I give it one in three odds that Shank's next Globe column will be on Randy Moss getting shitcanned from the Vikings. If he trashes Moss, he contradicts this Oct. 7th column; if he agrees with the move, he'll need to write a mea culpa column and admit Belichick was right to dump Moss. Tough call, eh?
UPDATE at 12:10 AM, 11/2/10 - