Tag: New England Patriots

Major News

The Pats traded their best defensive player Matt Judon to the Atlanta Falcons for a 3rd round pick. This is laughable. I have no problem with them not overpaying for an older Judon coming off a season ending injury. But why not do this before the draft? They could’ve gotten another offensive weapon to help out Drake Maye. Or a defensive player to help replace Judon. Now, they lose their best player and have nothing to show for it this year.

J.J. McCarthy is out for the year. This is sad to see. McCarthy had probably the best situation of any rookie QB with a great offensive coach and a ton of weapons. I definitely think he could’ve won OROY this year. It’s also odd how the situation progressed. He played a great game last weekend and no one was really talking about an injury. Then it seemed liked he had a minor injury that wouldn’t really affect him being ready for the year. And now he’s gone for the year. Regardless, he should still be a solid QB for this team once he’s back next year.

How to Stream Patriots Games This Year

In my article reacting to the NFL schedule release (https://wordpress.com/post/wheelhouseblog.com/1308), I mentioned how if an NFL fan wants to watch every game this season, it would cost at least $850 and require 6 different streaming services. Many fans mainly care about being able to watch their team every week. As a Patriots fan, this is what to do to watch every Pats regular season game if you don’t have cable/YouTube TV and don’t want to rely on random NFL streams.

  • Paramount Plus Subscription to watch 7 games scheduled for CBS: $6/ month for 4 months = $24
  • Venu Sports (Brand new combination of Warner Bros. Discovery, Fox, and ESPN for sports) to watch 6 games on FOX: $43/month for 4 months = $132 (UPDATE AS OF 8/16: A judge has blocked this venture and it could cause it to be delayed)
  • Prime Video to watch 1 TNF game (9/19/24) on Prime: $9/month for 1 month = $9
  • NFL Plus to watch 1 game (10/20/24) on NFL Network: $7/month for 1 month = $7. NFL Plus can only be watched on a phone or tablet. If you are okay with watching games on a phone or Tablet for the whole year, NFL Plus has local and primetime games for $7/month ($28 for the 4 month period 9/8/2024 – 1/5/2025). This should allow you to watch most (if not all) Pats games for a very low price.
  • Two of the Pats games are TBD and likely will be 1 pm or 4 pm games on CBS/FOX because it’s unlikely the Pats will get a primetime game Weeks 17 or 18.
  • NOTE: *The Pats regular season is from 9/8/2024 – 1/5/2025, so this blog is assuming you would purchase the subscriptions for Paramount and Venu on 9/7/2024 and cancel on 1/6/2024. If you keep them for longer in order to watch the playoffs, it will cost more.*

All told, it will cost you $172 for the year to watch every Patriots game on your TV (with the exception of the NFL Network game), which isn’t too bad. Additional benefits of the above platforms: Paramount Plus has Champions League and some other CBS NFL games. Venu will provide some other FOX NFL games, Monday Night Football, MLB (including the World Series), NHL, and college football games. Prime Video will also provide other TNF games. And of course, Paramount Plus and Prime Video have shows and movies. All told, each person will have to make the decision of the best way to watch their favorite teams play. Following the above strategy is a little annoying, but also is doable and not crazy expensive.

NFL Market Cap

Sportico released their list of most valuable NFL teams today. From Sportico’s estimate, all 32 NFL teams combined are worth $190 billion, which includes team related businesses and real estate. If the NFL was a public company, a market cap of $190 billion would make them THE 36th MOST VALUABLE COMPANY IN AMERICA. The Cowboys have become the first sports franchise to be worth over $10 billion dollars ($10.32b) and the next closest NFL team is worth $7.79b (Los Angeles Rams). The full list:

  1. Dallas Cowboys, $10.32 billion
  2. Los Angeles Rams, $7.79 billion
  3. New York Giants, $7.65 billion
  4. New England Patriots, $7.31 billion
  5. San Francisco 49ers, $6.86 billion
  6. New York Jets, $6.8 billion
  7. Miami Dolphins, $6.76 billion
  8. Philadelphia Eagles, $6.75 billion
  9. Las Vegas Raiders, $6.7 billion
  10. Washington Commanders, $6.3 billion
  11. Chicago Bears, $6.26 billion
  12. Houston Texans, $6.01 billion
  13. Atlanta Falcons, $5.9 billion
  14. Seattle Seahawks, $5.59 billion
  15. Pittsburgh Steelers, $5.55 billion
  16. Tampa Bay Buccaneers, $5.5 billion
  17. Denver Broncos, $5.49 billion
  18. Kansas City Chiefs, $5.43 billion
  19. Green Bay Packers, $5.39 billion
  20. Minnesota Vikings, $5.32 billion
  21. Tennessee Titans, $5.29 billion
  22. Los Angeles Chargers, $5.22 billion
  23. Cleveland Browns, $5.14 billion
  24. Carolina Panthers, $5.13 billion
  25. Baltimore Ravens, $5.12 billion
  26. Buffalo Bills, $5.08 billion
  27. Indianapolis Colts, $4.99 billion
  28. Detroit Lions, $4.93 billion
  29. Arizona Cardinals, $4.85 billion
  30. New Orleans Saints, $4.79 billion
  31. Jacksonville Jaguars, $4.76 billion
  32. Cincinnati Bengals, $4.71 billion

Drake Maye Ridiculousness

Quick blog to get my thoughts out. People freaking out about Drake Maye playing bad during TRAINING CAMP is the peak definition of July/August being slow sports months. There isn’t much to talk about, so everyone wants to over exaggerate to get attention and make headlines. Maye is a rookie on a rebuilding team – there’s going to be growing pains. The Pats drafted him at 3 for a reason. They want him to grow and develop over time. The idiotic talk of Joe Milton being better is crazy. Milton played in college for 6 years and only started once for a reason. He has an amazing arm that looks good during training camp when he can’t be sacked. Once full-speed games start being played, it’ll be obvious he’s not the guy. People need to calm down and be patient.

Is the 2020 QB Class the Best Ever?

The 2020 NFL Draft Class of QBs is starting to look like they have what it takes to become the best ever. All five of the below QBs have received massive deals upwards of $50 M a year and four of them have been Pro Bowlers. Let’s dive into the stars of the class:

Joe Burrow, Cinncinatti Bengals: Round 1 Pick 1

Burrow is widely regarded as a Top 5 QB in the league, with his only kryptonite being his health. When healthy, he is the only QB other than Tom Brady that has shown he can consistently best Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs. In his only two fully healthy seasons, he has made it to the AFC Championship twice, the Super Bowl once, and has a 5-2 record in the playoffs. He also has the best completion percentage in NFL history.

Tua Tagovailoa, Miami Dolphins: Round 1 Pick 5

The most controversial QB from this draft. There are some who consider him a great QB, and others who think he is average and aided by a great coach and offense. The past two seasons he has upped his game and led the league in passer rating in 2022 and passing yards in 2023. He is 5th in career completion percentage.

Justin Herbert, Los Angeles Chargers: Round 1 Pick 6

He is possibly the most talented QB in the entire league. He has shown how brilliant he can be, but has dealt with terrible coaching and many injuries to players around him. Despite this, he has thrown the most passing yards and 2nd most passing TDs in league history by a player in their first 4 years. Jim Harbaugh is only going to help elevate his game and help him start winning more.

Jordan Love, Green Bay Packers: Round 1 Pick 26

He was an extremely controversial draft pick, but it looks genius now. He still is a little bit of an unknown, having only played one year as a starter. He took over from Aaron Rodgers and played great. The last 8 games of the year, he completed 70.3% of his passes, had 18 TDs and just 1 INT. Unlike Favre and Rodgers, he made the playoffs in first year and won a game.

Jalen Hurts, Philadelphia Eagles: Round 2 Pick 53

His success has been the most surprising since Carson Wentz looked like the franchise QB in Philly when he was drafted. He took over from Wentz and has been great. In 2022, he was the MVP runner up, an All-Pro, and led the Eagles to a Super Bowl appearance. He has 41 rushing TDs already in 4 seasons.

Best Patriots Players to Suffer the Logan Mankins Curse

Most people are probably asking: “What is the Logan Mankins Curse?” The Logan Mankins Curse refers to a player who played for the Pats during the Brady-Belichick era, but did not win a ring. I call it the Logan Mankins Curse because he was drafted by the Pats in 2005 (right after they won 3 Super Bowls from 2001-2004) and was traded away weeks before the 2014 season (in which the Pats won the first of 3 Super Bowls from 2014-2018). I want to be clear: this is not named after him as a slight or because he was bad. Logan Mankins is a Hall of Fame worthy player and one of the best Pats of all time. His career with them just happened to be during the 9 season span they didn’t win (2005-2013).

