light. He is the biggest star the team has ever had, unless you still have John Hannah on that pedestal, for which you wouldn’t get an awful lot of backlash.
But life for Bledsoe has been two levels below horrid since the bye week of 1999. Bledsoe has seen his team go 2-9 in that stretch. He has seen his once world-class offense transform into a pathetic shell of itself. He has seen his body slammed more often that the average WWWF wrestler who has to play patsy to a Hulk Hogan for a living.
But something worse than all the sacks and losses has happened to Bledsoe. Rumours. Innuendos. Gossip. Trade talk.
Is this really the beginning of the end of the Drew Bledsoe Era in Foxborough?
What is really scary about all this is that there is a growing faction of football experts and Patriot fans who think that Bledsoe being traded is a good idea. And they make a great case. In fact, one has to wonder if one of those people who support Bledsoe begin traded is Bledsoe himself.
Face it, if I were Bledsoe, after all this pounding I’m taking, all the bad raps in the press, and the latest rumours to hit the mill, I think I’d sit down with Maura and reassess how happy I really am here in the nation’s northeast. It would not be stretching things to say that such a conversation has already taken place.
There is a growing sentiment that Bledsoe is no longer perceived as a great quarterback. Several football experts have written about how Bledsoe still makes poor decisions during the game that turn out to be fatal in the end.
Draft “guru” Joel Buchsbaum said in a recent Pro Football Weekly article that “It’s obvious that Bledsoe, without a strong supporting cast, is not a special quarterback. He probably cost the Patriots in two of the first three games. In the opener vs. Tampa Bay, he missed seeing a wide-open wide receiver in the end zone, and then threw the ball way out of bounds on the final play of the game. On Sunday (Week Three), he seemed to freeze on the last play when he was sacked, and he had two receivers running open long before that.”
It would be nice once in a while to listen to some “expert” come forward and admit that very few quarterbacks would be “special” if they lacked a great supporting cast, particularly a great offensive line. Bledsoe right now has one of the worst offensive lines in North America (betcha the CFL could do lots better than this one), and Bledsoe has shown in years past that when the line is working well, he puts up passing numbers at a career record pace.
Going further, it may also not have occurred to Buchsbaum that the reason Bledsoe did not make these plays he comdemns him for was because the pass rush prevented him from doing so. On the final play of the Minnesota game, the best Bledsoe could have done was to heave the ball skyward towards the end zone. He had literally no time to make a decent try for a touchdown. Condemnation of Bledsoe is extremely unfair until the offensive line jells someday and begins to give him the protection he needs.
Then there was this article in the Metro West Daily News about how disenchanted with Bledsoe Bob Kraft has become. The article was so impactive that Kraft himself came out of the woodwork to denounce it.
But the article makes sense. Why hasn’t Bledsoe’s contract been redone long before this year? If Bledsoe is to really spend the rest of his career in New England, why did the team allow his cap number to go up to $8 million this year?
From the article, agent Brad Blank was quoted as saying that “It’s very rare because usually when it starts to take up that much room, a player who is part of the future gets extended.” Kraft rose up this week in support of Bledsoe, but in capology terms, this support rings hollow.
So, is a trade now in order? Next year, the cap hit is $9 million. Leigh Steinberg, Bledsoe’s agent, has been in contact with Patriot management, but things have never gotten beyond the casual level. Steinberg has no reason to believe that Bledsoe won’t remain a Patriot at this time. But something has to happen soon. Sign or trade.
If a deal is in order, Bledsoe would likely go home to Seattle in return for the Seahawks’ two first-round picks and a package of veterans. Mike Holmgren covets Bledsoe, and no one in the Bledsoe family would object to a return to Washington state. Michael Bishop would then become the heir apparent to the Patriot quarterback throne.
This would be a stunning similarity to 1975. Jim Plunkett, the one-time collegiate quarterback idol from Stanford, languished as a Patriot. He was traded and succeeded by a running quarterback from Kansas State. Is Bishop the next Steve Grogan? Grogan did eventually play in a Super Bowl for the Patriots, of course.
Plunkett played in two Big Shows himself. Oh, and he won them both as well. For Da Raidahs. Not Da Pats.
Another scenario has the Patriots dangling Bledsoe in front of the team with next year’s top pick. The Patriots then grab Virginia Tech’s Michael Vick. The Seattle deal sounds better. If you have the guts to try and pull it off.
This writer has long held that Bledsoe should not be condemned until the offensive line is operating as it should. Once blitzers start getting picked up, a running game becomes more established, and the guys start getting into a flow together, then Bledsoe should regain his touch and resume torching all his opponents with ease. In the team’s current state, all Bledsoe can do is fail and fail greatly.
The last time the Patriots traded a quarterback of this ilk, the K-State guy turned out to be good, but the other guy got rings elsewhere. Keep Bledsoe, keep the K-State guy, and fix what’s really wrong with this team first.
Can you imagine The Searchers or Rio Bravo without John Wayne? John Ford and Howard Hawks weren’t stupid. Keep The Franchise where he belongs.
Support Us: Help Us Compete Against The Corporate Media Giants
We need your help. If you enjoy our content, please help us beat Google's Corporate algorithm by adding us as a preferred source on Google News.
Click the button below and check the box next to "PatsFans.com"
Add as a preferred source on Google News
Covering Boston Sports since 1997. Native of Worcester, Mass. Attended UMass and Univ of Michigan. Lives in California. Just recently retired after 40 years of public school teaching. Podcasts on YouTube at @thepic4139
