Same. I also find it interesting (though sometimes unlistenable) to see how they invent straw men. Like when Felger goes on one of his many "YOU ALL!" quasi rants.
Felger and Mazz - Creating False Naratives one day at a time
- Thread starter HomeBrew1901
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He had one yesterday declaring that Celtics fans are obsessed with the refs. He is right that they are. Fans of every team in the NBA whine incessantly about the refs. It isn't unique to the Green Teamers™.
I heard some of that. "YOU ALL ARE THE MONTREAL CANADIANS! YOU ALL ARE NOW THE PITTSBURGH STEELERS!"
Edit: I've often been curious how Felger crowd sources the "you all!" crap. He's adamant that he doesn't use social media and in particular Twitter, yet supposedly has his finger on the pulse of Boston fandom.
Edit: I've often been curious how Felger crowd sources the "you all!" crap. He's adamant that he doesn't use social media and in particular Twitter, yet supposedly has his finger on the pulse of Boston fandom.
I get the sense that his Twitter research comes from Jim Murray and J-Stew. When he needs a straw man (pretty much daily at this point), he asks one of them for an example from Twitter and turns it into the “YOU GUYS” act. It’s amazing to me how often it happens now. For instance, I’ve been a Pats fan my whole life, as have a ton of my friends. (55 years old). Never once have we discussed how we hate the Chiefs because “they are taking over from the Patriots”. Yet that drove the narrative for Felger for a solid month.
This is the correct take 1000%.
It's not a hard core sports talk show, its ragtime entertainment, their main goal is to torque Boston sports fans off.
Anyone who tunes in to talk and listen to serious sports talk is kidding themselves.
I still don't see how so many folks are entertained by this. Felger's huge audience clearly doesn't see things the way I do and I'm beginning to think maybe its me missing out on something. It's similar to how 12 tone serial music pieces always sound like random dithering to me. I am still trying to figure out why people like that music in terms of the experience of listening to it.
To me there's a huge difference between Felger and other hot take artists like, say, Stephen A. Stephen A in particular is clearly having fun and he knows he's doing a sports take comedy show. By contrast, a better title for Felger's show would be "Mike Felger Hates You and Thinks You Are Stupid". There can't be that many radio-masochists in the Boston area right? I have to be missing something.
My point is I stopped taking them seriously a long time ago, no matter the occasion, they find a way to shit all over it...day after a Super Bowl win/WS win/big win by whoever they find the negative and drive that point home.
To your point; I have no clue why their show is so highly rated unless like you said, the area is full of radio-masochists.
I tuned out ages ago, everything Felger touches turns to shit.
I think that there are two types of Felger listeners:
1. They take everything he says as gospel and believes everything he's saying, not realizing that Felger is assuredly winking through out this entire schtick. He's a contrarian, this is what he does. But these listeners are cool with this POV because they're contrarians too and like to see the grey cloud around every silver lining.
2. These folks know that Felger is mostly full of shit, but it's sports radio and it's supposed to be fun and he's actually really good with the contrarian stuff and he's so damn good at popping the balloon that it's interesting to listen to him. Mazz is a neutral to me, he's fine as a second banana and his baseball show is decent (I also didn't happen to think he was that bad during the NESN broadcasts last year, but I'm in the minority of that). I don't like Murray, I think he's a douche without the intelligence or personality of Felger. What they need Murray (or Mazz) to be is more of a foil to Felger, sorta like what Bertrand was at the beginning. It's hard work, but if you can do it, you would be able to carve out a nice niche for yourself and not be a 35-year-old dude wearing sunglasses indoors and reading scores.
The only thing that bothers me about the F&M show is when they gaslight the audience. "That awesome thing you saw last night? It wasn't that great, in fact here's four hours why you're a stupid hayseed." The contrarian shit works most of the time, but in times when something truly awesome happens and the region is pretty pumped about it, there's no need to shit in the punch bowl every day.
To further this, watch how he turns the Tyler Bertuzzi trade into a negative; "They only did this because Hall is obviously more seriously injured than originally thought/I worry about team chemistry, how will this guy fit in, you don't want to create a problem in that locker room/that's two #1 picks they've now traded away, they had better win the cup this year as their future does not look too good now."
