Jones’s reputation has been taking a hit
Picked-up pieces while wishing I saw Pelé just once ...
■ What’s up with the Patriots and Mac Jones?
As the Patriots prepare for their penultimate regular-season game vs. the Dolphins at Gillette Sunday, there’s nonstop negative narrative regarding their second-year quarterback.
Mac has regressed in his second season and is one of the worst quarterbacks in the NFL.
He actually has been bad since the first eight games of his rookie season. That’s a year and a half of bad. He has been caught on national TV yelling at his coaches and teammates during games.
He couldn’t slow down Chandler Jones on the clown-show final play of the loss to the Raiders.
He presents as insubordinate and defiant of his coach. When Bill Belichick said, “We couldn’t throw it that far,” regarding a possible Hail Mary attempt at the end of the Raiders game, Jones came back a day later and said he could have reached the end zone. “I know my number,” he said.
Jones is getting ripped by Patriots legends. Vince Wilfork said, “I’m tired of seeing it.” Julian Edelman spoke of Jones and “all the antics after plays, and waving off coaches and all these little pissy faces and stuff.” Tedy Bruschi was particularly rough on Jones in his commentary on ESPN before last Saturday’s game with the Bengals.
The reaction of these vets brings to mind Michael Corleone’s message to brother Fredo in “The Godfather”: Don’t ever take sides with anyone against the family again. Ever.
Champion ex-Patriots have Bill’s back and don’t like seeing defiance from a marginal second-year quarterback.
Now we have the Mac Jones-is-Grayson Allen theme bouncing from coast to coast. Jones’s cheap-shot rolling block on Bengals cornerback Eli Apple further damaged his reputation. Jones said there was no intention
to hurt anyone, but the video is damning. In his rookie season, Jones was called out for a dirty play on Panthers defensive end Brian Burns. Not good. Very un-Grogan-like.
Belichick threw his kid quarterback under the bus when asked about the “dirty play.” When Bill was asked if he had any issue with Jones’s block on Apple, the coach answered, “I’ll leave it to the officials to officiate the game. Doesn’t really matter what I think.”
Of course it matters, Bill.
Given a second chance to defend his player (“some players have called Mac a dirty player,” a reporter suggested), the Hoodie again deferred, saying, “You’d have to ask those guys about that. I don’t know.”
He knows. And he seems happy to see Jones twisting in the wind.
It’s all part of the dysfunction of the 2022 Patriots, who have not won a playoff game in four years (Super Bowl LIII) and will be mercifully eliminated from postseason contention if they lose at home to the Dolphins.
Happy New Year, Mac. Better get off to a good start Sunday or the “We want Zappe” chants will be ringing in your ears.
■ Quiz: Name the only two defensive players to be named NFL MVP since the award was established in 1957 (answer below).
■ Ten men were sent to prison in the Dominican Republic this past week for their involvement in the shooting of David Ortiz in 2019. The news reminded me of Captain Renault’s “round up the usual suspects” command in “Casablanca” after the shooting of Major Strasser.
Dominican authorities still claim this was a case of mistaken identity (like someone in Memphis shooting Elvis, then claiming they got the wrong guy). Closer to home, former Boston Police commissioner Ed Davis, who was hired to investigate by Ortiz, concluded that Big Papi was targeted because he “disrespected” drug kingpin Cesar Peralta. Clearly, we’ll never know what this was really about.
■ RIP Dick Flavin, a local media giant who served as poet laureate of the Red Sox in his final days. Without Flavin, there would be no “Teammates” statue on Van Ness Street outside Fenway. It was Flavin who drove with Dom DiMaggio and Johnny Pesky to see Ted Williams in The Kid’s dying days in 2001. Because of Flavin’s masterful storytelling, the late, great David Halberstam learned of the road trip and turned it into a bestselling book. And a statue.
■ Remember the 1970s Red Sox of “25 players, 25 cabs”? In 2023, the Red Sox strive for “25 players, 25 one-year contracts.” It’s a way to save money and assemble a roster that will turn over every 12 months. Great for fans, no?
■ Feels pathetic to have a 7-8 football team talking playoffs. We are the New York Jets and the Jets are us.
■ Wonder what Ime Udoka is doing to fill up his days? His suspension is up June 30.
■ Let’s table the Jayson Tatum MVP talk until March. Going into the weekend, Tatum ranked sixth in the league in FiveThirtyEight’s RAPTOR rankings (an advanced measure of what a player contributes to offense and defense per 100 possessions).
