Friday Four-Pack 8.8.25

The clip that sold me on Mike Vrabel. Giving John Henry some credit on the Anthony extension. A massive media week in the MutStack notes 👀

Tom Brady gets a statue Friday night at Gillette Stadium.

I’m desperate for the team not to mess this up.

Yikes.

To his credit, Dwayne Wade—the player, not the statue—defended the artist’s rendition of the star Heat guard when his bronze likeness was unveiled last fall.

"If I wanted it to look like me, I'd just stand outside the arena and y'all can take photos," Wade said. "It don't need to look like me. It's the artistic version of a moment that happened that we're trying to cement.”

Good for Wade…but that thing is…yeeeeeeesh.

Like, Brady’s statue better not look like that. Friday will mark the team’s 717th celebration of Tom over the last two years. Let’s hope the 12-foot statue is a good one and we can end on a high note.

Yes, I’ll be tuned in Friday night to see what the TB12 Statue looks like. But admittedly, I have not been fully invested in the Patriots’ preseason activities.

I read Andrew Callahan’s detailed reports each day. I’ve listened to Tom E. Curran and Phil Perry on a few of their training camp podcast episodes. But mostly, the daily coverage of what’s been going on at practice feels over the top, and I find myself tuning out when I hear a breakdown of who might fill out the offensive line in front of Drake Maye. I get that it’s important, but it’s just not that interesting to me in early August.

But thanks to Kraft Sports Productions, I’m sold on Mike Vrabel.

Yes, this three-minute clip from the team’s propaganda series, Forged in Foxboro, had me ready to run through a brick wall for the new head coach. Just watch from where I have it queued up until the intro. It’s an electric sequence from the head coach.

A year ago, I was in on Vrabel. I wrote here that Vrabel or the Lions' Ben Johnson would have much better options than Jerod Mayo to lead this team. The results on the field ultimately proved me right, the team agreed, and Vrabel is now running the show.

He commands the room in this clip while also projecting leadership. I guess I don’t care that he’s jumping into scrums on the practice field, but his quarterback seemed to love it.

"That's what we're trying to build, and it starts with the head coach -- intensity, bringing it every day, taking no crap when we're out there on the field," quarterback Drake Maye said. "The mentality, I like it. That's what you want."

A year ago, Matthew Judon was berating Mayo on the practice field, embarrassing the first-year coach and setting an ominous tone for the season. This year, the head coach is fighting for his team in practice. Literally.

My mom, God love her, bought dozens of items over the years from TV infomercials. Total Gym, Ron Popeil’s Pasta Maker, and countless others were delivered to the house. Some of them are probably collecting dust in her basement. My grandmother Ann used to buy those presidential coin sets, gifting them as investments to her grandchildren. So yeah, maybe it’s in my blood to buy a good sales pitch.

And I know it’s team propaganda, but watch the 200-second clip. Mayo never projected that sort of presence, and the team never highlighted it. Now that I write it, did we ever get any video of Mayo addressing his squad? He had to walk back his own words to the media multiple times during the season, which I vividly remember.

But this? Yep, the sales pitch, if that was the idea, worked like magic on me; I’m convinced Mike Vrabel will be the next head coach who brings a Super Bowl to New England.

I’ll be watching his team on Friday as he’s on the sidelines for the first of three preseason games. Hopefully, tomorrow’s headlines are about their solid play, and not about the ugly statue of Tom Brady that the team revealed before the game.

Seriously, please don’t stink.

Meanwhile, the Red Sox lock up Roman Anthony. I found some positives to highlight this week in horse racing. And a rough weekly ratings period for WEEI and one show in particular, part of a massive notes section.

All ahead in this week’s Four-Pack.

---

🗣️ Quick Programming note:

Hey! Happy Friday! A reminder that if you want to support us here at MutStack and be included in Subscriber Only emails and Subscriber Only content in the future, just hit the blue ‘Subscribe now’ button below. You’ll also see my posts, notes, and videos on the SubStack App, which is now showcasing short video content.

