This year's ESPN hit piece
- Thread starter Dr. Gonzo
- Start date
This is of course all correct but one other thing I left out since the Cooks stuff was dumb enough but another part of Volin's plan was to cut Gillislee. Obviously not a big deal in itself but as you noted Burkhead and Lewis are FAs so that leaves you with White as the only RB under contract(maybe Bolden, not sure of his contract status but don't really care either).
Agreed. The fact is, the Pats just don't deploy their cap space in the way that they'd have to in order to execute this plan...they always spread, they always build the middle, and they never borrow from the future. I just don't buy they'd change all that, and also that they'd believe it best protects the team to do so.
This just proves the old adage that the further away from a problem you are the easier it is to solve.
I don't think there is any way that BB is ever a lame duck Coach/GM. Certainly would surprise me if he was.
The only place I could see Belichick leaving New England to coach would be Navy (edit: not saying this year, just if he wants to move on before retirement).
Richard Deitsch interviews Wickersham. Most is rehash of what we've heard, but I though this Q/A was interesting/funny :
What is your response to those Patriots fans who believe ESPN is invested in stories about Patriots strife or controversy?
Wickersham: ESPN publishes and broadcasts so many stories on the Patriots. I’ve written so many stories on the Patriots in my 17 years at ESPN The Magazine, on Brady and Belichick, both with and without access, and I’m proud of them all. The 2015 From Spygate to Deflategate piece that I co-authored with Don is still remembered bitterly by some, not all, Patriots fans, and so much of the “hit piece” nature of this past piece is falsely rooted in the false response to that one. All the stories are nuanced and complex and, in the end, about people. This year, I’ve written four stories on the Patriots. My feature on Belichick before the Super Bowl and my feature on Brady after the game didn’t elicit the charge that me or my company had a bias. Our Brady story in November and the Patriots one last week did. So it goes.
Funny thing is, I love Boston and I love the fans. I love Fenway, both for games and concerts. I love walking around the Back Bay and Central Square and Harvard Square. I don’t get recognized much but in person, when I do all of the fans are much kinder than on Twitter. All of my in-laws live in the Boston area, most are die-hard Patriots fans. One has been going to games since the ‘60s. A few years, we've given Patriots gear to our nephews for Christmas. Before this story came out, I texted them that today might not be a day that they should advertise that we’re related. But the Patriots fan base is really every fan base. When I wrote about Jim Harbaugh’s battles with management and players in 2014, 49ers fans told me that I hated the team and that ESPN had it out for them. When I wrote about the dynamic in the Seahawks building last spring, the 12’s told me that I hated the team and that ESPN had it out for them. I think that every single fan base of a major college football program that’s not been ranked as high as they think they should be or has committed an NCAA violation believes that ESPN has it out for them. It’s the same for SI and the New York Times with some teams. Just the nature of things, and it’s fine.
https://www.si.com/tech-media/2018/01/07/jon-gruden-raiders-espn-monday-night-football
What is your response to those Patriots fans who believe ESPN is invested in stories about Patriots strife or controversy?
Wickersham: ESPN publishes and broadcasts so many stories on the Patriots. I’ve written so many stories on the Patriots in my 17 years at ESPN The Magazine, on Brady and Belichick, both with and without access, and I’m proud of them all. The 2015 From Spygate to Deflategate piece that I co-authored with Don is still remembered bitterly by some, not all, Patriots fans, and so much of the “hit piece” nature of this past piece is falsely rooted in the false response to that one. All the stories are nuanced and complex and, in the end, about people. This year, I’ve written four stories on the Patriots. My feature on Belichick before the Super Bowl and my feature on Brady after the game didn’t elicit the charge that me or my company had a bias. Our Brady story in November and the Patriots one last week did. So it goes.
