SOCIAL DISTANCING AT HOME \u2013 March 17, 2020.\u00a0 The day the world in general changed.<\/p>\n
St. Patrick\u2019s Day.\u00a0 College keg parties begin at 3:00 AM, which is when the sun comes up in Ireland, Eastern Time.\u00a0 Green clothing, green cookies, green beer.\u00a0 You become reacquainted with King Brian, the Irish Rovers, and riverdancing.\u00a0 Everyone is a Celtic fan for one day.\u00a0 Erin Go Bragh!<\/p>\n
In 2020, the Great Day for the Irish now has a new connotation.\u00a0 Myself the teacher went into school, taught classes, and said goodbye to my students.\u00a0 We were going on an early spring break.\u00a0 Two major concerts got cancelled.\u00a0 That was sad enough.\u00a0 But no worries.\u00a0 We\u2019ll be back on April 14.\u00a0 Not too big a deal.\u00a0 All will be well, this Coronavirus will be all done and gone.\u00a0 Have a nice Easter (if you celebrate the day), see you in a few weeks, students.<\/p>\n
April 14?\u00a0 Not on your virtual commencement ceremonies.<\/p>\n
You name it, it got shut down.\u00a0 Schools.\u00a0 Non-essential businesses.\u00a0 Professional sports.\u00a0 March Madness.\u00a0 Everyone was told to go home, stay home, and cover your face and hands when out in public.\u00a0 Stay six feet away from everyone you don\u2019t know.\u00a0 Keep watching the news for more information.<\/p>\n
It’s been two months now, and very little has changed.\u00a0 No playoffs for the Bruins or Celtics.\u00a0 The Red Sox have yet to play a regular season game.\u00a0 To paraphrase Alice Cooper, school\u2019s out for the summer about three months early.<\/p>\n
The NBA is trying to come up with some playoff plan.\u00a0 MLB has made a proposal to their players union, and some of their loudmouth rank and file members need to shut up about their money situation.\u00a0 We haven\u2019t heard anything from the NHL that could be termed substantive about their postseason.<\/p>\n
That leaves the Patriots.\u00a0 They are literally all that we can talk about in these parts.<\/p>\n
If not for Tom Brady leaving for Tampa Bay, local sports talk shows and online newspapers would have precious little to talk about.\u00a0 Brady remains the one biggest, and perhaps only, sports news item in town to talk about.\u00a0 Oh, we were able to ramble a little bit about Rob Gronkowski, sometimes it\u2019s fun to talk about the Celtics becoming the new Patriots, and the NFL Draft was fun to hash through in its online state.<\/p>\n
But face it, this region is still all about Brady.\u00a0 Six Super Bowls, all the great things this once woebegone franchise has become, and now all we can talk about is Brady and the fact that he will finish his NFL career in Tampa and not Foxborough.<\/p>\n
Watching the local sports talk shows is an expose in \u201cWhat else is there to talk about?\u201d\u00a0 The usually thought-provoking shows on NBC Sports Boston have really taken a hit, as every commentator is broadcasting from their homes and much of their spontaneity isn\u2019t there.\u00a0 All shows have done a good job in making the \u201cat home\u201d deal work.\u00a0 But there is only so much this Huntley-Brinkley approach can give you the viewer.<\/p>\n
Worse, if you don\u2019t watch the show for 3-4 days and then watch them again, most of the time the opening topic is Tom Brady related.\u00a0 Instead of examining the Patriots who are really still with the team, what seems to work best is to run story after story and have discussion after discussion about Brady and only Brady.\u00a0 Face it, talking about Jarrett Stidham isn\u2019t as sexy as talking about Brady.<\/p>\n
The problem is that these shows need to be captivating for you to watch.\u00a0 The consistent radio ratings champ, 98.5 The Sports Hub\u2019s Felger and Mazz<\/em> show, has probably the toughest job of all, finding things to scream and yell about.\u00a0 When they start screaming and yelling, then most of you listeners start listening to them.\u00a0 NBC Sports Boston\u2019s Early Edition <\/em>and Boston Sports Tonight<\/em> have cut back on the length of their shows because of lack of material to discuss, Tom Brady notwithstanding.\u00a0 NESN, on the other hand, has changed their looks and content so many times over the years but still remains vanilla in comparison to NBC Sports Boston.\u00a0 The affable Tom Caron has a show called At Home With TC<\/em> which is a terrific concept, but it is totally non-controversial and may not hold your attention for more than five minutes.\u00a0 Caron, who like NBCSB\u2019s Gary Tanguay is a cancer survivor, is beloved in these parts for his studio work with the Red Sox, but his show will gently entertain you, it just won\u2019t invigorate you.<\/p>\n The print media faces the same problems.\u00a0 Many Globe<\/em> front-page sports stories were Brady-related or Patriots-related.\u00a0 For a while, the Globe<\/em> went with a \u201cBuccaneers Notebook\u201d column.\u00a0 Seeing the creativity of some of their writers is interesting.\u00a0 Venerable columnist Dan Shaughnessy, who must feel like he\u2019s at a Red Sox spring training camp with nothing at all that is controversial to report, has answered the call for some copy that he probably would never do under normal conditions, and a lot of it is very good reading.\u00a0 Most of what retired columnist Bob Ryan does lately is of the wistful variety, and always a delight to read.\u00a0 But the Globe<\/em> loves the Patriots as much as NBCSB does.<\/p>\n It’s time for all media types to move on from Brady.\u00a0 This isn\u2019t like Ray Bourque winning the Stanley Cup with Colorado and spending his day with the Cup at City Hall Plaza.\u00a0 The Patriots have more bling than they ever thought possible 20 years ago.\u00a0 It\u2019s done.\u00a0 Brady is gone.\u00a0 So is Gronk.\u00a0 Gotta move on.\u00a0 Every three or four days or so, we don\u2019t want to keep seeing Brady stories.<\/p>\n Time to focus our attention on other things.\u00a0 Can MLB get their season going despite some idiotic players who are complaining about money?\u00a0 Safety issues, yes, complain.\u00a0 Shut up about the money.\u00a0 Will we see any postseason for the Bruins (lest we forget they came within a game of the Stanley Cup last year) or the Celtics?<\/p>\n And as for the Patriots, I want to know more about those two new tight ends.\u00a0 About how the rebuilt defense will enable Stidham to not win games by himself (like some new guy 20 years ago).\u00a0 About how much Bill Belichick may be contemplating retirement.\u00a0 About how Julian Edelman must feel being the one offensive skill player left from the real glory days.<\/p>\n And most of all, will this pandemic still be going on when it\u2019s time for the Patriots to begin training camp?\u00a0 Or the regular season?\u00a0 There\u2019s a ton more to talk about other than the fact that Brady is gone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s time for all media types to move on from Brady.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":26869,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-patriots-news"],"yoast_head":"\n