---

On the Red Sox extension of Roman Anthony…

Photo credit to former Mut and Bradford co-host Rob Bradford

Was John Henry there for the Roman Anthony extension announcement? ✅
Did John Henry answer questions at the said announcement? ❌

He’s chatting with Boston radio hosts in his luxury box. He’s down on the field before games. He’s happy to show up for the Anthony Family Christmas Card. Answering questions from the big, scary Boston media? No thanks.

BUT…we might have to give Henry, and even Craig Breslow, some credit for getting this deal done.

This was the biggest story in Boston sports this week. Locking up one of the sport's most talented young players to an eight-year, $130 million contract is a big deal. By hitting specific incentives, the deal could be worth $230 million. The reports, as far back as spring training, had the two sides far apart on the numbers that might get a deal done. So, yeah, the announcement was a big surprise.

And based on he reporting from Alex Speier, Henry and Breslow used some pretty shrewd tactics to seal the deal this week.

So it caught Rodgers (Anthony’s agent) off guard when Breslow informed the agent that he’d just sent a new contract proposal to Rodgers and Anthony. Had Breslow only sent it to Rodgers, the agent might have stiff-armed the request.

But Anthony — who’d been alerted Sunday morning by Sox principal owner (and Globe owner) John Henry that the team was preparing to make him another offer — had opened the email, and greeted it with immediate enthusiasm, which he relayed to Rodgers.

Sox played that weird early game on Sunday. The owner informs the player directly that the team will be sending a new offer. Then he bypasses the agent and sends the deal directly to the player, allowing him to see it as well.

I gotta admit, that’s pretty ballsy.

In media sales, there are these marketing and advertising agencies that act as gatekeepers for businesses. The rule is that you go through the agency with proposals, you don’t go directly to the owner of the company. At least that’s what the agencies want to happen. I’m sure it’s the same way with players and agents: “Talk to me, not the player.” I would LOVE to know what Anthony’s agent really thought about the team just CC’ing the player with the new proposal. I doubt he was thrilled.

There’s minimal downside to this deal for the Red Sox. Much of Zolak and Bertrand’s viral reaction to the deal was nonsensical and forced. But this part is genuine - if the Red Sox claim down the road they can’t spend elsewhere because of this deal, it will be bullshit.

You sign players to deals like this just to be able to spend and build around him. It’s not a perfect comparison, but it’s similar to having a good quarterback on a rookie contract in the NFL—it allows you a sort of financial flexibility cheat code…IF YOU SPEND THE MONEY. We have evidence the Patriots did not do that when Mac Jones was here. It remains to be seen if they’re more willing to do it with Drake Maye.

After failing to add significantly at the deadline, the Sox could have thrown in the towel the same way they have the last couple of years post-All-Star break. Instead, they’re two and a half games up for the No. 1 Wild Card spot and just four back in the AL East. Fenway is loud, and the team is streaking.

Between the wins on the field and the no-brainer extension for their top young player, the Sox are on a bit of a heater. And that’s true even though it has been…checks notes…1,999 days since owner John Henry sat down and took questions from the Boston media en masse. That’s wild.

Give the media-averse owner and Craig Breslow a ‘W’ for their work in getting to Anthony directly and helping to get the deal done.

---

On two positives I saw this week as a horseplayer…

Let’s start here. This was Monday’s 4th race at Fort Erie in Ontario. The 9/5 favorite and #6 Princess O Denmark has a massive lead into the stretch. As track announcer Doug McPherson points out in his call, it looks like jockey Kirk Johnson is not pushing the horse at all late in the race. I’ll add that the jockey looks back two or three times in the lane. Eventually, Princess O Denmark gets run down late and finishes second.

Horseplayer and Fox Sports college football guru Chris Fallica echoed the sentiment of many racing fans on social media.

The race looked bad. I have watched thousands of races and don’t remember one that so optically looked like the fix was in. Sorry, that’s how it looked to me.

My friend Barry Spears disagreed, which is fine. And he’s right—the horse has a history of showing speed and fading. But the jockey seems much more focused on the horses behind him than the did on getting his mount home in this $6250 maiden claiming race - the lowest level this horse has ever run at. Maybe the horse had no fight, the jock knew it, and he was trying to nurse her home.

