KeaneyBlue - The URI Basketball Forum

Good thing the Pats decided to get rid of that unreliable troublemaker Wes Welker and invest longterm in those two, mature tight ends who can't complete a season.

Pats will be fine. Will win division again.

TruePoint wrote:Pats will be fine. Will win division again.

Hey now, not so fast. The Jets are very confident that Mark SanchehaHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Sorry, I tried to get through it with a straight face.

Being in the AFC East makes it easy to win the division. Unfortunately (or fortunately), the Pats are expected to go to the SB every year. The recent news doesn't make that any easier.

You all do realize that this is just God clearing the way for his chosen one Tim Tebow to start at TE right?

In the NFL, you start the season with the goal of making the playoffs. After that, anything can happen. Going into the season, the goal is to get into the tournament, and the Pats will.

great picture from today of Hernandez at the gas station...




Nice of him to dress professionally for his first public appearance since the news broke.

STC wrote:great picture from today of Hernandez at the gas station...




Nice of him to dress professionally for his first public appearance since the news broke.

It wasn't a public appearance. He was running errands and the media decided to follow him everywhere. Nothing aggravates me more than the media's and the public's sense of entitlement with respect to access to "celebrities." He can dress however he wants to drop by his work, get gas, etc. He wasn't doing a charity event or a card show or something.

Exactly, but I am frustrated at this whole situation as a Patriots fan. Welker fit here and proved he could work with Brady and produce. Brady really liked him and it translated into high performance.

Now we have Gronk and thug Hernandez as the foci of the offense?? WTF

ATP, I hear you. But the fans are always worried about the Pats' personnel, and yet they always get it done. Everyone forgets about Jake Ballard, but he's a good player. I think the offense will still score points.

TP, I dunno if I'd say they always get it done. Patriots play for championships and they haven't won a championship in almost a decade. Sure, they've been super close (don't have to tell me that), but the margin between Super Bowl champ and runner up or AFC champ is so slim that these kinds of issues are keeping them from winning it all.

Maybe. I don't think it's fair to "expect" to win the Super Bowl. There are way too many factors at play, and having one game "series" in the playoffs makes it that much more random compared to the other sports. 2001 - 2004 probably gave the wrong impression about how easy it is to win. You can't be good at winning Super Bowls any more than you can be good at throwing dice.

Every year there are four or five teams that could win it, depending on how things fall out. All you can fairly ask as a fan is that your team is among that group, and the Patriots are every year (except when Brady misses the entire season).

TruePoint wrote:Pats will be fine. Will win division again.

Miami has the Dolphins, the greatest football team. They're in the air, they're on the ground they're always in control. And when you say Miami you're talking super Bowl. Cuz we're the Miami Dolphins, Miami Dolphins, Miami Dolphins number one.....

I think the Patriots are still the best team in the division, but the margin between them and the Dolphins is getting slimmer. If a team is going to surpass them for the division, it's probably the Phins, since the Bills and Jets are a mess at the QB position. Tannehill had a pretty good rookie year, but he was overshadowed given all of the other stellar first-year starters in 2012.

QB position aside, the Dolphin's roster is not dramatically better than the Patriots roster (if at all). And the Patriots have Belichick and Brady, and the Dolphins don't. A Tannehill-led team would have to have a dramatically better roster than a Brady-led team in order to make the division competitive. Otherwise Tannehill isn't beating Brady for the division. I give the Dolphins a 500,000:1 shot at winning the AFC East.

I'm sure most of you have heard this by now, but Hernandez was taken into custody in handcuffs about an hour ago.

http://espn.go.com/boston/nfl/story/_/i ... ce-custody

Wow...and released, they didnt waste any time there.

pats know what the charges are, have heard sources are saying expect the worst

Looks like someone fought the law and the law won.

On the subject of letting Welker go, I'd be willing to bet dimes to dollars that BB never quite forgave/got over Welker's big drops in big games at big times, which relates directly to the fact that the Pats have been a decade from winning the bowl. Obviously Welker isn't the only reason it didn't happen for the Patriots, but I'm convinced Belichick has some resentments about not being in the discussion about greatest franchises ever when clearly a couple more Superbowl wins would solidify the case for the Pats being considered the best NFL franchise to date. Also, I truly believe that Amendola will be a beast for the Pats this year. I'm going to draft him 3rd or 4th round for my fantasy team this year. I see him posting about 1200 yards and 8 to 12 TD's.