Funny thing is, I love Boston and I love the fans. I love Fenway, both for games and concerts. I love walking around the Back Bay and Central Square and Harvard Square. I don’t get recognized much but in person, when I do all of the fans are much kinder than on Twitter. All of my in-laws live in the Boston area, most are die-hard Patriots fans. One has been going to games since the ‘60s. A few years, we've given Patriots gear to our nephews for Christmas. Before this story came out, I texted them that today might not be a day that they should advertise that we’re related. But the Patriots fan base is really every fan base. When I wrote about Jim Harbaugh’s battles with management and players in 2014, 49ers fans told me that I hated the team and that ESPN had it out for them. When I wrote about the dynamic in the Seahawks building last spring, the 12’s told me that I hated the team and that ESPN had it out for them. I think that every single fan base of a major college football program that’s not been ranked as high as they think they should be or has committed an NCAA violation believes that ESPN has it out for them. It’s the same for SI and the New York Times with some teams. Just the nature of things, and it’s fine.
https://www.si.com/tech-media/2018/01/07/jon-gruden-raiders-espn-monday-night-football
He has bigger journalistic problems than our fan base, some of which humorously labeled a non-hit piece as a hit piece, and a few of which lobbed the beat-to-death charge that ESPN is attempting to sabotage the season.
For one thing he apparently failed to nail down the non-existence of the Patriot-of-the-week award, or whatever he called what Brady supposedly was chapped for not winning. You just don’t assume something exists — even if three sources tell you it does — when it would be notable yet failed to register even a single hit in 18 years of press coverage of this team under BB’s watch. I’ve read about the parking space many times; never this. Details matter. Every detail matters.
His huge problem is the alleged meeting lasting most of one day that reportedly resulted in the mandate to trade JG. I don’t care if 10 people told him that meeting occurred and characterized it in the same way. I am not taking the word of any source who will not personally vouch for being in attendance at the meeting and relate to me in some detail who said what.
I am very confident he did NOT have this. And it’s not just because Kraft is adamant the meeting did not happen and clear that he did not discuss this matter with B.B. after June 2017. It’s because any such meeting, if it occurred, almost certainly would have been lightly attended. Kraft. Jonathan. B.B. Caserio. That’s it.
Kraft is on the record, obviously. Unless one indulges the assumption this was a set up by the Pats, Jonathan is out. Caserio wouldn’t fucking dare considering his position and aspirations — and besides, he has much better judgment.
So this leaves B.B. as a theoretical source, which is why a few radio assholes in Boston claim B.B. is one of the sources. The story makes him look good AND it’s payback time. Problem is, although this certainly was not beyond Parcells — Will McDonough was his mouthpiece — it certainly is beneath Belichick, IMO. He would not waste his time or stoop so low. If he is sufficiently pissed and disgusted, he’ll just walk out at season’s end. With his dignity intact.
So what happened? There was probably a buzz about a meeting. Maybe there was a lengthy meeting — about something else. A few people, perhaps well placed, perhaps not, told the author the meeting was about JG. And the author ran with it, without first hand verification, illustrating the dangers of hearsay.
Either that, or the entire thing was an elaborate set up by Bob and Jonathan Kraft.
God help the people who ask about this at the next B.B. presser.
For one thing he apparently failed to nail down the non-existence of the Patriot-of-the-week award, or whatever he called what Brady supposedly was chapped for not winning. You just don’t assume something exists — even if three sources tell you it does — when it would be notable yet failed to register even a single hit in 18 years of press coverage of this team under BB’s watch. I’ve read about the parking space many times; never this. Details matter. Every detail matters.
His huge problem is the alleged meeting lasting most of one day that reportedly resulted in the mandate to trade JG. I don’t care if 10 people told him that meeting occurred and characterized it in the same way. I am not taking the word of any source who will not personally vouch for being in attendance at the meeting and relate to me in some detail who said what.
I am very confident he did NOT have this. And it’s not just because Kraft is adamant the meeting did not happen and clear that he did not discuss this matter with B.B. after June 2017. It’s because any such meeting, if it occurred, almost certainly would have been lightly attended. Kraft. Jonathan. B.B. Caserio. That’s it.
Kraft is on the record, obviously. Unless one indulges the assumption this was a set up by the Pats, Jonathan is out. Caserio wouldn’t fucking dare considering his position and aspirations — and besides, he has much better judgment.
So this leaves B.B. as a theoretical source, which is why a few radio assholes in Boston claim B.B. is one of the sources. The story makes him look good AND it’s payback time. Problem is, although this certainly was not beyond Parcells — Will McDonough was his mouthpiece — it certainly is beneath Belichick, IMO. He would not waste his time or stoop so low. If he is sufficiently pissed and disgusted, he’ll just walk out at season’s end. With his dignity intact.