My main issue was with Fort Erie not issuing a statement, as this was an abnormal race that deserved scrutiny.

A few hours after saying that on X.com, The Paulick Report reported that “The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario has informed Fort Erie that race four on Aug. 4 is under review.” Good.

Maybe it just looks bad, and there’s nothing to see here. I’ll buy that. But the rule has always been that a jockey needs to ride through the wire, and that didn’t seem to happen here. People are not sitting around and just watching these races—they’re betting their hard-earned money on them. And when a race looks like this, you owe it to the customer to review it for any nefarious activity on the part of any or all involved.

Because without the horseplayer, there would be no horse racing in America.

A much bigger story was the DQ of Zulu Kingdom in Friday’s Hall of Fame Stakes at Saratoga. I said in real-time to the Saratoga Degenerate Group Text that, “They won’t take him down, but that was kind of a shit move there by Prat.” Well, they took him down, and I agreed with the call.

Rather than bury their heads in the sand, the stewards who made the call did a 15-minute YouTube video explaining their decision. I thought it was excellent, and even if you disagree with it, this is the kind of transparency that racing needs to consider itself a big-time sport.

In the case of the Fort Erie review and out west at Del Mar, where they locked the CAW groups from betting in the win pool with 2 MTP, I give racing fans and bettors on social media a lot of credit. The prominent voices in the game are compromised by their relationships to racing, race tracks, betting companies, whatever. There are things that many of them just can’t and won’t say on the record. But the social media buzz helps, especially with so many race track executives sensitive to negative comments.

Was it all good this week? Certainly not, considering the embarrassing DQ at Del Mar on Sunday. But there was some positive news this week, as it relates to the sport taking its integrity seriously.

---

On a quick MutStack Message…

Photo credit to me, your humble newsletter publisher

Win or lose, the Mutnansky Family baseball season will end this weekend. As a unit, we spent an easy 100 hours in and around the field this summer. Hell, it's probably over 100 just at the 110 Fields in Chelmsford.

Maybe it’s the end of the season. Or the calendar flipping to August and the realization that summer is over. Or maybe it’s reading The Five Types of Wealth. Or getting hit by a car, I don’t know.

Regardless—and look, I know I’ve written this before—but coach your kids if you can. And get to as many games as you can. It doesn’t always seem like it, but it goes by too fast. Way too fast. You know this if you’re an older subscriber and the kids are out of the house. For the younger dads, it‘s not a warning, just a fact.

Like the summer, enjoy it before it’s over.

This is art.

---

On your MutStack Notes…

⚾ So this was fun. After days of ripping the Red Sox and their ownership for not doing more to help the team at the trade deadline, there was Felger & Mazz co-host Tony Massarotti, hanging out with Sox owner John Henry in his owners’ box at Fenway Park.

Captured by X.com user SoxCeltics, the meeting came just a mere 48 hours after the Boston Globe wrote a glowing opinion of Felger & Mazz, in part, because of their willingness to rip local team ownership. But here’s Mazz, hanging with Henry and his children a day after the trade deadline.

Mazz explained his visit to the owners’ box on his show Monday, saying he was invited by Henry to swing by when he was at Fenway. More interesting is that the two share correspondence via email and text.

That was Fred Toucher’s take the next day. I agree. It’s weird Tony admitted to emailing and texting with the Red Sox owner, and Felger seemed to have no idea. At least that’s how he played it in the clip.

Just remember the next time Mazz is so angry at Red Sox ownership, he was happy to take his son up to the owner’s box for a mid-game visit.

🎙️ When asked by a caller about the aforementioned Boston Globe piece about his show and his influence, Felger said he had no idea that Joon Lee was writing that profile, and he thought he was talking to Lee about a book project. One source told me it’s a book about sports radio, but as best I can tell, Lee hasn’t reached out to many former hosts in Boston.

It doesn’t speak well to the author that they would do a bait and switch and produce this piece for the Globe off of interviews for a book project, without circling back to Felger, if that’s how it was done.

🎙️ 📉 We report pretty extensively here when the Boston radio ratings come out each quarter. In fact, there’s no more extensive breakdown in the market, for better or worse.

Each book is made up of 12 weeks, so a bad weekly rating is not something to go nuts about. I have only written about weekly ratings a handful of times over the last two and a half years.

But given that I’ve written for weeks about a possible shakeup for WEEI Afternoons, it’s worth mentioning that the most recent weekly I saw for July had them with a 1.9 rating among Men 25-54. That was tied for 14th. Felger and Mazz were #1 with a rating over 12.

Last July, Jones and Mego did a 1.7 for the month. In late August, their show was cancelled.

Based on the Spring 2025 ratings, WEEI Afternoons is already the lowest-rated show on WEEI. Even with a huge Red Sox bump baked into this week's numbers, the show still scored a 1.9.

I asked around this week, and while there’s no concrete lead on what WEEI Market Manager Mike Thomas might do, the consensus is that he’ll do something.

“I mean, he has to do something, right?” one radio insider said.

If he does, it won’t be before the station’s Jimmy Fund event on August 18-19. But after that, based on weekly numbers like this and other things I’ve heard the last few months, I’d be surprised if the show didn’t change in some way before the Pats opener on September 7.

🏈 Speaking of the Pats, Friday’s Patriots/Commanders preseason game will once again feature Scott Zolak in the TV booth as the lead host/spotter/play-by-play guy. Zolak struggled in that role in the opener last season, failing to identify the action as it was happening. Or who it was happening with. Devin and Jason McCourty will join Zo again this year.

Kraft Sports + Entertainment and WBZ Boston are again trying something different for the preseason, good for them. But I can’t help but think having Marc Bertrand host with the McCourteys would make for a better broadcast. Or just have Zo and Beetle do it.

Bob Socci and Phil Perry will handle the radio side on 98.5 The Sports Hub. And WBZ will carry the Tom Brady Statue ceremony at 6 PM.

🎙️ Credit to Boston Radio Watch for the news that 98.5 The Sports Hub’s parent company, Beasley Media, parted ways with their Boston director of programming, “Cadillac” Jack McCartney, who oversaw The Sports Hub and other stations. Even with the #1 sports station in the country, Beasley has made cuts over the last six months, and the longtime Boston radio fixture is just the latest.

🎙️ NESN’s all-female broadcast on Tuesday night for Sox/Royals was fine. From all the press releases and media attention, you’d think it was the first time a woman has ever called a live sporting event on TV. But my point has always been - whether it’s something like this or having the Dining Playbook duo sit in for an inning or two - the audience doesn’t really want that. They want Dave and Lou, or the regular broadcasters, to be the voices calling the team they watch every night. They don’t want a different man or woman in there; they want their team calling the game for…well, their team, I guess.

🏈 Just don’t eff with Red Zone, ESPN.

💰DraftKings launched a pretty player-friendly program this week. Early Exit will allow you to receive cash credits equal to the amount of your original bet when a player you bet on in a player prop gets hurt. For parlays and same-game parlays, your odds get re-adjusted. People love complaining online when their player prop gets busted because of an injury, and DK is listening. My guess is FanDuel will add a similar program in time for football season.

🏇🏻 America’s most popular horseplayer, Dave Portnoy, almost became the owner of a $2.8M horse out of the Saratoga Sales this week. He was outbid by Zedan Racing for a son of Gun Runner when that group went to $2.9M for the horse, and Dave bowed out of the bidding.

“The things I could do for horse racing if he had let me have the horse,” Portony said after the bidding was over, a great moment captured by America’s Best Racing. “If he would have let me have the horse, it would have brought so many new views.”

Portnoy is right. He’s building out his Go Go Grey Racing Stables, and if and when he has runners in big races, it will draw massive attention to the sport from thousands of Barstool fans. That will be another positive for horse racing among so many negative issues.

And with that, I believe we have indeed said it all.

Good luck with all your bets this weekend. Please don’t let the Brady statue suck. And thanks for reading.