As I watched Tom Brady’s ridiculous second quarter — an NFL record five TD passes! — live yesterday, I described it as if he was playing a game of Madden out there.

My roommate interjected: “A game of Madden against a baby.”

Yup, that about explains this:

People are in freakout mode right now because of Rodney Harrison’s comments last night about Tom Brady: “… if you’re listening, take off the skirt and put on some slacks. Toughen up.” Ouch. Burn. Boom. Etc., etc. Cue the video:

But here’s the thing: Harrison PLAYED WITH BRADY. They are friends. And, at least according to Dan Patrick on his radio show this morning, as soon as the 42 members of Sunday Night is Football Night in America Halftime Spectravaganza Show left the set, Brady and Harrison were texting each other about how humorous his line was.

Now, granted, there are lots of issues with the way that referees are calling games these days; I don’t think anyone wants Tom Brady just freewheelin’ around while everyone else on the field is forced to stare at him knowing that any sort of “tackling” or “rough-housing” will result in a 75-yard penalty and a $40 million fine.

At the same time, however, people also need to understand that Harrison is the prototypical type of “inflammatory” announcer, brought on for his ability to say things that will piss people off. Basically like the Gregg Doyel of NBC, and being heard by way more people. So, nation, please just ignore him when he says mean stuff about the Dreamboat — he’s either doing it purely out of jest or he’s trying to incite you into a riot. And if you respond, he’s going to win. And that’s no good for anyone.

No one with any semblance of brain matter floating around their skull would ever dare question the fact that Randy Moss is one of the most talented wideouts (even perhaps players) in the history of the NFL. It’s not an issue that’s up for debate.

However, anyone who watched Moss play with the Raiders knows that he can become a touch, ahem, lethargic when he’s not happy. But I watched Tom Brady stumble through a win against the Falcons on Sunday (at times overthrowing Moss) and even at one point thought, “But there’s no way he could ever become angry now, he’s got Tom Freaking Brady throwing him the ball.” Well, I might be wrong, judging by Mike Freeman’s latest column over at CBS Sports, which is quite a fascinating peek at Moss on-field behavior.

CBSSports.com charted every Moss play against the Falcons, and on a significant number of them, Moss either didn’t block or generated a lackluster blocking effort. On other plays, when the ball wasn’t going to him, Moss jogged some of his routes.

Now, this is certainly an interesting study in human behavior, but it doesn’t tell us much of anything new; a substantial portion of the human population tries harder at whatever they do when there’s more at stake. It’s the equivalent of someone starting to work their ass off when “the Bobs” come to town, while muddling through normal day activity.

What is interesting is the football strategy behind it. You see, the Falcons apparently recognized Moss’ tendencies ahead of time, and as Freeman mentioned later in his column, they would double him whenever he broke from the line with enthusiasm, and they would leave him in single coverage whenever he came off lethargically.

Keep reading →

“Entourage” was not good last season. Sure, it had some funny lines, and they partied and there were good-looking girls or whatever, but darn it, I want substance. I want riveting storylines. I don’t want ill-conceived plots that are wholly unbelievable. I am reminded of what Bill Simmons wrote shortly after the season ended. A shortish sample:

Well, the fifth season of “Entourage” wasn’t implausible at all: I can totally see Vince’s losing his career after one bad movie (so what if Colin Farrell has made 15 stinkers and keeps getting jobs?), becoming Hollywood poison, getting a job only because his agent passed up a $10-million-a-year studio head position to stay with him — you know, because agents have such great character — submarining an elaborate $120 million action movie that somehow came together in about 2.23 seconds because the director hated him (in the irony of ironies, because he didn’t think Vince, a guy played by Adrian Grenier, could act), hitting rock bottom and moving back to Queens, then climactically rebounding with the lead in Martin Scorsese’s new movie without ever auditioning for it, and while all of this was happening Jamie-Lynn Sigler fell in love with a jobless Turtle …

Nail on head. Anyway, the ratings were also a bit worse last season than they’ve been in the past.

But, I expect that to change when Tom Brady guest stars as himself next season in a celebrity golf outing (via First Cuts). Perhaps he’ll be in a foursome with Ari or something, and they’ll talk about Giselle, and then I bet there will be problems on the set with Vinny and then maybe E will have to do damage control.

Did I just disguise my disdain for the show last season into a sports blog post? I think I just did.

It must be really difficult to be a Boston sports fan. After all, those three Super Bowls, and this season’s Celtics title, and the ongoing dominance of the Red Sox — life must be tough. Which is why it’s totally understandable for someone at Barstool Sports to write the following, which, when read in its intended order, is so perfect it borders on parody.

In discussing the recent popularity of Bernard Pollard t-shirts — Pollard being the Chiefs player responsible for ending Tom Brady’s season — Barstool Sports offers this succinct rebuttal (emphasis mine):

Honestly people always say I’m exaggerating when I talk about how the rest of the country is so jealous of us and how they hate us because they want to be us. Well the proof is in the pudding. I’m not even remotely surprised that people would sink this low and make tshirts (sic) celebrating Tom Brady’s injury. And guess what? It will probably be a best seller. Again it’s just sad and pathetic. But I wouldn’t expect anything else from Steeler fans. Listen (sic) you didn’t see me making “I wish he died” Ben Roethlisberger tshirts (sic) after he crashed his motorcycle did you? Nope. The difference is Pats fans have class and the rest of the country doesn’t. I just hope God teaches everybody who buys this shirt a lesson and kills them and their family within 24 hours of purchase in some type of freak agonizing accident.

If that’s the intended sentiment — and I’m not sure what else to make of it — that is quite possibly the most unintentionally funny thing I’ve ever seen. You know unintentional comedy, right? There’s this Boston-area sportswriter who made his bread on exploiting the concept. He’s like the most famous sportswriter in the country. If only Boston-area fans had a higher profile voice arguing on their behalf, such injustices would never occur!

It takes really hard to work to live up to caricature like this. But Boston fans never let us down.

No? No takers? Come onnnnnnn, guy. Seriously, Kraft, you know you want this to happen. Sex Cannon + Randy Moss = FTW.

Okay, maybe Kraft doesn’t have to go out and trade for someone like Rex Grossman — after all, Matt Cassel did wing some nice lame ducks Moss’s way — but the obviously huge news of the NFL’s first Sunday is that Tom Brady is injured. And may be out for the season.

While New England coach Bill Belichick said in his postgame press conference that he had no update on the status of Brady’s injury, two sources indicated it involved serious damage to the knee.

“It’s bad,” a team source said. “We’re going to have to play without him.”

And if you can stomach the geometry involved in trying to figure out exactly what’s going on with Brady’s body and knee in the photo to your right, then you can see how “season ending” might not be such a stretch.

There’s an immediate guffawing circulating around the media about the potential irony in Matt Cassel being able to “Brady-Bledsoe” the Golden Boy, but here’s the thing: Bill Belichick has kept this guy on his team for a few years now, so how bad can he be?

Sure, beating the Chiefs is no big shakes at all — they could potentially end up going 0-16 on the season if they force Larry Johnson into a few hundred carries before midway through the season — but when Brady stepped into Bledsoe’s role a few years ago, no one thought he was going to kickstart a dynasty.

Yesterday, WEEI in Boston stated on the airwaves that an August MRI revealed a cracked bone in Tom Brady’s foot. (NOOOOOOOO!) Thing is this: Papa Brady don’t know nothing bout it, so he sayeth to the Boston Herald.

“All I can tell you is, to my knowledge, he doesn’t have a broken foot, or a broken bone in his foot,” Brady Sr. said last night. “He has never told me or his mother that he has a broken foot. He said he had some stress on the bone, and he said he was doing fine and that, quite frankly, he could have played if there was any necessity to play last week.”

So what gives here? Well, one of the Boston radio dudes alluded to the fact that at any given time, only four people in the Patriots organization actually know of an injury, because this is top secret classified CIA-type shizz. Gleaming from all this, it appears even the man who had a hand in creating the living legend of Tom Brady isn’t privy to the information.

But no matter. Either way, he’s going to play Sunday, and he’s most likely going to do well and then he’ll go home to Giselle. Not a bad life this guy has.

HT: ProFootballTalk, FanHouse.