See ya later, Nancy

Well, it sounds like this is the end of the Nancy Drew era here in Boston…good effing riddance…Tito sound like a happy guy to you?  Don’t think he’ll be making the Francona Christmas card list…

Just what the doc ordered

The Sox needed that one last night…a good old fashioned beatdown is exactly what we needed to hopefully get back on track, and Tampa lost, which gets us a couple games closer to the postseason.  But, as the saying goes, you’re only as good as the next day’s starting pitcher which happens to be Wakefield, who currently stinks. 

Side note: not buying the diagnosis on Beckett…the Sox medical staff hasn’t really earned credibility over the last few years, so I wouldn’t be surprised if you see Beckett maybe start one more game before the postseason.

Roster Assassin

Belichick is a roster assassin this week, much like the social assassin…not sure how other than a reason to use social assassin and this pic…

• Roster overhaul continues…from last year’s roster gone are Sanders, Meriweather, Butler, Wilhite, Warren (temporarily), Tate…while Mike Reiss points out that the Warren move is most likely financial/procedural, I think the secondary overhaul provides us with evidence/confirmation of an identity change on defense.  Specifically with Meriweather, Belichick mentioned that he wasn’t a fit for what they were trying to do this season, and info gathered by some of the local scribes have indicated that Meriweather wasn’t strong enough in man coverage, didn’t work hard during the week, and a deficiency of that skill set just doesn’t fit with the overall defensive identity for the 2011 Pats.  Butler & Wilhite were liabilities in man coverage since they got here, exposed on the outside and inside, and Sanders always has struggled in pass coverage.

 

• Building off of this, yesterday Belichick made it a point to discuss the evolution of the safety position during his weekly press conference, mentioning that safeties need to be well-rounded and able to effectively play inside and outside of the box, rather than specialize in the strong or free safety role.  To me, this implies that the remaining safeties are more balanced than Meriweather/Sanders and fit the evolving defensive identity Belichick plans to use.  I think this also confirms my suspicion that they plan to mix Dowling in at safety throughout the year.  Prior to reading this, I belived that the Pats planned to bring in Darren Sharper after Week 1, which I still would love, but now I’m starting to think that he could be too much of a free safety for Belichick’s approach…will be interesting to see the nest shoe to drop, because clearly he has to build depth in the defensive secondary after all of these moves.

 

• The Pats have come under significant criticism (justifiably) in the last few days for their drafting between 2006-2008, where exactly two players remain on the roster and one starter.  Where I think the team does deserve credit is the fact that they are willing to part with players who don’t work out, regardless of where they got drafted, and Belichick said as much today.  Coming from a baseball perspective, specifically here in Boston, I feel like you don’t see that too often.  A GM often sees a recently acquired player or even a drafted prospect as “their guy” and they get a little more slack than the on-field performance would typically dictate.  Then again, I don’t want to discount the economic differences between football & baseball, as you can much more easily move on from a player in football than you can in baseball with the lack of guaranteed contracts.

 

• Don’t even get me started with the Randy Moss talk, it’s a complete non-story (I hope)…I’m not a fan of Moss as a player anymore and his skill set/personality doesn’t fit with our offensive identity anymore…he’s not the reason we lost to the Jets last year either, don’t tell me that.  We lost that game because we got destroyed in the trenches on both sides of the ball and outcoached, plain and simple.  Moss would’ve made absolutely no difference in that game whatsoever.  Not a Moss fan at all, not even a bit…we’ve moved on, time for him to do the same.  And one more thing…I can’t find it online, but there were rumors that Brady was the main reason Moss was shipped out of town last year, claiming he dogged it in the Miami game in week 3 and said he wouldn’t see another ball for the rest of the game.  I called this at the time (also no way to prove that), but you need to read between the lines of his comments when Moss left vs. when Branch left…completely different tonality and levels of disappointment.  I don’t care what he said yesterday, that’s just Brady being a good employee if BB does what he thinks is best…I’m telling you, he doesn’t want him back.

 

• Follwoing the Tampa Bay beatdown, Greg Bedard had an interesting takefrom several scouts/executives about the Pats’ new defensive identity as well as their depth, with one executive saying “All of those guys, all the way down to [Landon] Cohen, [Darryl] Richard, and [Kade] Weston, will be playing somewhere in this league, I promise you that,’’ said the AFC executive. “I don’t know how they’re going to figure that out. Do you know? Because I want to get a jump on getting those guys on my team.’’  That was a few weeks ago, and sure enough, Jason LaCanfora points out how the Pats had the most players claimed off of waivers almost immediately following their release.  Guess we’re doing something right down towards the bottom of the depth charts…

 

• Double Gronks?  Ohhh yea…tons of this…fast forward to the 3-minute mark…