It Gets Better or It Gets Worse Unless of Course It Stays the Same

I guess those of us in Patriots Nation who were actually worried the Artist Formerly Known as Ochocinco would have a career resurgence in Miami can relax. The once and future Chad Johnson dropped the only pass thrown his way in the Dolphins opening preseason game then went home and “bumped heads” with his wife. Is that what the kids are calling it these days? Whatever. Chad may still might have a career resurgence, just not in Miami.

 

If season ticket holders were upset with the quality of play in preseason games before these 2012 preseason games they must be cutting letters out of magazines and pasting them together to form strongly worded letters to the commissioner. The combination of the new CBA – which limits the number of full contact practices – and the people who wandered in off the street to officiate these games has led to something that looks a lot like that electric football game I had as a kid.

Apparently, the league has provided NFL teams with talking points on the replacement refs. And apparently, as with that videotaping opponents coaches’ memo, Bill Belichick has decided the league’s directive is open to some interpretation. In this case, while Belichick himself offered no direct criticism (letter of the law – check!), he was willing to quote others on the subject…

"I think Mike Pereira has made his comments on the officials. I don't know who knows more about NFL officiating than Mike Pereira, so we'll leave it to him. I'm just trying to coach our team and get our team better. I'm not worried about what everybody else is doing; it's not my job."

Mike Pereira is, of course, the Fox commentator who used to be the head of officiating for the NFL.

As for the league thinking no one will notice how horrible the officiating has been if nobody talks about it, let me just say that my parents tried the same thing with my alcoholic Uncle Leon at family get-togethers. At the 4^th of July cookout at my Grandma and Grandpa Hobbs when I was ten, he ran into and knocked down the badminton net, repeatedly held the birdie on his crotch saying, “Hey! Look at my shuttlecock! Look at my shuttlecock!” He offered to get my cousins Mark, David and me some beers (my Aunt Millie caught him and ratted us out to our moms) and to cap off his day he fell face first into what was left of the potato salad. I had heard that if you left potato salad out in the hot sun all day it could kill you but it didn’t seem to bother Uncle Leon who wiped a smear of mayo, potatoes, egg and olives off his face and sucked it off his fingers.

Yeah. We knew.

Injury Report

Logan Mankins is off the PUP list, in uniform, and three days from now will be able to hit people.

I finally saw “The Dark Knight Rises” and [I’d note “Spoiler Alert!” here but seriously, wasn’t I the last person in America to see this movie?] apparently you can correct a bulging disc by having a small, filthy Eurasian man punch it back into alignment and then placing yourself in traction for a few days. Has the Patriots’ training staff tried this with Sebastian Vollmer?

Perfect Tommy

Perfect Tommy is a character in “Buckaroo Banzai.” He’s also the quarterback of the New England Patriots…