Posts Tagged ‘nfl’

The Patriots Post Tom Brady Expectations Game

Posted: March 19, 2020 by datechguy in nfl, Sports
Tags: , ,

The Tom Brady Era in New England has ended.

Although it was not known at the time the coming of Tom Brady to the New England Patriots was a sports earthquake, much like the coming of Babe Ruth to the Yankees in Baseball or Bill Russell to the Celtics in Basketball or Wayne Gretzky to Edmonton in Hockey.

In all of these cases it was quickly established that the coming of said superstar meant that the franchise in question was now considered the prohibitive favorite to win the championship in their sport.

And with the exception of the Yankees who amazingly thanks to the coming of Lou Gehrig during the Ruth Era and Joe DiMaggio during the Gehrig Era and Mickey Mantle & Yogi Berra during the DiMaggio era in succession kept those high exceptions post Ruth the departure of Brady means a re-evaluation of the expectation for both the Patriots and for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

Let’s start with the New England Patriots.

The New England Patriots began playing in 1960 and played with a quarterback other than Tom Brady starting games from that year though the year 2000. They played a 14 game schedule from 1960-1976 and a 16 game schedule since. The Patriots had a winning record in 22 out of those 41 seasons. Of those 22 winning seasons the teams best pre Brady Years in terms of wins were as follows

  • 1964 10-3-1
  • 1976 11-3
  • 1978 11-5
  • 1985 11-5
  • 1986 11-5
  • 1996 11-5

During that period these were the years that they won their division

1963, 1978, 1986, 1996, 1997

During that period these are the years they made the playoffs

1963, 1976, 1978, 1982, 1985, 1986, 1994, 1996, 1997, 1998

Of those playoff years these are the years they won at least one playoff game

1963, 1985,1996,1997

During that period these were the years they made it to the Superbowl or the AFL Championship game pre-superbowl

1963, 1985, 1996

They never won a championship

So as you can see over 41 years the aNew England / Boston Patriots

  • Had a winning record 55% of the time
  • won 11 or more game (10 in a 14 game season) 14.6% of the time
  • won their division 12% of the time
  • made the playoffs 24% of the time
  • won a playoff game 9.7% of the time
  • went to a championship game 7% of the time winning 0%

Tom Brady took over as the Patriots starting QB during the 2001 season and remained the starting QB through the 2019 season. During that 20 year period these are the season where they did NOT win at least 12 games

  • 2001 11-5 (partial Brady Season)
  • 2002 9-7
  • 2005 10-6
  • 2008 11-5 (Brady injured game 1 out for season)
  • 2009 10-6
  • 2018 11-5

These are the seasons during the Brady years that the Patriots did NOT win their division or make the playoffs

2002, 2008

These are the seasons during the Brady years that the Patriots dd NOT win a playoff game

2002,2008,2009,2010, 2019

These are the seasons during the Brady years that the Patriots did NOT go to the Superbowl

2002, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010,2012,2013, 2015, 2019

So lets sum up during the Tom Brady Years

  • Had a winning record 100% of the time
  • The Patriots won at least 12 games 70% of the time
  • The Patriots won their division & made the playoffs 90% of the time
  • The Patriots won at LEAST one playoff game 70% of the time
  • The Patriots went to the Superbowl 50% of the time
  • The Patriots WON the superbowl 30% of the time (67% of the times they went)

Or to put it another way, the best New England/Boston Patriots seasons in their pre-Brady years would be considered failures during the Brady years and their three appearances in the Superbowl/Championship would all be rated at best disappointments in the Brady era.

Now the Tom Brady Era has officially ended which means that unless Jarrett Stidham or any quarterback that they draft this season turns into the 2nd coming of Lou Gehrig logically our expectations for Patriots should return to a pre-Brady level to wit.

Any year that the New England Patriots post Brady:

  • Have a winning record: should be considered OK
  • Win 11 games: should be considered a success
  • Win their division: should be considered a big success
  • Make the playoffs: should considered a huge success.
  • Win a playoff game: should be considered an spectacular success
  • Go to the Superbowl: should be considered an extraordinary success
  • Win a Superbowl: should be considered a Miracle

Now there are those who consider that a fair amount of Tom Brady’s success in general and the Patriots success in particular should be given to Coach Bill Belichick who some consider the greatest coach in Football history. For those of you who consider this the case let’s make a slight adjustment.

Any year the New England Patriots Under Belichick post Brady

  • Win a Superbowl, it’s an extraordinary success
  • Go to the Superbowl it’s a spectacular success
  • Win a playoff game it’s a Huge success
  • Make the playoffs, it’s a big success
  • Win their division, it’s a success
  • Win at least 11 games, it’s an OK season
  • Win less than 11 games…fire the bum!

These are reasonable expectations. I suspect that Patriots fans after two decades of winning will not be as generous as me with their expectations.

Quinnen Williams and another opportunity to change the gun narrative

Posted: March 7, 2020 by ng36b in Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , ,
Gun Case, from eBay

Democrat presidential candidates continue to dominate the news with calls for increasing gun control measures. They are quick to cite fake statistics about gun violence and use every tragedy to maximum extent. While President Trump has remained pro-Second Amendment, he hasn’t pushed much in terms of a counter-narrative recently. The recent arrest of New York Jets player Quinnen Williams provides a great opportunity to strike back.

Quinnen was arrested recently in LaGuardia Airport for gun possession. Most of the headlines would have you believe he walked into the airport with a loaded weapon and attempted to board a flight. That’s not what happened. Quinnen brought an unloaded firearm in his checked luggage into the airport. He had a permit for the weapon, but it was from Alabama, not New York. In typical New York fashion, he was immediately arrested and faces a felony possession charge.

New York gun laws are ridiculous. Even if you aren’t a state resident, the state of New York requires regularly attempts to enforce local laws on you. This is key because LaGuardia is particularly notorious for violating the Federal Owners Protection Act (FOPA), which allows transportation of firearms between states. But as noted at NRA’s website:

Special advisory for New York & New Jersey airports: Despite federal law that protects travelers, authorities at JFK, La Guardia, Newark, and Albany airports have been known to enforce state and local firearm laws against airline travelers who are passing through their jurisdictions. In some cases, even persons traveling in full compliance with federal law have been arrested or threatened with arrest. FOPA’s protections have been substantially narrowed by court decisions in certain parts of the country, particularly in the Northeast. Persons traveling through New York and New Jersey airports may want to consider shipping their firearms to their final destinations rather than bringing them through airports in these jurisdictions.

NRA-ILA website

Personally, I hate flying through New York anyway, and unless I have to, I won’t use their airports. Perhaps a long-term boycott by gun owners would be in order?

Quinnen obviously attempted to follow the law. He wasn’t walking into an airport with a loaded weapon. His story shows that attempting to follow the rules doesn’t matter to New York, where its OK to pick and choose what federal laws you follow. This makes him the perfect person to hold up and challenge the ongoing gun narrative. His case may be one to help challenge, and ultimately change, some of New York’s onerous rules on gun transportation.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

Sunday Morning Under the Fedora Media vs Brady, Kyrie addition by subtraction, Tampa Bay Lightning not striking twice, Betts as Ruth Redux and Games on paper vs games on paper

Posted: December 29, 2019 by datechguy in baseball, dynasty baseball, gaming, nba, nfl, nhl, Sable Baseball, Sports
Tags: , , , ,

Are we still after last year seeing sports casters saying that even if the New England Patriots win against the hapless Dolphins today that the only question in the playoffs is: “Do the Patriots lose to Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs at home or in Kansas city?”

Now don’t get me wrong, Kansas City is a good team and as demonstrated earlier in the year they are quite capable of beating any team including the Patriots, but I can’t think of anything that is more likely to motivate an already great Patriots defense and Tom Brady back into “Deflategate revenge tour” mode than stuff like this.

It’s still very early in the season but I’d like to point out that last year the Brooklyn Nets finished the year at 42-40 with a .512 winning percentage without Kyrie Irving as the 6th seed while the Boston Celtics finished at 49-33 with a .598 winning percentage as the 5th seed in the east with Kyrie irving.

This year Irving left the Celtics and the team is currently the #3 seed at 22-8 with a .733 winning percentage and even with the #2 Miami Heat in the Loss Column. Irving signed with the nets who are currently 16-15 with a .516 winning percentage and 7th seeded in the conference, but more importantly is 12-8 with a .600 winning percentage since an injury sidelined Irving after a 4-7 start.

This man is the anti-Brady

Last year in the NHL during the Regular Season the Tampa Bay Lightning simply dominated the league in a way we hadn’t seen in years until the playoffs came around. I remember driving home after game one listening to sports radio as they declared that despite that loss Columbus had no chance right up until they finished the lightning off.

It’s a year later and the team that managed 128 points, a solid 20 above every other is now currently at 42 points five points behind the last wild card team. Now there are still 46 games to go but it’s an important reminder that you have to take advantage of any opportunity you have because you just might not get another chance.

