Friday Four-Pack 10.18.24
Bob Kraft needs to look forward. A Tom Brady "report" goes viral. Huge week in media. NFL Picks!
If he’s insistent on talking about the past, Patriots owner Bob Kraft should take a page from Red Sox owner John Henry's playbook and stop talking to the media altogether.
The more he’s talked recently, the less likable he has come across. And I don’t think I’m alone in that opinion among Pats fans. Crazy to say about a man who was easily the most popular owner in Boston sports - not just currently but maybe all-time.
Bought the team and kept them in Foxboro
Along with Bill Parcells and Drew Bledsoe, restored relevance and reputation to the beleaguered franchise
Hired Bill Belichick, who drafted Tom Brady
Helped keep those two together for 20 years - the greatest coach / QB combo in football history
Was credited by former Colts center Jeff Saturday as being one of the key figures that helped end the 2011 NFL Lockout
And of course, above all, was the owner when the team won six Super Bowl titles and became one of the greatest dynasties in sports history.
Yes, I’d like it if that guy started talking less about the team’s recent history.
This week’s cringe came when Kraft went on the syndicated radio show, The Breakfast Club.
“I kept him for 24 years,” Kraft said of Bill Belichick. “I didn’t enjoy having to fire him, but I tried to do it – if you look at the press conference and how it happened, tried to do it in a classy way.”
Ah yes, the press conference. Everyone knew Belichick was being fired, but they refused to call it that. Classy.
“But this is a move that we mutually agreed is needed at this time,” Kraft said at the time. “What Bill accomplished with us, in my opinion, will never be replicated, and the fact that it was done in the salary cap and free agency era makes it even more extraordinary.”
From there, Kraft had Belichick join him on the podium for a classy handshake. Then Bill left and Kraft returned to take questions from the media.
The firing mutual parting of ways left Belichick a coaching free agent. The Falcons were interested, but Kraft reportedly sunk the whole thing by trashing his former coach to Falcons owner Arthur Blank. A report, I should note, was strongly denied by the Patriots.
From the ESPN story by Don Van Natta Jr., Seth Wickersham, and Jeremy Fowler
Blank spoke by phone, at least twice, to Robert Kraft. Among the NFL owners, Blank considers Kraft his closest friend. Publicly, Kraft and Blank have said Kraft expressed only support and offered praise of his former coach.
But in a conversation with Blank, Kraft delivered a stark assessment of Belichick's character, according to a source who spoke to two people: a close Kraft friend and a longtime Belichick confidant. The source quoted the Belichick source as saying, "Robert called Arthur to warn him not to trust Bill." That account was backed up, the source said, by the close Kraft friend.
Multiple sources said that Kraft spoke with "some candor" to Blank about Belichick, though the sources declined to elaborate. One source close to Belichick said Kraft "was a big part" of why the Falcons passed on hiring him.
The sources said Kraft made clear to Blank that "you'll never have a warm conversation with" Belichick, echoing what Bill Parcells told Kraft in 1996 when he wanted to bust the budget and hire Belichick. "Blank likes coaches who feel part of a family," a Falcons source said, "and it wasn't going to be that way with Bill."
Classy.
As a final classy gesture, the Apple TV docuseries The Dynasty painted a picture where Belichick was to blame for all the team’s issues at the end of their unprecedented run. And many of the issues during it. ESPN reported last month the original producer for the series ended up walking away because Kraft and the Patriots wanted editorial control. In the end, a longtime friend of Kraft came on board to produce the whole thing, which came off as completely pro-Kraft and anti-Belichick.
Kraft has alienated more than a few fans in his effort to win the divorce between the Pats and Belichick. More than ever, Kraft is blamed by hosts and callers on Boston Sports Radio for the team’s current state.
History will probably be very kind to Kraft. His stewardship of the Patriots created lifelong memories for thousands of football fans in New England. But it’s time for Kraft to look forward.
Worry about why your team is 1-5 and has already had a handful of off-the-field issues under new coach Jerod Mayo, the guy you handpicked to replace Belichick. Worry about how your team got to a point where you had to settle for someone way down the list to be your offensive coordinator. Those are the things fans are worried about in 2024.
If he’s going to continue to speak publicly, it’s time for Kraft to turn the page. Stop being so concerned with how classy you and the team were in the firing of your Hall of Fame head coach.
Especially when in reality, it wasn’t that classy at all.
Meanwhile, Drake Maye looked good but I still want the team to lose games. A massive media and betting notes section. And we try to bounce back from a terrible week of NFL picks.
All ahead in today’s Four-Pack.
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On a Tom Brady “report” going super viral…
Let’s get this out of the way - I am a Tom Brady homer. Suck up. Ball washer. All of the above. But it is crazy that the NFL is letting him call games as a broadcaster on Fox as part owner of the Vegas Raiders. He was officially named part owner this week.
As an owner and broadcaster, Brady can’t attend practices or production meetings in advance of his games with Fox. He’s had these restrictions through the first six games of what is a 10-year deal worth $375 million. NFL rules state that as an owner, Brady can’t publicly criticize officials or other teams. If he does he’s subject to fines or suspension.
Fox has the Super Bowl this year. Are you telling me Brady will call the game but not meet with the teams before the biggest game of the year? Or call out officials for bad calls (of which there have been dozens this year)?
His ownership in the Raiders feels like the eventual easy path out of broadcasting for Brady. Maybe even as soon as next year. I will not be surprised.
So, we talked about this on Wednesday’s Kirk Minihane Show.
That led to Minihane “reporting” on what he’s hearing about Brady and the Raiders.
Whoa! Brady and Belichick back together in Vegas!
Of course, if you watched or listened to the show, Kirk asked for quiet as he wanted a clean cut of the “report” to have fun with on social media. He’s done this before (RIP Rob Bradford).
To be clear he has solid sources - he had Belichick out before the local or national media - but in this case as someone who was sitting about six feet away from him and watched the whole thing play out…yeah he was having some fun with this one.
After his report, we turned back to his producer’s bad skin…or my wife eating cereal with water as a kid…or the dying guy sitting next to me. I forget what was next.
But it only takes one.
Just hours after the “report” hit social media, it got picked up from notorious NFL aggregator Dov Kleiman…to the tune of 600K views. And then we’re off to the races.
Story after story reporting on the “report.” And from real media outlets.
Thursday morning, I got one of those PR emails from a sports betting company with various prop bets listed for the rest of the NFL season.
TWO TO ONE YES!? ARE YOU KIDDING ME!? WHAT ARE WE DOING!?
It could happen, but this was 100% a prop based on Kirk’s “report.”
The NY Post story a full day later clearly didn’t listen to the show, but did note “Minihane has been a longtime staple in the Boston sports scene, working as a columnist for the “Lowell Sun” newspaper and having a radio show on WEEI before joining Barstool.”
Shoutout Lowell Sun.
Former Browns GM Mike Lombardi, who once hung up on Minihane at WEEI during an interview, referenced the report Friday on the Bill Simmons NFL Podcast.
“Now we’re finding out that, now that Brady is part-owner of the Raiders, he wants to hire Belichick…I don’t know if that’s true or not…”
And that’s sort of the point, right? What started as a joke turned into a major story in the sports news cycle. I asked Minihane Friday morning if he was surprised about how viral the story went.
“The way it was positioned on the show was a joke..let’s f&%k around…but I thought it was rooted enough in reality…Brady and Belichick, to me, seem stronger than ever now in a weird way. I thought ‘Oh that could work,’ and secretly I just love the idea of that happening. So I thought it’d be a funny one to run with. But no, I didn’t think it was going to go as viral as it went.”
“It’s also sort of a study in, ‘nobody checks anymore.’ That was also part of it, too.”
As he pointed out to me, even his employer Barstool Sports, blogged about the report hours later.
Minihane argued with me Friday that if we had seen the story at WEEI years ago, we’d have played the clip and run with it. Maybe in the first few minutes. Or the first few hours. But once you look at the comments and realize fans of the show are pointing out it’s a joke, I’d think we’d have mentioned that and moved on.
The NY Post story was 24 hours later.
It speaks to Minihane’s cache at WEEI, he and Gerry Callahan’s weekly interviews with Brady, and now his status at Barstool, that story was taken seriously. But it also does speak to media in 2024, where it appears to be much more about going viral than doing good journalism (whatever that means). This happens all the time I get it. It even happened with a fake Drake Maye/Belichick report on Monday.
“The second day of it…still going on? That’s where it gets weird to me,” Minihane said.
