This honestly never gets old. I think Barstool put this up Monday, but my buddy Jake Hixon showed it to me the other night and I couldn’t not post it. Absolutely hilarious. We laugh at his reaction but he handled it pretty well for being that thrown off. I mean it wasn’t too far off any of his other post game interviews. Dominating the NFL, the party scene, and now Spanish interviews. How much more dominating can Gronk be? “Yo soy fiesta!!”
If you had to guess who had the best TV Ratings among NHL teams who would you choose? Flyers? Penguins? Blackhawks? Rangers? Guess again. The Buffalo Sabres statistically have the most people tuning in to watch them lose. Probably because they have nothing else to watch (i.e. Buffalo Bills) and they are basically a part of Canada. Typically, the Sabres and the cry baby Ryan Miller are usually a good squad. However, they are only 20-24 this season, sitting last place in the Northeast Division.
“The league’s biggest feel-good story locally is in Boston, where the Bruins have carried over the momentum from their 2011 Stanley Cup win to post the biggest local TV ratings increase this season. NESN’s average rating of 5.25 (third-highest in the league) is up a whopping 89.5 percent from last year. The average of 125,000 homes that tune in to Bruins games is the highest in the NHL.”
-Sports Business Journal
Clearly, Boston has found a revived l
ove after seeing the Celtics enter into senior citizen status. It also probably helps that our hometown Heroes won the Stanley Cup last season (in case you guys missed it). The lockout in the NBA definitely has helped this as well, because you either watch hockey, or find a reality TV show to watch, which ironically is probably more exciting than watching the Celts this season. So keep tuning in after this all-star break as the Bruins make their second run towards the cup. Even if you don’t watch it, waste all of your schools power by turning on every TV in your dorm to NESN during game time to get the ratings up so we can get ahead of pointless Buffalo.
Yesterday President Obama welcomed the 2011 Stanley Cup Champion Boston Bruins into the White House. Only one thing was missing. The 2011 Goaltender of the Year and Stanley Cup Playoffs MVP, Tim Thomas. This wasn’t a Home Alone situation, though. Timmy chose not to attend the prestigious ceremony on grounds of his own beliefs, stating, “The decision to stay away was not about politics or party, as in my opinion both parties are responsible for the situation we are in as a country.” I’m not big into politics or anything remotely close to it so I don’t have a firm stance in those terms. Personally, I’d be ecstatic to meet the President no matter who it is. But that’s just me. Some people have really strong feelings in this regard. I mean, any time the President’s involved it’s going to hit the news, let alone when he’s snubbed by an all-star athlete. So what do you guys think? Was it selfish and not classy of Thomas to bail on the White House trip with his team? Or does the man get away with his right to decline the visit because he’s a brick wall between the pipes?
After Carl Crawford’s surgery on his wrist last week was announced, the Red Sox suddenly had a glaring weakness in outfield depth. Ben Cherington has clearly been in the process of addressing this issue for the past week. When the Sox dealt Marco Scutaro last weekend to the Rockies, they freed up $6 million for free agent acquisitions.
Cody Ross joins the outfield and immediately brings depth to all positions in the outfield. Ross is mostly known by baseball fans for his performance during the 2010 postseason, where he was named MVP for the San Francisco Giants after hitting five home runs, two off Phillie ace Roy Halladay. Ross provides a much needed righty bat in the lefty heavy Red Sox lineup. He should have a crucial role in the Red Sox outfield and at least be a platoon right fielder with Ryan Sweeney. Hopefully his batting numbers will improve since he will be playing in his most explosive offense in his 10 year career.
Although this is a great move for the Red Sox organization, I’m still hoping they make a big splash in the market for starting pitchers. I’m pulling for Roy Oswalt, but we will see how everything plays out in the next few weeks.
Talk about beating the odds. With both Rondo and Allen sidelined with injuries, an undermanned Celtics team left it all out on the court to win BIG against an 11-4 Orlando Magic squad last night at the Garden. The Celts held the Magic to just 56 points, while putting up 87 themselves. Struggling out of the gates this year, the Celtics have sneakily been solid defensively, ranking third in the league while holding their opponents to an average of 88.3 points. On the other hand, our woes come in the form of offense, where the C’s are ranked 26th in points scored, averaging around 89 per game. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. You’re not going to compete with the best teams in the NBA when you can’t score.
Luckily the C’s proved me wrong last night, as their defense shone through. Sticking out were Avery Bradley and Sasha Pavlovic, as both stepped into starting spots and held their own defensively while also putting up a combined 15 points. If anything, last night’s win was a big mental boost for the team which has definitely been suffering harsh criticism over the past few weeks and rightfully so. The team has gone in spurts of brilliance but never quite long enough to hold out for the big wins. Example, coming within a point of Chicago in the 4th quarter just to watch Rose and crew rip our hearts out down the stretch. Anyways, there is talent on this team, no doubt. We showed last night that we can compete with the best of them. Throw Allen and Rondo back into the mix and continue blending in the newcomers with the team’s historic chemistry, we’ll be alright.
Okay so from today until next Friday before the Super Bowl I will analyze the Patriots vs Giants matchup position by position. Today I am going to begin with the Secondary.
We’ll start with the Giants. Their secondary has been one of the worst in all of football, and the fact that it has been that bad with the pass rush they have is pretty pathetic. Opponents’ quarterbacks are always under pressure and they still allowed 28 TD passes and over 4000 yards. If the Giants were up 20 points in most games this year and opposing QB’s were forced into situations where they had to throw the ball this stat would be somewhat inflated. That’s not the case. The lone bright spot of their secondary is that they ranked 6th in the league with 20 interceptions. If the Patriots O-Line are able to keep Brady on his feet, expect some serious numbers to be put up on this defense.