Dallas’s Luka Doncic had a pretty good week (60-point, 21-rebound, 10-assist game vs. Knicks) and Denver’s Nikola Jokic is the runaway early MVP leader and has won the last two MVP awards. If Jokic wins this season, he’ll join Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, and Larry Bird as the only NBA players to win three straight MVPs.
■ Brooklyn coach Jacque Vaughn deserves a lot of credit for the Nets’ turnaround. The Brooklyns won 21 of their first 27 games under Vaughn and carried a 10-game winning streak into this weekend, trailing the Celtics by only 2½ games. Are we to deduce that it was Steve Nash holding them back all along?
■ It will be great to see Bobby Orr again at the Winter Classic Monday afternoon. We have not seen or heard from the hockey GOAT since November of 2020 and we miss him.
■ It’s depressing to hear Red Sox mouthpiece Sam Kennedy talking about rival owners Steven Cohen (Mets), Peter Seidler (Padres), and Ray Davis (Rangers) as “very competitive owners . . . pushing really hard.” Remember when the owners of the Red Sox were like that?
The soul-crushing winter of the 2022-23 Red Sox was best encapsulated when super-agent Scott Boras came to Boston to introduce Masataka Yoshida and munched on Sox-issued snacks while negotiating a six-year, $162 million deal for Carlos Rodón to go to the Yankees. The ultimate pantsing.
■ Sox questions: 1. If John Henry sells the Sox and the ballpark, does he have to rename the “Fenway Sports Group”? 2. When Kennedy talks about the goal of “playing baseball in October,” does he mean the 2023 season finale at Camden Yards on Sunday, Oct. 1? 3. Does Henry wear a Penguins sweater when his Pittsburgh hockey team plays the Bruins at Fenway in the Winter Classic? Henry also owns the Globe.
■ The Baseball Hall of Fame ballot is in the mail. We know Fred McGriff will be on the stage in Cooperstown in July, but he might be alone. Scott Rolen has the best chance of those on the writers’ ballot. Next year we get to vote for Adrian Beltre and Joe Mauer. The year after that, Ichiro Suzuki and Dustin Pedroia are eligible.
■ I love Adam Jones, but he said Yoshida is “the Japanese Juan Soto.” Come again? If this is true, I must be the American James Joyce.
■ Why don’t the Celtics wear their fantastic, traditional, home white uniforms at the Garden?
■ Remember when you couldn’t wait for each week’s Sports Illustrated in the mail? Remember when SI’s Sportsman of the Year was a big deal? Local newspapers have certainly hit hard times, but no sports media product has been diminished more than SI, which comes out only 12 times per year, costs $99.61 for an annual subscription, and is almost totally irrelevant.
■ In one of the best high school games of this or any season, Newton North’s Jose Padilla dribbled over midcourt and drained a buzzer-beating 3pointer to give the Tigers a 61-58 overtime victory over Catholic Memorial in the championship of the Garden City Classic Thursday night at the North gym. Hope to see these two again in the state tourney in March.
■ The Palm Beach Post reports that Bob Kraft paid a record $23.7 million for a Palm Beach oceanfront penthouse.
■ One last Satch Sanders nugget: In his telling of Russell’s sudden impact on the NBA in 1956-57, Satch referenced big, slow NBA centers who suddenly could not get their shot off against Boston’s rookie shot-blocker.
“Those shots were very easy for him to block,” said Sanders, “because they took their time making the hook shot, and what Russ did was retire two or three of those centers. I don’t know if they ever came back after his first year.”
Indeed, Fort Wayne center Bob Houbregs lasted only 17 games after Russell’s rookie season. Knicks star Harry Gallatin retired after the 195758 season. Philadelphia’s Neil Johnston got out after only 28 games in 1958.
■ Another reason I hate big-time college sports. Oklahoma State pays its strength coach $1 million annually. USA Today found eight other NCAA football strength coaches making between $625,000 and $821,179. They are from Ohio State, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Alabama, Michigan, Oklahoma, and Clemson. Ohio State leads the nation in assistant coach pay, coming in at just under $9 million for Ryan Day’s staff. Wonder what Woody Hayes would think.
■ Boston University folks are still chuckling at Boston College athletic director Blake James making a reference to his own school as “Boston College University” while feting former BC hockey coach Jerry York at Conte Forum a couple of weeks back.
■ Quiz answer: Alan Page (Vikings, 1971), Lawrence Taylor (Giants, 1986).
Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at daniel.shaughnessy@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @dan_shaughnessy.