Dan
Shaughnessy Sucks –
My first football-related
Shaughnessy Sucks piece of the year. Oh happy day..
(Shaughnessy’s outrageous outrages
in bold, my sassy sassbacks in plain.)
Yeah, it says “YAAAAHHHHHHH! TOM BRADY’S HEALTHY!!!!”
Patriots fans worship at the
altar of Bill Belichick.
Amen.
With sweatshirts & adultery
for all.
"In Bill We Trust" is
embossed on sweatshirts, jackets, posters, and commemoratives from Super Bowls
won in
A traitwit.
This blind allegiance will be
tested in upcoming days, weeks, and months, because Belichick has swapped
rising-star quarterback Matt Cassel
Fluke.
and popular veteran linebacker Mike Vrabel
Old.
to the
Suck.
for the 34th pick in this
year's NFL draft.
Steal.
It's a deal that's got
everything - history, emotion, high finance, backroom dealing,
Hey now!
and the certainty of infinite
speculation and second-guessing.
The trade is a clear sign that
the Patriots believe Tom Brady will be his old self at the start of the 2009
season. This is good news.
Except he’s gone soft and I don’t
feel that he’s a real
We have lived in an information
vacuum concerning all things Brady since the cover boy QB went down with a
season-ending knee injury in the first quarter of the first game of the 2008
campaign (against the Chiefs, oddly enough).
Somehow Derrick Thomas’ ghost is
behind all this.
There were multiple reports of
post-surgery infection and slow recovery, and neither Brady nor the Patriots
offered much in the way of clarification.
Belichick being mum about a player
injury? The fuck?!
Trading
Hell, he’ll probably throw 60
this season!
Belichick simply would not
trade
So we still don't know for sure
if Tom is married, but we finally can believe he's going to be OK to play. His
was not a career-ending injury and he'll be back on the field for the season
opener.
Jinx! Jinx! Jinx!
The not-so-good news is that it
looks from a distance as if the Patriots got shortchanged in this exchange. Salary cap experts and draftniks will explain that the
Patriots could not afford to commit a quarter of their payroll (Cassel and
Brady add up to $29.2 million) to two players, and one position, on a 53-man
roster.
The market for Cassel was
limited because not many teams could afford him. A second-round pick from Kansas City is more like a late first-round pick
because the lowly Chiefs draft at the top of the deck.
Let’s just round up and call it a
middle-first-round pick.
You can get a quality player at
No. 34. Vrabel was past his prime, going into the last year of his contract.
Intellectually and
strategically, the deal makes sense, especially if the Patriots come away with
another player like linebacker Jerod Mayo in the
draft.
Even though this is the worst NFL
Draft in decades.
They can get younger and they
have new money to spend.
But emotionally, it's asking
Foxborough fans to swallow a gummy hairball.
Yup, that’s exactly what
it’s like.
Cassel and Vrabel for a
second-rounder? Might Chiefs fans someday think of this as their version of Derek Lowe and Jason Varitek
for Heathcliff Slocumb?
Note to Belichick: Don’t draft
Heathcliff Slocumb. No upside..
The legions can cope by
reminding themselves that Belichick knows football. Historically, he usually
does what's best for the Patriots.
Most fans have come to accept
the abject bloodlessness of Patriot Place. There are no gold watches or thank
you notes passed out in Foxborough. Sentiment is wasted energy. When the
Patriots are done with you, they say, "We wish [insert popular player's
name] the best," then they move on to the next guy. Thanks for the Super Bowl rings you delivered, now turn in your
playbook and clean out your desk. We'll walk you to your car.
Oh, and fuck you, cunt.
No one is special. Not Lawyer Milloy,
Pussy.
not Adam
Vinatieri,
Choker.
not Troy
Brown,
Fogie.
not Vrabel,
Chief.
not Cassel.
Chief.
And it'll be the same when it's
time for Tedy Bruschi to go.
Stroke.
There's no crying in football.
Unless you’re Brett Favre.
Still, saying goodbye to Cassel
is particularly risky because he's young (26) and he has what we call "big
upside."
So did Heathcliff Slocumb..
A lot of us wondered if Cassel
belonged on the team at the end of the 2008 exhibition season, but when called
to duty he completed 63.4 percent of his passes and threw for 3,693 yards and
21 touchdowns.
Shoulda thrown 51..
Oh, and he won 11 games, which
almost always gets a team into the playoffs.
Cassel was so good, so much
better than we thought he would be, there was actually some notion that the
Patriots should trade Brady and keep Cassel. True lunacy, right?
Right.
Looming large over all this is
the Gump-like presence of Scott Pioli in Kansas
City.
Gump-like presence? Is he
borderline retarded?
Pioli worked beautifully with
Belichick in Foxborough for nine years as vice president of player personnel
and turned down a lot of chances to leave before settling on the Chiefs job in
January.
And when you have the pick of the
litter, that’s the job you choose. You do not hesitate when
Kansas City comes calling!
Now he's bringing a taste of New England
Chowda?
to Arrowhead
Stadium and it makes this trade a referendum on the two men who built
the Patriot dynasty. Did Bill make Scott look good or was it the other way
around?
Well, Bill’s never looked
good; so it definitely wasn’t the other way around.
And why would they conspire on
a deal of such immense consequence just two months into Pioli's new gig?
Because CONSPIRACY THEORISTS!
That’s why!
The whole thing is mildly
reminiscent of the smoke-filled-room days of the 1920s when former Red Sox
field manager Ed Barrow went to the Yankees
front office and commenced building a New York dynasty with players he had in
Boston.
Except you can’t smoke indoors
anymore
Gotcha there, Shaughnessy!
Oh, one other thing. Let it
never be forgotten, especially now, that Pioli is the son-in-law of Bill Parcells - a man who has come back to threaten
his nemesis, Bob Kraft, while working for the Jets, Cowboys, and Dolphins.
And has beaten him zero times.
All these years later, there's
still a smell of Tuna in the air when something big happens to the 
~~~
Well then, fuck you Bill Parcells!
You Pat Summitt-lookin’ mothafucka! I oughta go down to
So Shaughnessy blames Parcells for
us trading Cassel & Vrabel for the 34th pick in the draft. On
behalf of Pats fans everywhere, I would like to say, Thank you, Bill. We got
rid of a brain-dead linebacker and a fluke quarterback and actually got
something in return.
And good luck in