Overall grade: D+
The Patriots’ secondary has been in shambles all season. The move to switch McCourty to safety was a great one in my opinion. The Patriots’ secondary allowed over 4700 passing yards this season and allowed 26 touchdowns against, both ranking amongst the worst in the NFL. Like the Giants; the Pats also ranked amongst the best in the NFL with 23 interceptions. The Patriots secondary has been slowly improving and the pieces seem to be falling into place. They are going to be tested early and often against this confident Giant offense, and their performance may be the deciding factor in this game.
Overall grade: D
Edge: Giants
A little over a month ago, I took a poll to see who everyone thought the MVP of college basketball was. Jarred Sullinger received the most votes, with Perry Jones III came in second. I thought it would be fun to take it again to see how players have grown (or fell off). I used the same exact players that I did a month ago, with updated stats and ranks. I think that many things have changed since the last poll. UConn completely fell off and I don’t see Jeremy Lamb as being a top 5 player anymore. Even though Kansas has lost 3 games, they are still one of the top teams thanks to their superstar Thomas Robinson, who averages a double-double and is a beast on both ends of the floor.
Just about everyone’s stats have dropped off a bit, but that is to be expected with the heart of the season playing out. So who do you guys think is the MVP of the league so far, just over halfway through the season?
In a great weekend that highlighted two Bruins overtime thrillers and a Patriots win in the AFC championship, the Red Sox boring offseason continued. They traded away their starting shortstop in Marco Scutaro for righthanded pitcher Clayton Mortensen. Mortensen doesn’t seem like a big impact guy, just seems like a sinkerball pitcher the Sox will use out of the pen, perhaps in long relief situations.
Two big things come out of this trade: First, the Sox freed up money that can go to other free agent acquistions. I’m really hoping this money can go to getting a pitcher like Roy Oswalt, or help solve the mess in outfield now that Crawford is injured. Second, it brings up the fact that the Sox haven’t figured out the shortstop position in years. Ever since the Human Vacuum Cleaner, Nomah, was traded from the Sox in 2004, the position has been in shambles. Renteria, Lugo, Pokey Reese, Scutaro. All busts. We traded away Hanley Ramirez (which can’t be criticized- it was a win win trade for both sides).
Looks like 22 year old shortstop Jose Iglesias will finally get his shot at the big leagues. He’s about as surehanded as it gets at short, but the guy is a shit batter. Can’t hit at all. I mean the guy hit .235 in the minor leagues last year, so I can only imagine him in the Majors. I don’t care how good of a fielder he is, but every Red Sox fan wants to see offensive production and there is no way he can last in Boston hitting barely above the Mendoza line.
This is clearly old news by now but an article of this magnitude deserves a lot of careful thinking rather than just my normal routine of writing down the first thing on my mind. Former Penn State Coach Joe Paterno has passed away due to complications from lung cancer (AKA Jerry Sandusky inadvertantly murdering him after touching children (allegedly, but totally happened)) Joe Pa lived just over 85 years and coached a 46 seasons for a total of 409 victories. He now holds the record for most wins by a BCS coach when he won his 409th game on October 29, 2011. So at least he finished on top. Sort of. Unfortunately, he will forever be linked with the scandal that we are all sick of hearing about.
I believe that he should be remembered as one of the greatest coaches of all time and the face of NCAA football for years to come. Keep in mind, he didn’t molest anyone, he was just protecting a friend that he believed was innocent. If someone told me that my best friend touched a little boy without any evidence, I don’t know that I would report him either. I do not agree that he should have kept it a secret, but to blame him completely for this is just absurd.
Years from now, no one is going to remember that Sandusky douche. They are going to remember Joe Paterno, the winningest coach of all time, as a man who is linked with the molestation of a child. This is certainly not fair. Obviously I have my opinion and you will have yours, but I am just curious where everyone stands on the subject. If you just select the latter answer because of the media and negative connotations towards him, just forget it. I would like to see how many people believe that he was really a bad person or not.
I think it’s safe to say this was one of the better weekends Boston has seen in a long while. We’ll start out with the obvious. Patriots are in the Super Bowl once again!! Now, there’s a sentence that never gets old. Although I figured it’d be in a more decisive manner, the Pats came out victorious yesterday, edging the Ravens 23-20 in the AFC Championship. With 27 seconds left I think everyone in the world thought this game was heading for overtime and who knows what could have happened. But the stars were aligned in Foxboro last night as Raven’s kicker Billy Cundiff botched a 32 yard routine field goal to tie the game at 23. Shanks for coming! Has a suicide watch been put on Cundiff yet? I sure hope so. In case anyone was wondering, the Bruins and Celtics both played yesterday too. With the Pats game overshadowing pretty much every other sports game in Boston, the two other teams were victorious on Sunday as well. The Bruins pulled past the Flyers 6-5 with Seguin netting the decisive goal in the shootout. Pierce stepped up his game and showed Boston why he is a Celtic as the team got a much needed win against Wizards 100-94. Both the Bruins and the Celts lost a game as well over the weekend, with the Celts falling to the Suns 79-71 in an ugly showing Friday night while the B’s suffered a very disappointing loss to the Rangers Saturday with just seconds left in overtime. Overall I’d say it was a great weekend in the City of Champions, with the Patriots continuing to prove their domination as they head to their 5th Super Bowl in 12 years. This is going to be a long two weeks…Happy Monday!
Boston Sports Blog 