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2020 Draft: Well Done Despite ESPN

April 26, 2020 by Micheal Savoie

The world needed a distraction. Sickness/fear/isolation was the anvil dangling over all of our collective heads, hanging by a worn thread. Sports were all suspended indefinitely – no hockey, no basketball, no baseball. After streaming the Star Wars trilogy of trilogies for the fifth time, the world needed something to watch. Enter the NFL Draft, the ultimate reality show.

Think about it. Kids who started with nothing but a dream of something better went out on a football field in school and found that they were good at it. They rose through the ranks of high school sports and were recruited by colleges and universities – given the opportunity to get an education that many could never dream of being able to afford. Many of those kids kept playing at a high level and earned an opportunity to show off their skills at the NFL Scouting Combine – although a few skipped the combine because of health issues or because they wanted to invite scouts to their schools’ Pro Day. Unfortunately, Pro Days were canceled because of the illness spreading across the nation. Teams’ scouts and general managers were told to stay home, which dashed the hopes of many of the players who didn’t participate or had a bad showing at the Combine.

The Draft put cameras in the homes of team representatives and the top rated players considered for this draft. This allowed the people starved for something to watch the ability to see how the NFL sausage was made – at least for the NFL Draft. We got to see a piece of the home life of GM’s, Head Coaches. Owners, and the families of many of the top players. Some of these peeks revealed the family life of people we don’t associate with families. Seeing a Head Coach or a GM interacting with their children (or grandchildren) while working revealed a cool part of their lives that is often ignored.

The Commissioner, Roger Goodell, allowed the world into his man cave, where we got to see a more human look at the big guy. He encouraged fans to boo him, which has taken on a life of its own over the years. But Goodell used it to help feed the people who are unable to afford to buy food during this period when jobs are paused to help avoid spreading a disease that could eliminate a large portion of our elderly or at-risk people. After 3 days, the NFL had raised over $100 Million through their NFL.com/relief link that they promoted throughout the entire event.

My only gripe about the coverage of the draft was giving control of it to ESPN. The ESPN announcers know each other and they do have a fan base, but the rest of the world – the ones who can’t afford ESPN on their cable service – has no clue who these yahoos are. Or, they may remember them from 20 years ago, and did not grow up with them. 20 years has not been kind to a lot of these guys. After a while on Saturday, it was getting difficult to follow what was happening with the top 2/3 of the screen talking about one player while the bottom of the screen was trying to keep up with the actual timeline of the picks. Sometimes, the guys talking were skipping over some of the picks to catch up, and they spent some time reintroducing people to the old timers. Mort almost lost it when they played his 30 year highlights tape and Mel Kyper was unrecognizable in the tape of his history…

Maybe I am just getting old, or I am just used to the NFL Network team’s draft coverage in the past, but it just did not sit well with me. It seemed like the personalities didn’t fit well together. Maybe next year, the people will mesh better, and they will still allow us into the homes of the GM’s and Head Coaches again, because that was my favorite part of the draft. Well, that isn’t quite true. My favorite part of the draft was seeing the joy in the faces of the players who went from nothing to a career that will set their families up for the rest of their lives if they don’t do anything stupid.

Filed Under: News, NFL Draft, NFL Drama, NFL News, Socially Speaking, Trades Tagged With: NFL Draft

DeflateGate Milestone Arrives Tomorrow

August 11, 2015 by Micheal Savoie

The day after the NFL came down with a ruling that they are upholding the 4 game suspension for Tom Brady, the owner of the Patriots came to the defense of Tom Brady. Robert Kraft surprised reporters who were expecting head coach Bill Belichick to address the Tom Brady penalty. Kraft took the podium and went on a ten minute tirade against the commissioner and the NFL as a whole.

Robert Kraft Addresses Media
Photo Courtesy of Yahoo Sports

The NFL commissioner says the 4 game suspension will stand, even after hearing Tom Brady at length defend himself. It appears the sticking point for the NFL is that they requested certain information from Tom Brady’s phone, one that Brady says he has since destroyed since his attorney told him it was no longer needed. The commissioner appears to have a problem with Brady being uncooperative, after requesting to only see text messages that pertained to this case and not his phone. Brady claims he was not about to give up his phone because of personal information.

Kraft was angry at the podium because he says he took the harshest punishment in NFL history, expecting the league to go easy on Brady. They did no such thing. Now Kraft regrets the deal and wishes he could change his mind and fight alongside Tom Brady. The damage is done, and this appears to be going to a new court of appeals and could drag on several weeks or months more. One thing is for sure, Kraft is not happy with his former friend in the commissioners office.

It might have taken 6 months, but Tom Brady finally spoke out about his 4 game suspension handed down by the commissioner of the NFL. Tom Brady, star quarterback for the New England Patriots, took to his Facebook page to tell the world exactly what he feels about and how he is going to proceed from here. The tone of the message was strong, and appeared as if written by an attorney more than a man fighting to restore his image.

Brady wrote a scathing message to the NFL claiming that not only is he innocent, that the NFL is on a witch hunt and making claims that simply are not true. Brady claims that the NFL announced he destroyed a cell phone to hide evidence, Brady says he simply replaced a broken phone. Brady went on to say that not only did he do nothing wrong, his harsh sentence is unfair considering that the NFL has zero evidence showing he did anything wrong. Brady simply is saying that he is being punished for a crime that there is no rules or regulations for.

The reason many are not impressed with Brady’s message is that he waited too long to finally defend himself. Had Brady been this adamant when he was first accused of wrong doing, maybe he would have gotten more support and this issue would have gone away. Instead, Brady is now in the fight of his life to try and restore a reputation that is getting more tarnished as this drags on.

Tomorrow, the League and the NFLPA have to meet with Judge Richard Berman to discuss any possible settlement that may have been agreed upon leading up to the Wednesday conference. Reports indicate that the League is taking this order from Judge Berman seriously and discussions are ongoing.

Filed Under: New England Patriots, NFL News, Socially Speaking Tagged With: DeflateGate, Tom Brady

Should Thursday Night Football Games Be Banned?

July 18, 2014 by Micheal Savoie

This season, the schedule for Thursday Night Football is a little different. Teams are scheduled to play a division rival on Thursday nights and the away team is home the week before to give them more recovery time than if they had to fly home before getting into rehab and training.

ESPN-Thursday-Night-Games-Round-Table

The ESPN newsroom discussed the Thursday Night Football Scenario… http://blogtalkfootball.com/thursdaygames

But wouldn’t it be better if the teams who played TNF games had a bye week immediately prior to the game? That would be 11 days of preparation instead of 4. It makes for a shorter bye week, but it does give the teams 10 days until their next game (which is similar to another bye week).

Hopefully the NFL will look at this possibility rather than simply ignore the safety issues that come up when we think about the shortened week before a Thursday Night Football game. The thought that went into this season’s TNF games shows that the league is already giving it some attention, but removing the games altogether would be a bad thing for the fans of the game.

Camo Beer Belt, Holds 6 Cans or Bottles - Camouflage HolsterThe Go Plate - Tailgating Made Easier!

Filed Under: NFL Drama, NFL News, Opinion Tagged With: Thursday Night Games

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