I hope he doesn't do this. I happened to listen yesterday in the 5:00 hour and he was damn near giddy about the Bruins. He was talking Linus as maybe not THE MVP, but easily runner up. He is quite high on the Bruins. Though if they flame out in the first or second round, he's going to be pissed.
He spent a part of yesterdays show saying that they NEEDED to get another forward in light of the Foligno injury, so if he shits on the Bertuzzi trade it will be quite the flip flop (but I’m not ruling it out).
Felger definitely plays a bit of a character for the show, no doubt. He admits as much.
But you can’t necessarily attribute any Bruins takes he may or may not have to that character. Of all of the Boston teams, he is by far, the biggest true fan of the Bruins so his opinions, concerns and joy are more natural when they’re related to the Bruins than to any of the other Boston teams.
But you can’t necessarily attribute any Bruins takes he may or may not have to that character. Of all of the Boston teams, he is by far, the biggest true fan of the Bruins so his opinions, concerns and joy are more natural when they’re related to the Bruins than to any of the other Boston teams.
Yeah. But he seems to take things kinda personally and goes scorched Earth, like nothing matters if they don't get a ring. I mean, I get that thinking in a way--especially for a talk show host--but at the same time, it's a bit over-the-top. Like that 16-0 Pats season was a lot of fun and it obviously sucked that they lost to NY, but it was five constant months of fun and domination. One game (or series) shouldn't wipe that out as a complete failure.
He was asked on another program "If the Bruins don't win the Stanley Cup, will you consider the season a failure?".............his reply was words to the effect of "It depends; if they lose a hard fought 7 game series to Tampa lets say in the ECF, then no, or if they lose in the finals in 7 games to Colorado if they get all their injured players back, then no, but anything else; yeah, it will be a failure."
My five biggest Boston sports failure disappointments are the Scottish game, the 1986 World Series, the 2019 Stanley Cup, the 1979 too many men on the ice penalty and the 1971 ECF loss, the latter two to Montreal, who then went on to demolish the Rangers and the Black Hawks in the finals, that's three less Stanley Cups for the Bruins, by far my favorite Boston team.
I stil can't believe they lost a game 7 at home to the Blues and that cementhead of a coach, the same team that now sucks and had a fire sale the past few weeks.
I'll never get over that loss; game 7 at home, Mother of God.
Like game seven in Vancouver in 2011, the Canucks were never in the game.
Didn't the Bruins outplay the shit out of the Blues in the 1st, but the Blues got a lucky goal or something?
I got tickets to that game about 1pm of the day of game from work. What a fucking dud that game was and I still can't believe it. Ugh now, I have to think about that game again.
Agreed, it's been a great season for the Cs and Bs but if either team doesn't take it all they'll be deemed failures.
/Turns on radio. Felger acknowledges that the Bs had to extend Pastrnak and the extension was for good dollars but yet still doesn't like it.
/Turns off radio.
If it makes you feel any better, I was in the building that night right along with you.
And yes, just a total dud of a game, I'll never understand it.
For those like me who didn’t experience that horror themselves, here’s a good article on what transpired there.
Anyone remember when Felger got into a bit of his own hot water after he played the Marry/ Kill/ F game over the air?
That loss does not bother me too much for some reason; that Patriots team played above their pay grade, knocked off the #1 seed the week before thanks to a miracle strip by Troy Brown on an interception, then a missed field goal at the end, I look at that loss more due to them running out of gas.
Oh and also the Colts pumping crowd noise into the stadium and turning up the heat to further gas the Patriots.
Patriots/Bruins are 1/2 with me, or better yet, 1a/1b, then the Red Sox, then the Celtics, so the three Bruins losses hurt much more for me. That 1970's Bruins team was a wagon, won 2 Stanley Cups, could have won 5, maybe 6.
I've posted this elsewhere but if the Pats don't blow that lead, then the 2007 16-0 season never happens, and we never experience the pain of the Scottish game, Manning still doesn't have a single title, etc.
The downside is we never get to experience the joy of the first 3/4 of that 2007 season, and we don't know if Brady becomes BRADY without going scored earth.