Right, and by that flawed supposed BB logic, losing the most prolific receiver Brady has ever worked with would somehow HELP BB get more SB titles?? WTF

If the Patriots are willing these days to pay big $$ to players of questionable ability/production/character (or all of the above), they should not be such misers to pay a fair market rate (with perhaps a small premium) for a player that has PROVEN over a long stretch to be perfectly compatible within the team offense and who has earned the respect and admiration of Tom Brady.

Let's see, "Kill this guy, because he was talking to someone
I don't like. Yeah, let's do it! Makes sense to me!"
Hernandez never left the "Thug Life" behind.
I'm surprised he didn't live in Brockton.
Just zero perspective, to lose everything, for disliking a conversation.
How absurd is that?

Now being reported that Hernandez is a suspect in a double killing outside a Boston
nightclub in 2012.
Did this idiot think he was Tony Montana?

Idiot loves his guns. Unbelievably stupid. So glad society finds ways to dump loads of cash on people like this....

If true, then the guy's a serial killer. He likely killed again because he thought he could get away with it, as he did before (the double-homicide is nearly a year old).

Here's the story for those that haven't seen it:

http://www.myfoxboston.com/story/227024 ... le-killing

I wonder when the nightclub thing happened last year in relation to when he signed his contract. Reading his quotes from that night in light of what we've learned about him in the last couple weeks in crazy. I don't doubt for a second that he could have been involved in another killing based on what we heard at his arraignment yesterday. The guy is clearly an aspiring gangster and a sociopath. It seems like football was just a way for him to make money so he could be an even bigger gangster. It could also explain how he could have been so dumb in trying to cover his tracks if he had gotten away with it before. He also shot someone earlier this offseason in Florida and got into an altercation involving guns in Providence.

The whole thing is just surreal and mind boggling.

More info... sounds more and more legit now.

http://www.boston.com/metrodesk/2013/06 ... story.html

This hurts the Patriots and the Patriot brand going forward IMHO. Am I the only one questioning my further support of the team at least in the short term? Discuss?

I don't get what this has to do with the Patriots. Do you think they were aware of his propensity to murder people and ignored it? I don't.

I see it as an absolutely astounding failure by the home team to properly investigate background and personal history before handing out a huge pile of cash.

Matt Light has commented as a former player I sure more will follow.

What a crazy story!

The Ravens stood by a thug, who was connected with a murder.
I'm happy the Pats didn't stick with this nutjob.
I think the problem is, Belichick is obsessed with value.
Hernandez droping as low as he did, represented value on the field,
enough to look the other way.
They've made similar decisions, hoping the Pat's locker room would keep them in line.
Problem is, Tedy Bruschi. Matt Light, and a lot of the character people, are retired.
Still, I doubt anyone felt Hernandez was capable of murder or multiple muirders.

hrstrat57 wrote:I see it as an absolutely astounding failure by the home team to properly investigate background and personal history before handing out a huge pile of cash.

Matt Light has commented as a former player I sure more will follow.

What a crazy story!

This is one of the stupider comments I've ever read on this board. Nobody ever looks at a person - whether they are an athlete or not - and thinks "this guy seems highly likely to be a cold blooded murdering psychopath." If people could predict who would end up being a murdering psychopath there would not be any murders. The supposed "character issue" with Hernandez coming out of Florida was that he liked smoking pot. That isn't an indicator of psycho murderer tendencies.

Saying anytbody should have known anything with the benefit of hindsight is always intellectually dishonest, but doing it here is especially wrong. Nobody honestly thinks another person who has never been violent before is likely to murder someone.

Furthermore, do you know how many guys with sketchy backgrounds there are in the NFL? Probably 20 or so on the Patriots alone, and they're not going around killing people. Hell, Brandon Spikes' brother is serving a life sentence for murder. The "we shouldn't have been surprised" narrative doesn't fit here.

I would, however, like to know how much the Pats knew about Herhandez' love affair with guns.

ATP, it is at least fairer to ask that question than it is to say the Pats failed because they should known the guy was absolutely insane. But even still, do you know how many NFL guys have guns? Even if they knew, they couldn't have known that he was going to use his guns to murder people.

I feel like fans think all of these guys live with Belichick and he knows where they are and what they're doing all the time. I know my boss wouldn't have any idea what I do outside the office during non-work hours. What makes you guys think football players are that different?

