Dan Blows Brady

Today our man uses one his favorite literary conventions (is it OK to say "Dan Shaughnessy" and "literary" in the same sentence?): comparing superstars in one sport to those in another. In his gush over Tom Brady, he likens the Pats QB to Larry Bird and Bobby Orr. Now I never watched Orr -- I was both too young and too Midwestern -- but I read a lot about him. He came to the Bruins as savior savant; hard to say the same vision was had for Brady, a 6th round pick who collected splinters on the bench for a season-plus until Bledsoe went down. And Larry was much the same as Orr; expectations rode as high as his 6'9 frame. Even that first Super Bowl season, Brady was asked to do little more than protect the ball.

Now there's no doubt Brady is an outstanding QB. Last time I checked, however, hockey and basketball players still played two ways -- offense and defense -- and both sports field far less players on their respective fields at a given time, which magnifies the effect any single player can have. Meanwhile, Tom Terrific is only on the field about 50% of the game, if that, doesn't play defense, doesn't play special teams, yada yada yada. So is comparing a football player to those in other sports perhaps a bit of a stretch? Yeeesssss.

Back to today's column. Doubtlessly there were those who were thinking that since Dan was covering the Pats today, he might actually write a piece sans a shot at the Red Sox (as in "first place Red Sox"). Wrong! Today's column contains this toss off line: "Come to think of it, can Terry Francona borrow Brady and use him out of the bullpen this week?"

Did I mention that the Red Sox are in first place?