Given the 2014 / 2016 / 2018 titles, I don't think I'd make that trade... but man, the triple-win of having a 4th title in 7 years, no Manning title, and erasing the pain of the Scottish game... that would be really tempting.
I know that this is going to sound dumb because you should always play for a championship, but if the trade was losing that AFC Championship for a full season of Brady throwing to Moss, I think that I'm okay with that. Not to mention them picking up Welker, etc. What a team that was.
It's somewhat parallel to the Sox in 2003 and 2004, but the Sox finished the job. The 2004 ride made the pain of 2003 worth it. But there are some obvious major difference here with gap in titles, MFY, 3-0 comeback, Aaron Boone, etc.
But if you told me that if they won in 2006 then Brady in 2007-20XX (pick a year he retires) would more or less be the same player as he was in the 2003-2006 range, then I think I agree with you - 2007 was a key turning point in his career arc as ELITE QB, and if that year didn't happen, then I don't think we get to experience all of the amazing years we had from 2010-2019.
to be fair to murray sometimes if u wear dark sunglasses your eyes can be sentevent to light and the sun like on a sunny day i cant see without my sunglasses because my eyes is sentivent to light
RE: the sunglasses I have it on good authority he doesn’t wear them indoors at family gatherings. Maybe the studio lights are super bright
If they win it this year, the troll next year will be...Yea, but let's see him win one without Bergeron.
It should be noted that while Felger holds a "holier than thou" stance towards the fans, as if he is better than us and above us all, he can hold that stance only because he's not a fan of the local teams (sans the Bruins). Last year someone caught him on video on a plane after a Bucs -Celtics game and Felger was crying and moaning about the refs, showing that he is exactly the same as the "footie pajama green teamers", its just that he is rooting for a different team.
I will give Felger the rare piece of credit that I think you're highly unlikely to get from the vast majority of other media members. With the recent stuff about Linus Ullmark, including him being a legit MVP candidate, pretty much any other media member would want to sweep under the rug the fact that he called Ullmark's signing a year ago a massive bust and was ripping Don Sweeney massively for it. Felger admitted on the air this week how wrong he was about that one.
That said, I find it much less likely that he'll admit that over Tom Brady, as he was trying as hard any any media member to drive Brady out of here and then rapidly changed his tune to bash BB and the team relentlessly for letting him go.
FWIW, this is a very deliberate credibility-building manipulation tactic. A version of drawing the sting. I recognize it because I use it, though far less than usual.
And they throw so many hot takez out there that even if someone brings up a bad/wrong one, they have moved on and don't talk about it. I know I have said this here before, but when they first started, the best "part" of it was Felger saying they will never go after a team/player over a hypothetical. When it happens, fair game, but speculation would not be tolerated.
Speculation is now 80% of the show.
And when they get called out for being wrong they do that shitty "BLAHHHH OH BLAHHHHHH" schtick which is somewhat ironic as their existence is to blahhh the fans constantly.
And when they started "No celebrity callers!"
Cue 2023 "Danny from Quincy you're up next"
I agree that "celebrity callers" suck and are buffoons, but I wonder whether they're a necessity. In other words, a vast minority of people will pick up the phone and call a radio show. The "celebrity caller" will do that, so instead of dead air you get Danny from Quincy.
I'm not sure which is worse for the listener, but I'm sure the hosts and producers love them.
Indeed. Most logical thinking fans have better things to do than to wait on hold for 45 minutes to an hour all so you can go at Felger or Mazz for 30 seconds on the air. I sometimes wonder about people like Tommy from Lynn who literally call every single day and how boring their life must be if having Felger hang up on you is such a highlight.
I thought it was interesting this afternoon that J Stew was doing his best to keep the Mac Jones trade rumors going, despite them being shit on by Tom Curran. Then Felger proceeded to basically beg the Pats to do something “to create buzz”. Are these guys getting nervous that the Pats gravy train is coming to an end, and they might have to do some actual work to make their show interesting? Felger particularly seems to have had a hair across his ass lately.
Felger has a the unique ability to sound terribly angry & exasperated while discussing the most benign of topics.