I will be ranking players based on how good they were with the Pats, not how good their careers were overall.

1. Randy Moss, WR

One of the greatest wide receivers in NFL history and he was arguably at his best with the Pats. It’s such a shame they couldn’t get a ring for an all-time great player.

2. Logan Mankins, Guard

As talked about in the intro, this guy was a beast. He was a six time All-Pro with the Pats and he deserved a ring more than anyone else on this list.

3. Wes Welker, WR

A better regular season version of Julian Edelman, Welker was the perfect complement to Randy Moss and thrived while playing with Brady. He came up short twice with the Pats.

4. Aaron Hernandez, TE

He is now remembered for the awful things he did off the field more than anything else. On the field, he was super talented and along with Gronk gave the Pats a devastating TE combo.

5. Brandon Meriweather, Saftey

He was a very underrated player and could absolutely lay guys out. People don’t play the game like him anymore due to rule changes.

6. BenJarvus Green-Ellis, Running Back

An all-time nickname (Law Firm), hard running style, and lack of fumbling made him a great fit in New England. He brought that great hard-nosed running style before we had LeGarrette Blount.

7. Danny Woodhead, Running Back

He was such a gritty and talented pass catcher who complemented the Pats playing style so well.

8. Aqib Talib, Corner Back

He only played here a year, but was an All-Pro and Pro Bowler for us.

9. Brandin Cooks, WR

He also came in for just a year, but helped us get to a Super Bowl as our WR1 when Edelman was out in 2017.

10. Matt Cassell, QB

He was better after the Pats, but still managed to come in and lead the Pats to 11 wins after Brady went down in 2008.

Bonus Fun Fact: In doing the research for this blog, I realized that during the 2010 season, the Pats had Randy Moss, Wes Welker, Julian Edelman, Deion Branch, Kevin Faulk, Rob Gronkowski, and Aaron Hernandez all at the same time. I know that some players were early in the careers and some later, but to have all that talent on the same team is crazy. And it’s no surprise Brady won MVP that year.

Drake Maye vs Mac Jones

There are many reasons why most Patriots fans, including myself, believe Drake Maye will fair much better than Mac Jones. Below are my reasons, some obvious and some not so much.

Drake Maye has much more talent than Mac Jones. Physically he is slightly bigger at 6’4″, 230 lbs vs Mac at 6’3″ 220. He also is much more athletic and has such a better arm than Mac does.

Maye also produced in a much harder situation than Mac. Mac was aided by the greatest college football coach ever and maybe the greatest wide receiver room in college football history. Maye dealt with much more difficulty and still stood out.

Maye seems like intangibly he is also better than Mac. Mac had a tendency to pout and have poor body language, whereas Maye seems to have a better attitude, which I think is important. When the going gets tough, you want a QB who weathers the storm instead of complaining about the storm.

For all of Mac’s shortcomings, he really had no help offensively, as the Pats have had the worst offensive skill talent in the league since Brady left and their offensive line play was poor too. They are still very much a work in progress, but they did use significant draft capital on WRs and Oline this year. Hopefully, the Pats will continue to build the offense around Maye and give him viable options and protection.

Maye also benefits from not being the heir apparent franchise QB to Tom Brady. That is nearly an impossible role to live up to and Mac didn’t come close. Now that Pats fans have endured a couple shitty seasons, their expectations are not as high as the immediate Post-Brady era.

This will be the most controversial, but I think Maye will actually benefit from not having the greatest coach of all time lead the Patriots. The Bill vs Tom debate created lots of controversy and pressure for everyone in Foxboro. I believe it influenced Bill to go for broke in terms of winning and he simply tried a quick reload, instead of a full on rebuild that the Pats realistically needed. Now that he’s gone, they can focus on rebuilding correctly and getting back to winning championships.

Most Hated Teams in Sports

Being a hated team in sports gets more of a bad rap than it should. It’s better to be hated as a sports team than to be irrelevant and not talked about (think Los Angeles Angels or Atlanta Falcons). Below are the most hated teams in American sports:

Dallas Cowboys

They are the most popular team in the most popular sport in America, the highest valued sports franchise in the world, and the most hated team in sports. The Cowboys get talked about so much despite not having accomplished anything notable in the past 30 years. That’s an easy team for fans to hate.

