The Patriots’ ultimate 2023-24 grades got here on Wednesday.
Delta House could be ashamed.
Patriots Owner Robert “Hoover” Kraft: “D+”
Former Coach Bill “Otter” Belichick: “B-minus”
Meanwhile, “Treatment Of Families” pulled a Blutarsky.
“Zero-point-zero.”
An F-minus
Jonathan “D-Day” Kraft had no grade level common.
All programs incomplete.
These rankings got here through the NFLPA’s annual team-by-team survey.
This is what the gamers assume.
Overall, the Patriots are ranked twenty ninth by the gamers affiliation in 11 completely different classes.
Their crew GPA is 1.71 on a 4.0 scale.
That’s a “D+.”
The Patriot Way is on double-secret probation.
“We’re a region that stresses family values,” Robert Kraft stated 30 years in the past on the day when he purchased the Patriots.
The Patriots have turn into a franchise that actually can not deal with participant households any worse.
“Family Values” have gone the way in which of “The Dynasty,”
When it involves “The Dynasty,” Patriots followers are nonetheless wrangling with the varied levels of grief.
The denial factor took about 5 years, however the bargaining section exhibits no finish date.
Talk of “The Dynasty” right here shouldn’t be restricted to the present serialization of Jeff Benedict’s guide presently airing in components on Apple TV+.
We view “The Dynasty” as the whole three a long time of Patriots decadence going again to the times when Robert Kraft made James Orthwein a proposal he couldn’t refuse.
“The Dynasty” on Apple TV+ sits as a milestone between “Olympia,” “Why We Fight,” and the “NESN Red Sox Post Game Show” by way of State Run Media propaganda.
While the reel-life “Dynasty” Patriots are streaming in your favourite big-screen of selection, the real-life Patriots search their new post-Dynasty identification this week on the NFL mix in Indianapolis.
Eliot Wolf spoke to the world for the primary time in his new function as Patriots GM-In-Everything-But-Name-Only Tuesday.
Wolf, 41, is the son of former Packers GM Ron Wolf. He adopted dad’s footsteps and labored in Green Bay for 14 years.
And he’s bringing the Packer Way to Foxboro.
“Cheese!”
Wolf wasn’t sheepish when it got here to stating his priorities. He made it clear the times of “a hard-ass vibe” in New England have gone the way in which of straight A’s in Foxboro.
Wolf promised a brand new option to consider gamers, particularly quarterbacks.
It seems he’s already given Mac the knife.
“You don’t want a guy that’s throwing his hands up after a bad play or you can see him physically pointing at somebody. Body language is important. Everybody’s looking to the quarterback,” Wolf stated.
Declarative sentences.
Action verbs.
Cogent solutions.
Welcome to 2024.
So a lot BS has gone the way in which of “B-minus B.”
The most vital factor Wolf stated was that he has the ultimate say in deciding what to do with the No. 3 decide in April’s NFL draft. The finger of blame or success factors in his route.
This stands out as the first time since Kraft advised Bill Parcells to draft Terry Glenn that we’ve definitive proof by way of who makes the ultimate name on draft day.
The Narrative says Kraft pressured Belichick to draft Mac Jones in 2020. The reality is that assertion by no means surfaced after Jones’ sturdy rookie season.
In “The Dynasty,” Kraft is proven on the desk when the crew chooses Brady.
“Did Bob take Tom, too?”
Episodes 5 and 6 of “The Dynasty” drop late Thursday/early Friday relying on the time zone of your server.
But a lot is amiss.
Mike Martz and Michael Strahan are given extra airtime than the 2003-2004 back-to-back Super Bowl profitable seasons. Never thoughts Adam Vinatieri.
Vinatieri is the best clutch participant within the historical past of Boston sports activities. In addition to his wizardry within the Snow Bowl, he offered the margin of victory in New England’s first three Super Bowl wins.
And when AI is doing its finest to clean any mentions of male NHL gamers from the web, “The Dynasty” conveniently has but to say Kraft’s dalliance with the State of Connecticut.
The Narrative says the NFL would by no means let the Patriots go away the Boston Metro Area on the flip of the century. But in fact, the league might do nothing to cease a transfer to Hartford. (See: Browns, Cleveland). Rather the NFL labored behind the scenes to maintain the crew from leaving Massachusetts. A delicate however vital distinction.
The Nov. 19, 1998, entrance web page “PATRIOTS EXTRA” of Hartford Courant was emblazoned with the headline “Touchdown!” Kraft was pictured with then Gov. John Rowland.
The Nutmeg State would open its pockets to provide the franchise no matter it needed to maneuver to a stadium alongside the Connecticut River in Harford. The deal would have been probably the most profitable, if not ludicrous, in NFL historical past.
Problems with the Hartford Steam Plant website doomed the challenge. The NFL acquired fortunate.
Had the perimeters opted for a cleaner website throughout the river in East Hartford, Tom Brady could also be Connecticut favourite’s son. The Hartford Heartthrob. The Middlebury Missile. The Torrington Tornado.
The “charade” lasted for months. The Patriots had been shifting to Connecticut … except.
When the Connecticut deal was introduced, Kraft spoke with the identical emotion as he does in “The Dynasty” when discussing Super Bowl 36 and 9/11. Kraft and son Jonathan participated in a Hartford pep rally on the identical day when his dad acquired a key to town.
The deal would assure the Patriots a brand new stadium by 2002. Kraft terminated it on April 30, 1999, two days earlier than an opt-out deadline.
The Patriots acquired their “unless” within the type of that $70 million in Bay State taxpayer cash to cowl infrastructure enhancements round Gillette Stadium. That equals $129.5 million in the present day. The Krafts additionally earned the eternal gratitude of would-be NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, who labored backchannels round Beacon Hill.
That chit got here in helpful when it got here time to smash the “Spygate” tapes.
The Krafts may have a sequel to “The Dynasty” to wash up this present mess and lift that GPA.
“Hard Knocks” is simply 5 months away.
Bill Speros (@RealOBF and @BillSperos) might be reached at [email protected].
Source: www.bostonherald.com