This one struck me as unusually wild. Maybe because I saw the birth of it up close? Or that if any of these sites had bothered to listen to the show or do a little research, they’d have known he was having fun with the Brady/Belichick storyline. It’s a good storyline - Brady/Belichick always is - but the origin story of this one was rooted in some fun on a live podcast.
Is it just as simple as, “Hey, we don’t care if this is true, but it’s Brady/Belichick so we know it will get clicks and reads and downloads?” Or “Hey, the Daily Mail has this we have to have it too?”
“To me, I’ve been doing this for a while, questioning how media is working,” Minihane said. You’re seeing it now with this Volin thing, this Massarotti thing…it’s a very weird media week in 2024. It’s a very strange time right now where disinformation just lies out there.”
So strange, in fact, we have a lot more media to cover later in today’s Four-Pack.
If Brady does end up hiring Belichick in Vegas, at least you know for sure where you heard it first.
On Drake Maye’s debut…
The kid looked good.
Might have torn up his knee behind a terrible OL, but there was promise there. Can throw and run. Can throw on the run. Said all the right things in the post-game. Three big takeaways going forward.
The team went from can’t watch to must-watch. You get to view the week-to-week development of the No. 3 pick in the draft. He might be the only thing worth watching, but you have to watch him play every week if you’re a Pats fan. The team has not been a must-watch in years. Since early Mac Jones. Clear the schedule for Maye.
As predicted here, the kid got his butt kicked behind that shitty OL. You saw the risk you’re taking by putting him out there, but the genie is out of the bottle. It’s no better than a coin flip he makes it to the end of the season healthy. The team should be actively looking to trade for one or two offensive linemen between now and the November 5th NFL trade deadline.
My kids disagree as do a majority of Pats fans, but I still want this team to lose a bunch of games and end up with the highest draft pick possible…all while developing Maye. The team won just five games in Drew Bledsoe’s rookie season but he thrived at the end of the year. The Pats went 4-0 over their final four games and Bledsoe threw 8 TDs to just 2 INTs. The team still ended up with the fourth pick in the draft and landed Willie McGinest. That’s the dream scenario here - Maye stays healthy, the team loses games, and they end up with a Top 3 pick.
On your sports media and sports betting notes…
➡️ “Tony Mazz leads the league in on-air apologies.”
Those the words from Kirk Minihane Show Producer and noted spokesperson for The Community (the collective Community not a specific one) Dave Cullinane when reached by text Thursday afternoon to discuss his above video and its fallout.
Tony Massarotti (Mazz) apologized that same Thursday afternoon for the video, where he used the term “zipperhead” when talking about a “Gen Z colleague.” Zipperhead is a racial slur referring to Asian people. Urban dictionary notes it can also be used to describe a “narrow-minded person.” It’s not a term you hear often, but I knew it was a racial slur. Mazz did not, at least according to his apology.
I don’t know Mazz other than a few fantasy baseball drafts and listening to him on the radio. He seems like a good guy. But this is now the second time in two years he’s had to issue an apology, the last time was again for something racially insensitive, when he commented on two black men standing near co-host Michael Felger while Felger was on remote.
“I wanna know now who the two guys behind you are,” said Massarotti. “Because if I were you… They can’t hear us, right? Okay, so I would be careful if I were you. Because the last time you were around a couple of guys like that, they stole your car.”
Mazz did not deserve to be fired over that. Or this. Or even suspended. It was dumb and maybe that’s just Mazz. But it’s noteworthy for a few reasons.
1. It does feel like a few years ago, when cancel culture was at its peak, he probably gets suspended here.
2. 98.5 The Sports Hub has this apology thing nailed - apologize and move on. Don’t dwell on it for any amount of time and don’t make it content.
3. The Boston Globe - who launched a crusade against all the so-called issues at Sports Radio WEEI - decided not to cover this story. At all. The Boston Herald, The NY Post, and countless others found it newsworthy. Not the Globe. Hm.
➡️ Another week, another shot at Rich Shertenlieb by his former co-host Fred Toucher…and Hardy to be honest as he set him up to mock Rich. Credit to Boston Media Critic for the video. If you care about Boston Sports Media, he (or she?) is someone you need to follow on X.com. Will Rich ever fight back?
➡️ The biggest story in horse racing this week was jockey Luan Machado misjudging the finish line at Keeneland and costing his horse (and thousands of bettors) the win and a lot of money. When you watch the replay it looks like an honest mistake, but given these are betting events, Machado deserves at least a 30-day suspension from racing.