Speaking of not getting another chance as the year ends and the 2020 season draws near we are still getting “the trade or don’t trade Mookie Betts” debate in Boston.

It’s been a pretty quiet off season for the Red Sox with three players from last world series win (Brock Holt, Mitch Moreland, Rick Porcello ) currently testing free agency and Catcher Sandy Leon traded to Cleveland for minor league pitcher Adenys Bautista. As of today their current offensive depth chart looks like this (via redsox.com):

With the exception of Pedroia this is pretty much the Red Sox offence that tore up the league last year but was betrayed by injuries in the rotation and weakness in the bullpen. Or to put it another way, this team is one closer and perhaps one healthy rotation away from fielding a team more than capable of dominating the American league with a monster offense, a zipper outfield and a rotation as good as any other in baseball.

So to those who say forget 2020 and trade Mookie let me remind all these people who have forgotten the lean times of a little history.

Exactly 100 years ago another Red Sox had an off season at 66-71-1 (one game called after 10 innings never made up) where they had dropped to sixth a year after winning the world series. They decided to get rid of their star right fielder, who could also pitch a bit, before the start of their next season selling him for a price higher than the entire payroll of the the previous year’s team. More money than the combined salaries of the top 8 players in the league.

That team had won five World series in the 20th century at that point, they would not win another.

Now Mookie Betts is no Babe Ruth but the point of the story is when you have a chance to win a World Series take it, because it might be another 86 years before you win another.

Finally as I mentioned before the old table top face to face fantasy baseball league that I started 32 years ago (the year before I got married) was revived this year. Going into Friday I had a record of 8-4 having won my 1st 4 series with a pair of series coming up against two relative newcomers with one season of experience between them both with losing records.

Over the next two days I lost 4-6 including a 9th inning blown save by Kimbrel, a 14th inning marathon, and had a team with Mookie Betts batting 1st and Anthony Rendon hitting 3rd shut out for the final 20 innings of the last two games against a sixteen year old kid who was playing in his 1st baseball simulation league 50 years after I had gotten my 1st baseball simulation game, Milton Bradley baseball for Christmas in 1969 (great game btw you can get it on eBay here) at the ripe old age of six.

This demonstrates a sports rule that extends even to games on paper. No matter what the betting line or the prognosticators say there is a reason why you actually play the games.

Kaepernick’s Plan “B” as in Bullshit proceeds

Posted: November 18, 2019 by datechguy in nfl, Sports
Tags: ,

Dr. Raymond Stantz: Personally, I liked the university. They gave us money and facilities, we didn’t have to produce anything! You’ve never been out of college! You don’t know what it’s like out there! I’ve WORKED in the private sector. They expect results.

Ghostbusters 1984

A few days ago I wrote that Colin Kaepernick was the person most affected by the Miles Garrett situation because before he swung that helmet the entire NFL was talking about the Kaepernick workout, but once that helmet was swung Garrett was the only topic in sports but the only NFL story that the national media cared about.

I also noted that it was a great litmus test to measure if Kaepernick actually wanted to play in the NFL to wit:

If Kaepernick’s goal is to be signed by an NFL team then he should send Miles Garrett and gold plated helmet in thanks for getting him under the radar.
If, as I suspect, Kaepernick’s goal is to be the center of attention as the ultimate media martyr he’s just been screwed.

Well we found out which goal he had didn’t we,? Not only did he managed to play the drama queen but did so in a way to garner maximum press while minimizing his prospects of being signed.

Even Stephen A Smith isn’t buying this routine anymore:

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Now in one respect Kaepernick is being smart. After all as long as he is not signed he can play the Martyr game and continue to collect good money as a poster boy for the left and Nike and other woke companies or companies desiring to be woke. That is a source of income that can go on for decades.

But the moment he is signed by an NFL team suddenly, not only is his status as a martyr lessened considerably but he instantly is put in an environment where instead of being judged by the content of his character he will be judged by the objective standard of:

Can you as a quarterback take an NFL offence down the field to score against an NFL defense that is determined to stop you?

If the answer to that question is “No” than Kaepernick return to the NFL would be rather short lived and even if the answer is “yes” it’s likely for a very short time and he risks injury every moment he’s trying to prove it.

Much easier to be a symbol and a martyr, the pay is better, the job has less physical risk and you don’t have to prove yourself against anyone else.

Kaepernick isn’t training to be an NFL quarterback he’s in training to be the next Al Sharpton.

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