New York Yankees

The evil empire. The championships. The pinstripes. The Yankees are an iconic franchise. People all over the world wear their hat to the point that their logo is more so a fashion statement and representation of New York City than just a sports team. Even though they have underwhelmed the past decade plus, they will forever be near the top of this list.

Duke Blue Devils Basketball

Much like the teams above them, no matter how good or bad Duke is any given year, their reputation automatically makes people hate them. An elite university and elite basketball program that wins so much is the perfect villain college basketball needs.

Alabama Crimson Tide Football

They are an absolute juggernaut of a program, having dominated college football the past 15 years. Even with Nick Saban leaving, this is a team that everyone will circle on their schedules and fans will live to see them be mediocre.

New England Patriots

The Pats went 4-13 last year, and not a single person outside of New England felt bad after they dominated the most competitive league in sports for two decades. The success they’ve had combined with some “cheating,” has made them one of the most hated teams in America.

Houston Astros

They are newer to this list than most of the other teams on it. The sign stealing scandal is still fresh in so many minds, that they will be hated for years to come.

Texas Longhorns Football

They suffer from a similar “curse” that the Cowboys do. Texas Football is such a big brand, despite not winning a national championship for almost 20 years and people can’t stand it.

Michigan Wolverines Football

Before this year, Michigan was similar to Texas in that they hadn’t won a title in a long time, but were still talked about so much. This year, their cheating scandal combined with their dominating season gives football fans more fire to fuel their hate.

Philadelphia Eagles

This is a rare one, where people mainly hate this team because of how terrible their fans are. Philly easily has the worst fans in sports and it’s on full display at Eagles games.

Kansas City Chiefs

The Chiefs are starting to suffer from what the Pats have, where their success is breeding hate. That combined with all of the complaining they do every time the refs don’t bend the rules in their favor, makes them easy to hate.

NFL Schedule Release

The NFL schedule release being bigger news than the NHL or NBA playoffs shows the popularity of the shield. Some highlights for the Pats and league as a whole:

Patriots

The Pats are tied for the 8th hardest strength of schedule and this will probably be a tough season record wise. The good news is they are starting at rock bottom so they can only go up.

The Pats only “unique” games of the year are a Thursday Night game vs the Jets Week 3 and a London game vs Jags. It makes sense that they aren’t on primetime a lot, but shows how far they have fallen.

Other Highlights

I love that the NFL is now scheduling games whenever they want to. There are two Friday games, including a Week 1 matchup in Brazil and a game on Black Friday. They are also playing two Christmas Day games on Netflix, even though it’s a Wednesday.

The NFL is the most popular league in America and they know it. No matter what day they show a game, people are going to watch.

One thing I don’t get about the NFL schedule is the Monday Night doubleheaders that overlap. I’d understand if they separated them so fans could watch both, but as they are now, fans must choose one or the other, which makes no sense. It’s happening 4 times this year.

Streaming Delimna

The massive news about Netflix showing Christmas Day games emphasizes an annoying trend in sports and streaming in general that is only going to get worse: There are too many streaming platforms people need to pay for. Below are all the streaming services and their prices needed to watch every NFL game next year.

That is crazy. I’ll pay for Sunday Ticket, I have Prime, and I also pay for NFL Plus (another $7 a month to stream games on your phone). For the steaming only games, I’ll have to rely on family, friends, or a local bar- as I’m sure a lot of other people will too.

This all highlights the awkward phase we are in with people moving from cable to streaming. No one under 40 wants to pay for cable, but there are too many streaming services to potentially pay for.

There’s a lot of news about companies bundling services together, especially for sports, and this makes sense. People don’t want to pay for all of these, but if you could somehow bundle all the NFL steamers together, that would be a hot ticket. One day, all the games will probably be streamed, so this will only continue to be a bigger issue.

Patriots New Logo

The Pats have subtly released what seems like a secondary logo (as seen above). It is very odd to release a new logo with absolutely no fanfare whatsoever. Maybe this means they are just experimenting with it and may remove it, if fans aren’t big into it. The current reaction is mostly negative and I have to agree.

The NE is too big and they are trying to do too much by incorporating the Flying Elvis face into the letters while also merging the N and E into one. It’s a little odd, but maybe hints that they are looking for a new logo long term.