➡️ The Boston Globe’s Ben Volin posted on X.com that Drake Maye had an MRI on his knee. No one else reported it, but to be fair, the team didn’t rush to leak that he didn’t have an MRI. But for what would be a huge story, why did Volin only post the note on social media and not file a story with the Globe? “Garbage.” is how one person who has spent some time covering the NFL described the situation to me. It is pretty weird - and worth noting that Volin has previously said things on the radio that he got from random direct messages.
➡️ If you like sports betting and NFL Picks, I hope you’ll watch Week 7 of Sportsbook Live from Mohegan Sun. And if you can, join us for a live show between now and November 7. Details on our Grand Prize giveaway on 11/7 are in this week’s show. I’m hoping not to go oh-fer again this week.
➡️ Former WEEI host and Patriots tight end Christian Fauria launched a new podcast this week, Coached2Win with Christian Fauria.
On our Week 7 NFL Picks…Presented by Sharp Hunter
Week 6: 0-3 ❌❌❌
Not really close in any of my picks, save for the Dalton Schultz prop that came up four yards short
It was the best week of the year for the public, with underdogs limping to a 3-9-1 record in Week 6. Sportsbook manager Dave Mason from BetOnline.ag noted “Wowza... With yesterday's chalk-a-pa-looza, it was the most profitable single day for the public in the history of BetOnline.ag.”
Season Record: 9-9
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The Side
Seahawks +3 at the Falcons (-110, ESPN Bet)
There is just one team in the NFL averaging less than one sack per game on defense - that’s your Atlanta Falcons. ESPN Stats show them 27th in pass-rush win rate this season. They have not been able to get to quarterbacks and this is the game it could cost them. After facing the 49ers in a tough spot last Thursday, Geno Smith and the Seahawks offense should be rested and ready to attack. On paper, an especially good matchup for DK Metcalf with the Falcons 26th in DVOA against opposing #1 receivers. Falcons are 21st overall against the pass. Rested and in a spot to score, I’ll take the three points on the road with the Seahawks.
Sunday Morning - The Seahawks are without their top 2 corners in Riq Woolen and Tre Brown. I’m still playing this at +3 but, I don’t love it like I did when I wrote it up on Thursday.
The Total
Browns vs. Bengals UNDER 41.5 (-108, DK)
This line started at 44.5 and I expect it will keep coming down this weekend so I’ll say up front, I’d play it down to 41. This game fits what I’m looking for when playing an under. These are the 8th (CIN) and 10th (CLE) slowest-paced teams in the NFL per FTN’s sec/snap pace tool in neutral pace situations. The Bengals have been passing a lot, but they run almost zero no-huddle - just 3.2% of the time. Case in point - Cinci is getting off just 57.5 plays per game - second-fewest in the NFL. The Browns have passed more this season too, but they’re expecting Nick Chubb back this week and no doubt will try to run the ball more than they have against a Bengals D ranked 22nd vs. the run DVOA. On some metrics, Deshaun Watson has been the worst QB in football this season. I mean, Cleveland has not scored 20 points in a game this season. They don’t even have a 200-yard passing game! UNDER!
Sunday Morning - Still my favorite total of the week but I’m also playing the over 51.5 and WAS/CAR. We get two bad defenses and offenses who want to play fast.
The Prop
Trevor Lawrence O10.5 rushing yards (-110, BetMGM)
Lawrence gets a banged-up Pats defense in the second half of the Jags’ London-London exacta. Travis Etienne could miss which should lead to a few extra scramble chances for Lawrence. He cleared this number 12 times last season and twice already this year, including last week before he was pulled late in the blowout loss. Over the last two seasons, the Jags have played three International games and Lawrence is averaging 30 yards rushing per London game. That’s your MutStack Stat of the Week…which is available if you’d like to sponsor it for the rest of the season. Hit me up. Seriously.
And with that, we have for sure said it all.
Comments are open for all your hot takez. And if you like the Four-Pack, share it with a friend. Because as you know sharing….is caring.
Good luck with all your bets this weekend. And thanks for reading.
Good weekend.
"After his report, we turned back to his producer’s bad skin…or my wife eating cereal with water as a kid…or the dying guy sitting next to me. I forget what was next."
Almost died while reading this sentence.
Great edition of the FFP, Mr. Mut!
Great column Mut. Thanks for the bets…hopefully we both win this weekend