So what happened? There was probably a buzz about a meeting. Maybe there was a lengthy meeting — about something else. A few people, perhaps well placed, perhaps not, told the author the meeting was about JG. And the author ran with it, without first hand verification, illustrating the dangers of hearsay.
Either that, or the entire thing was an elaborate set up by Bob and Jonathan Kraft.
God help the people who ask about this at the next B.B. presser.
Just heard Wickersham on Kirk and Callahan. It was the most flustered I have heard him during an interview, probably because Minihane kept HAMMERING to at least say how many Pats players spoke to him on record or what type of "Patriots staffer" was his source. To his credit, Wickersham didn't budge, and overall I thought it was a fair interview, notwithstanding the typical Minihane tactics.
I look forward to this, because that is when the whole story will be squashed (at least through the rest of the playoffs.)
I don't think Wickersham is lying. I think he's guilty of hyperbole to serve his overall narrative (not a felony as journalistic crimes go), and I think some of his sources are misleading him or making some hasty inferences that they passed to him, at least about the mythic half-day Kraft/BB meeting. Get a couple of guys in the building giving him that info and he's gonna run with it.
I have to say that the claim he held in-person meetings at random diners off-hours is a but odd. I mean, talk about a risk - if someone identifies you and tweets it out, there goes your anonymity. This leads me to believe that many of his sources - if his claim is true - are not recognizable-well known.
The Goodell tidbit is the strangest because it seems like a non sequitur - unless his point is that Bill is friends with a guy Brady feels fucked him - and I can't think of a reason why Goodell would deny meeting with Bill on his way to Maine.
I have to say that the claim he held in-person meetings at random diners off-hours is a but odd. I mean, talk about a risk - if someone identifies you and tweets it out, there goes your anonymity. This leads me to believe that many of his sources - if his claim is true - are not recognizable-well known.
The Goodell tidbit is the strangest because it seems like a non sequitur - unless his point is that Bill is friends with a guy Brady feels fucked him - and I can't think of a reason why Goodell would deny meeting with Bill on his way to Maine.
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K&C asked him about the whole player of the week award and he doubled down saying that it's absolutely an award and that Mike Lombardi said the same thing.
I had to go into my office soon after, so not sure if Brady has called in yet. I can't imagine he'll say any more than he did to Jim Gray last week. The real fun will be, as others said, the first Belichick presser this week. I think there will be a lot of "focusing on Tennessee" statements.
I had to go into my office soon after, so not sure if Brady has called in yet. I can't imagine he'll say any more than he did to Jim Gray last week. The real fun will be, as others said, the first Belichick presser this week. I think there will be a lot of "focusing on Tennessee" statements.
Brady isn't going to engage beyond saying 'I'm a positive person and try to conduct myself like a great teammate and friend, reporters are gonna report things and write things and people are gonna believe what they believe. I'm just focused on preparing for a really good football team this week, we have a lot of work to do and hopefully we play our biggest in the biggest games, like coach always talks about.'
I thought Lombardi said he didn't know about it, but that "he's been gone a while".
And how fucking hard is it to ask the ex-Patriots that work in media about this? Christ--Bruschi, McGinest, etc.
I posted about this up thread. Fauria lofted him a softball about how he has never heard of "Patriot of the Week", expecting Lombardi to laugh and say the same thing. Lombardi kind of fumbled around a bit then said they did it when he was there but he doesnt know now because he hasn't been in the building in a long time.
However, while I like Lombardi a lot, he's not the person I would trust hte most on issues like that. If anyone has listened to him on a podcast, he's not the best with specific details. (IE pronunciations, names, etc) Patriot player of the week vs. some other award that sounds similar is something I'd expect him to mix up/
Also Lombardi on this specific issue is pretty far from the most objective person (admittedly so) as he has been the driver of the Jimmy G bandwagon for years (which basically admits).
This is what I would have guessed is what was meant by Patriot of the Week. This does give some credence to Dave Portnoy's assertion that Lombardi was "the leak" (I'd guess IF he was a source he was one of a few and definitely not the main one)
I doubt we will be so lucky, considering that John F'n Tomase is still somehow employed around here and also apparently just came out of his hole to write some (I'll assume garbage) piece about this story.
In the 2008 season, there was a video of BB giving Matt Cassel a game ball after a key win against the Raiders. [Note: IIRC, Cassel lost his father earlier that week].
