Michael Silver bashes Belichick.
The only Silver column I've ever felt the need to share. But I do love a good Patriots story.
about 2 years ago
Indy Lori
18 comments
0 recs |
Email
PrintComments
I hate that he thinks the Chargers are going to be representing the AFC.
I never ever root for Dallas, but this is it Cowboys. You have to beat them for us.
That way he wrote that is what he thinks Drew Brees is expecting.
Since Brees was not re-signed in SD. Brees is thinking it’ll be karmic or his distiny that he beats his old team in the Super Bowl.
"If God had wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates."
Jay Leno
ack grammar/spelling police is going to kill me.
"If God had wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates."
Jay Leno
It's already been done.
Nice knowing you.
"I am in favor of censorship ‐ not against what is supposed to be sexy or dirty, but against what is idiotic." -Jean Renoir
Random fact of the week from the empty void that is my mind: In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.
I love a good Patriots story too, and this isn't one of them
For all of the space Stampede Blue has given to bad journalism, this isn’t an article you should be embracing regardless of whether you hate the Patriots or not. Michael Silver does a huge disservice to his profession by the way he wrote this scathing, fabricated column.
Mike Vrabel flips off the Denver bench and learns losing isn’t fun. Silver takes that finger of frustration and turns it into a message sent from Vrabel to Josh McDaniels – who, according to Silver, is simultaneously sending his own message to Scott Pioli. None of this is real, except in the imagination of Michael Silver.
His column is filled with these phrases: ‘might have been’, ‘was most certainly trying to…’, Or maybe it had something to do with…‘, ’may soon be’, ‘I’m fairly certain’, ‘I’m guessing that’, and ‘might be’.
Silvers’ speculations are just that and he went way over the line with his fabrications, assigning vindictive, heartless motives and pettiness to Belichick, McDaniels and Pioli for the Vrabel trade and perpetuates the myth that Belichick left the field before congratulating Tom Coughlin after the Super Bowl. There are many photos of the ‘event’ that prove him wrong.
I could refute this point-by-point, but am aware that this is a Colts blog and not many of you would either appreciate it or care. Just think, as you read the article, if it’s good and you enjoyed it simply because it bashes a coach you hate – regardless of how it’s written or whether or not it’s true – and if you did, don’t complain anymore about how you all care so much about “Bad Journalism.”
Keep the faith!
I agree. Silver's piece was crap start to finish.
I was just pointing out the one thing that bothered me the most. I would definitely classify it as bad journalism. It’s one thing to dislike the Pats, another to use a column to write fanfiction. Poorly betaed bad fiction. :)
It is speculation but not entirely fabricated
Silver is trying to establish a pattern of boorish behavior from former key members of the Patriots, starting with Vrabel’s middle finger.
Can’t really argue with his Vrabel example. The 2007 Pats never seemed to have a problem with running up the score. But now Vrabel is stuck in Kansas Shitty and he’s flipping the bird when he’s the one getting blown out? Cry me a river.
I agree that the idea of a feud between McDaniels and Pioli is heavy speculation. They’re not exactly exchanging valentines, but they’re professional competitors. What else do you expect? Not all former coworkers sing Kum-ba-ya quite as harmoniously as Tony Dungy’s coaching tree.
Still, he’s right that McDaniels and Charlie Weis are both loudmouth pricks. Belichick himself is also a prick. Vrabel is just the latest former Pat to display prick behavior. It’s not hard to come to the conclusion that the Patriots are something of a prick factory. I’m a bit surprised he didn’t mention Rodney Harrison, but I guess Harrison was well on his way to becoming High King of Pricks before he ever got to New England.
By the by, Silver’s article doesn’t say that Belichick left the field without congratulating Coughlin. He links to his own article from the day after the Super Bowl that says Belichick crossed the field to shake Coughlin’s hand even though the game wasn’t technically over, then ran off before the Giants could take their final (admittedly ceremonial) kneeldown. And yes, that was a petty thing to do.
I’m not all that high on Michael Silver or even this article in particular, but it’s hardly the complete hatchet job you make it out to be. For whatever reason, several former Belichick prodigies keep getting caught in bad behavior. It’s not unreasonable to speculate on why that might be.
"The best defensive player is the sideline." - Trevor Pryce, on how to stop Peyton Manning
It is speculation and a hatchet job
From what source did you conclude that McDaniels and Pioli were “not exactly exchanging valentines”?
McDaniels, Weis and Belichick are loudmouth pricks. Oh, and Rodney Harrison too. That’s your opinion, just like Michael Silver’s. There are millions of them – including mine and those who know them – and not worth a dime a dozen.
Yeah, it’s not a hatchet job writing that “These are single-minded men who conducted themselves in New England as though they’d run it up against their own mothers in Scrabble and displayed all the personal charm of a box of a GPS direction-provider.” Funny stuff to a hater, but unnecessary in journalism.
And you consider his assertion that “yes, Mr. Vrabel – McDaniels was most certainly trying to show you who your daddy is. Or perhaps he was telling Pioli, "I’m Bill’s best and brightest, not you." Or maybe it had something to do with retribution for the Cassel trade, which didn’t exactly play out the way the Broncos had hoped, at least at the time.” was on the mark too. Silver has no idea and just makes stuff up there.
The Vrabel example is bizarre on many points. Silver doesn’t like that Vrabel was traded after 8 years of being a key part of the franchise and “buying into the Bill Belichick code of boorish intimidation with a zealot’s devotion” before receiving “an unceremonious excommunication from the family” in the name of cap space.