TruePoint wrote:

hrstrat57 wrote:I see it as an absolutely astounding failure by the home team to properly investigate background and personal history before handing out a huge pile of cash.

Matt Light has commented as a former player I sure more will follow.

What a crazy story!

This is one of the stupider comments I've ever read on this board. Nobody ever looks at a person - whether they are an athlete or not - and thinks "this guy seems highly likely to be a cold blooded murdering psychopath." If people could predict who would end up being a murdering psychopath there would not be any murders. The supposed "character issue" with Hernandez coming out of Florida was that he liked smoking pot. That isn't an indicator of psycho murderer tendencies.

Saying anytbody should have known anything with the benefit of hindsight is always intellectually dishonest, but doing it here is especially wrong. Nobody honestly thinks another person who has never been violent before is likely to murder someone.

Nice, thanks.

BTW Matt Light comments were made on Tuesday. Not hindsight for him made before yesterday's courtroom drama....

As a fanboy of the home team I hope my comments are "stupid" - I suppose we shall find out.

Hopefully the home team did not have their head squarely up their arse.

Not calling you stupid, I just think it was a stupid comment. I heard what Matt Light said. I would accuse him of the same hindsight/revisionist way of thinking. I read Mike Reiss's piece explaining how Hernandez was so good at concealing his dark side and coming across as a reformed and football-first guy. I can see how difficult it would be to see through that act if he was purposely trying to fool people. I also think that even if people did have questions about his character, there is no way they should have known he was capable of what he has been accused of doing.

Well one thing for sure we are gonna find out.

Prov PD assisting N Attleboro PD hunting video on what appear to be previous incidents.... Being discussed on news now.

Will b breaking news every day it appears.

I don't think anybody could be shocked if it turns out this guy has multiple bodies on him. The thing I don't get is how he could have been smart enough to get away with multiple other murders and then commit the most poorly conceived murder of all time. I mean, he drove to Dorchester, picked this guy up and drove him all the way back to his neighborhood to kill him. He left evidence everywhere. Even kids I knew who sold pot at URI a dozen years ago knew not to say anything incriminating over the phone or in text messages and turn the GPS off on their phones. This guy committed maybe the stupidest murder in history in terms of likelihood of getting away with it.

Lots of rumors, gossip, innuendo, and anecdotal evidence of gang activity in Hernandez' past.......Latin King rumors.....if true....he probably joined with that culture at a young age....before his athleticism propelled him away to football and big money.....it seems that some cannot turn their backs on those people who protected him while he was younger....the Thug Life may be stronger than the Patriot Way...

Ramulous wrote:Lots of rumors, gossip, innuendo, and anecdotal evidence of gang activity in Hernandez' past.......Latin King rumors.....if true....he probably joined with that culture at a young age....before his athleticism propelled him away to football and big money.....it seems that some cannot turn their backs on those people who protected him while he was younger....the Thug Life may be stronger than the Patriot Way...

I read somewhere where one NFL coach asked his team how many of them owned guns. All but 2 players raised their hands....

I wonder how many legally own guns. AH didbt

This is all pretty crazy. When it is all said & done, I wonder who'll be tagged for more murders, Whitey Bulger or Aaron Hernandez??

spookydog wrote:This is all pretty crazy. When it is all said & done, I wonder who'll be tagged for more murders, Whitey Bulger or Aaron Hernandez??

Eh, while I think the evidence is strong when it comes to the initial homicide he was arrested for, I'm not sure about the other things they're investigating him for, unless they're keeping that info in their back pocket. I imagine that this might go on in other cases as well, but they probably aren't as high profile, so people don't notice. (i.e. If police are arresting a gang member for a drive-by shooting, maybe they revisit some other recent murders and ask witnesses / people involved with that if Person X might be connected.)

OK, I'm now officially worried about the Patriots.
TWICE in his press conference today, Bill Belichick said:
"It's all part of the process"!!!!

Soon the Pats will have to start playing NFL teams. The lack of a healthy veteran receiver, besides Edelman (nice job assembling your team, Bill), will really show then. I wonder if Branch is still available?

This just gets stranger and stranger. Former Rhody football HC Darren Rizzi is also quoted:

http://deadspin.com/mike-pouncey-served ... 1453124063

Craziness.

they want him to testify but probably didn't want to so they served him to make him testify. He was in the area so it saves them money