Seems like standard practice around the league to award game balls after a win, and I wouldn't be surprised if BB tries to "spread the wealth" a bit by recognizing different players (aka, those not named Brady or Gronk). I have extreme difficulty believing that Brady would be upset or make a stink about not winning a game ball. Seems like a lot of extrapolating going on based on Brady dropping the F-bomb on McDaniels.
Every team gives game balls. It's a common enough practice that a writer would just say "Brady hasn't gotten a game ball since X," instead of coming up with a fugazi award title.
The journalistic standards you posit are more than appropriate for coverage of, say, the President of the United States. Maybe those same standards should apply to coverage of professional sports as well, but I think it’s pretty clear that they don’t as a practical matter. In particular, sports journalists get a lot more leeway with anonymous sources than their colleagues who cover hard news. To pick one example: how much of Peter Gammons’s work over the years would’ve been nixed by his editors at the Globe if they held him to the same standards as the writers on the news pages?
By the contemporary standards of sports journalism, if Wickersham had two well-placed sources on that pivotal meeting, he wasn’t out of line to publish, even if neither source had first-hand knowledge (i.e., was actually in the meeting). Of course, given the loose way he cites his sources, we have no way of knowing what information he had about that meeting — but again, that sort of sloppy practice is generally accepted in sports journalism.
The “Patriot of the Week” strikes me as a rather harmless error, but it’s certainly fair to ask whether a writer who was careless about confirming that not-insignificant detail was also careless about confirming the central facts of the story.
Also, I agree with you about BB not being one of Wickersham’s sources, but Wickersham's sources presumably thought they were doing BB a favor. I do wonder where they got that idea.
So walk through this. The hypothesis is that sources exaggerated to him.
Facts or high probabilities:
The Krafts (Dad or son) aren’t dumb enough to be the source.
BB is not the source.
It would be incredibly dumb for other coaching staff people to be a source for this. It would be promotion suicide.
At least more than one source talked in local establishments.
All primary players have denied this.
If we run with the hypothesis and marry it to the facts/probabilities we end up with the source being people who are far enough down the ladder who wouldn’t have access to detailed knowledge of these inner workings. Why exaggerate and make conclusions that you promote as facts? This wouldn’t be the first time an underling tried to sound more important than they really were. These underlings would also be able to meet a reporter in a public place without drawing attention.
Reasonable possibilities:
In an attempt to build a story SW gets a tip from one person. He then asks remaining underlings leading questions. Instead of “what’s the dynamic line amongst Kraft, BB, and TB?” it’s “have you noticed any turmoil amongst them with a TB/JG decision looming?” The leading questions become self-fulfilling prophecies.
Conclusion: At least two of these sources (I think it’s much larger than two) are waaaaaayyyy down the payroll. Like clubhouse laundry or assistant to the travel coordinator down the list.
Have I missed anything?
I will give five bucks to the interviewer who asks if Seth if he ever checked with a salary cap expert regarding the impact that keeping both QB's would've have on the rest of the roster.
edit: added 'cap'
edit: added 'cap'
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Regarding the game balls, it comes up sometimes during the locker room celebration videos but only if the player in question reached some milestone, like when Brady became the player with the most wins; Kraft gave one to BB when he became third all time for coaching wins (starts around 1:15): http://www.patriots.com/video/2017/11/20/patriots-locker-room-celebration-following-win-over-raiders
Kraft even started off by saying "we don't usually celebrate individual achievements around here..."
Kraft even started off by saying "we don't usually celebrate individual achievements around here..."
For the life of me I never understood how he got promoted from the Lawrence Eagle Tribune. I mean I understand that Russ Conway was an all time great, but that Trib was loooooong dead by the time Tomase worked there.
"They could have just traded Brady."
"But what about the dead money on Brady's contract?"
[crickets]
Curious your basis for any of the above. Also, is there any reason to believe Wickersham had two sources for anything in the article?
He also got the date of the trade deadline wrong. In itself, it is a harmless error. But after a couple harmless errors occur, you simply have to question the accuracy of the writer.
After Tomase's horrid walkthrough story, some writer talking himself into a source's veracity in pursuit of the Big Scoop should surprise nobody.
Journalists get treated with a lot of reverence on this site in general. We can't approach things from that perspective and then disregard sloppy reporting like this.