That’s just bogus. Mike Vrabel was traded to the Chiefs, who paid him the bonus he was due from the Patriots who weren’t going to keep him. Is Silver arguing that the Patriots should just keep him on their roster because of past performance, even though they didn’t think he’d be playing at the same level this season? Would it have been nicer if Belichick just cut or released him, freeing him to go to a team within the division and also guaranteeing that he wouldn’t get the million dollar roster bonus he was due? Does Silver feel this way about other teams that release or trade veterans, or just about Belichick releasing a veteran? If you watched or read about Troy Brown’s, Harrison’s or Bruschi’s retirement specials, they were mutually emotional moments that Silver doesn’t want to acknowledge could ever take place with the “petty, boorish” Belichick.
Also, Belichick has said that the Super Bowl aftermath is for the team that won and NFL Security cordons the losing team off pretty quickly to emphasize that point. He and Tom Coughlin are friends (believe it or not), and he wanted Coughlin to be with his team celebrating where he should be.
Keep the faith!
Sorry Marima
Your entire argument is nullified because you referred to Michael Silver and “journalism” in the same general vicinity.
How can you not love a team that does this?
Opinions, but hardly mine alone
From no source can I draw any conclusions about the McDaniels-Pioli relationship. As in, I’ve never seen them talk about each other at all. This is a contrast for a Colts fan. We’re used to seeing Tony Dungy’s coaching tree all talking about how much they respect one another. I realize that’s not typical and, again, I don’t expect it. It doesn’t prove they hate each others’ guts either. I said that already. What do you want?
Sorry, but McDaniels is a capering jackass. Unless you like him, in which case he’s being “emotional”. Spin it however you want but I prefer coaches who don’t get drawn into trash talking with opposing players, don’t yell and scream when things aren’t going well, and don’t drop f-bombs on national TV. There are plenty of other NFL coaches who are above that bush-league garbage.
Weis was pretty mouthy too when he first started at Notre Dame. He was the big-time NFL coach who was going to show these college amateurs how it was done, blah blah blah. I’m paraphrasing him in an unflattering way, of course, but there are plenty of journalists and fans who drew the same gist from his comments. Same principle applies: Don’t tell us how awesome you are, just win the goddamn games.
As for Belichick, even if you take his account of Super Bowl XLII at face value, there’s another school of thought that says you stay on the field until the end. That’s why it’s called the end. It wasn’t an outright snub (not like how Belichick snubbed Dungy when the Colts won the AFC Championship) but Silver didn’t say it was. You blamed him for repeating an untruth, which he did not.
And I couldn’t care less about the Patriots trading away Vrabel. The trade isn’t the point. The point is that Vrabel has enjoyed plenty of lopsided victories in his career. It shouldn’t be too much to ask him to man up and endure a lopsided loss, but apparently it is.
I didn’t say that any of Silver’s cracks about “who your daddy is” or “retribution for the Cassel trade” were on the mark. I said they’re speculation. But the overall conclusion of a culture of arrogance and hyper-competitiveness is not hard to draw, and Silver is hardly the first to draw it.
But you seem pretty well convinced that this is all a bunch of “hater” talk, so maybe we should just ignore each other until we go away.
"The best defensive player is the sideline." - Trevor Pryce, on how to stop Peyton Manning
Hm?
I could refute this point-by-point, but am aware that this is a Colts blog and not many of you would either appreciate it or care.
I’m not sure what you mean by that. I, for one, completely respect your opinion and always take the time to read every comment you have on that site. It’s always important to keep things in perspective, and you provide that necessary service.
"I am in favor of censorship ‐ not against what is supposed to be sexy or dirty, but against what is idiotic." -Jean Renoir
Random fact of the week from the empty void that is my mind: In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.
Yea, I actually would like a detailed perspective on this story.
To be honest, I pretty much ignore anything Pats related when things aren’t going perfect for them. It all sounds like fans overreacting to a little adversity instead of responsible journalism. My position on the Pats has always been that they are the biggest competitor to the Colts until the stake has been driven into their chest and they have turned to dust. Losing a couple of games isn’t going to change that. I fully expect the Pats to win that division and play us in the playoffs. You have been a good neighbor here, and your views are alway welcome.
by vintagephoenix on Dec 9, 2009 2:13 PM EST up reply actions
I always feel like at least the Colts have valid reasons to hate the Patriots.
The media, however, just dumps on them for the heck of it. It praises them to high heavens as well, but then goes to opposite depths of hate as well. It’s not really fun for me as a Colts fan either way.
I agree with you.
Particularly with the first sentence.
There’s very little fact in this piece. In fairness to Mr. Silver, he probably does not get paid to write fact so much as to generate page views. He and Bob Kravitz have that in common, I suppose.
So, no one likes Mike Silver around here?
In the last 2 days, I’ve read a lot of negative stories about the Patriots. It’s weird, because the media usually slobbers all over them. There was a story today about guys getting sent home for being late to a meeting. (Randy Moss).
"You can't defend the perfect throw, what can I say?" Peyton quoting Marino
"As I grow older, the list of people who can kiss my ass grows longer"-Ancient Hoosier Proverb.
He just writes like every other "Letters from Lake Wobegone" writer. It's an old shtick and it's tired.
The MSM overreacts to everything that the Pats do, good AND bad. I remember the 0-2 Pats start years ago, you would have thought that the world was coming to an end. It’s just east coast crap that bleeds over from their terrible newspapers.
by vintagephoenix on Dec 10, 2009 5:18 PM EST up reply actions
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Certain photos copyright © 2012 by Associated Press or Getty Images. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of Associated Press and Getty Images is strictly prohibited.