I have no doubt that Wickersham believes everything that he wrote. But his haste to get the scoop, coupled with an apparent obsession with the NEP (he hearts Dallas also), seems to have compromised the process a bit.
I think that it's fair to question what else he got wrong.
Journalists get treated with a lot of reverence on this site in general. We can't approach things from that perspective and then disregard sloppy reporting like this.
I have no doubt that Wickersham believes everything that he wrote. But his haste to get the scoop, coupled with an apparent obsession with the NEP (he hearts Dallas also), seems to have compromised the process a bit.
I think that it's fair to question what else he got wrong.
I think the date thing and the award thing are nitpicking. The core criticism of the article, from the comments here, sounds like it ought to be that Wickersham allowed a lot of speculation to add up to fact in his mind. Worse, his leaps of logic were not supported by an in-depth understanding of who Brady, Belichick and Kraft really are as people, as has been revealed to us piece by piece over the years.
- Every Pats fan here knows that Brady yelling at McDaniels on the sidelines means neither jack nor shit, because of how intense Brady is on the sidelines - he could frankly blow up like that every game and it would surprise none of us, and still not mean anything for his general job satisfaction, or tension the rest of the week or season.
- Everyone here could probably cite a half-dozen examples where Kraft is known to have been consulted for a major personnel move - be it a signing, a trade, a cut of a prominent player - but he's stated, over and over again, that the final authority rests with Belichick, and that he'd regard himself a fool if he were to overrule Belichick's final judgment.
- We know all the salary-cap stuff about why they couldn't have kept Garoppolo, and have seen how Belichick approaches roster construction, with a focus on spreading money around and viewing the "middle class" FAs as the undervalued section of the market. Everyone has observed this, so anyone who's actually familiar with his work wouldn't consider the JG trade as unusual in the slightest.
- Brady has been quoted, over and over again, saying that his drive comes from always wanting to be the best QB option the team has - wants to never be "the weak link". And when that's no longer true, that's when he'll retire. Having real competition for his job, for the first time since 2001, is exactly what Brady wants in life. He lives for that struggle, he's motivated by that struggle. It is the exact opposite of the kind of person he is that he'd want to do some underhanded political stunt to clear his competition out of the way.
Amendola just told OMF that earlier this season he got "Patriot Employee of the week" and they have pictures up on the walls of the hallway.
Also, when asked about his relationship with Guerrero, he said (paraphrasing) that he likes to subscribe to his own DA80 method and uses every tool available to him.
Love me some 'Dola
I dunno, I think there is a wide range in sports journalism about what standard of reporting is acceptable. I think you are totally right that when, say, Woj tweets or writes a quick article saying that he is hearing from sources that Player X is on the trading block or whatever, it would be ridiculous to accuse him of being sloppy because he didn't specify more particularly who his sources were or whether they had first-hand knowledge. On the other end of the spectrum, though, you have things like the early-to-mid-00's reporting on steroids in baseball where the absolute highest standards had to be applied because players' livelihoods were at risk if you got any facts wrong.
This story obviously falls somewhere in the middle, and again I come back to how the story is framed. If Wickersham had just tweeted "Two Patriots sources have told me there is increasing tension between Brady and Belichick" or even just made general allegations in his article, I doubt many people would have a problem with it. But this article is being pushed as a major piece of investigative journalism and alleges specific statements and conduct of specific individuals at specific times. As such, I think it's fair to scrutinize it a bit more closely because it wants to be held to that higher standard of a "serious" piece of investigative journalism.
You guys can dismiss this writer and his report all you want, but there are certain elements of that article that only a few people would know of. And of those people, only a few would have the currency and balls to leak them. That would have to be a person or persons from a camp at Patriots Place that held "all" the cards with no fear of retribution and-or backlash.
My interpretation is the following: BB doesn't want to leave. But he also didn't like how things went down in the last few months (he wants 100% control - not 99%) and this is his way of saying to Kraft, Brady and Company "knock it off".
Jimmy Stewart on F&M is "hearing" that Tony LaRussa is a source of Seth Wickersham. LaRussa is supposedly at Foxboro just as much or more than on Yawkey Way and is a big friend of Belichick.
Let me get this straight...Your measured assessment is that Bill Belichick leaked this story to a reporter to show Robert Kraft who's the boss? Yeah....OK.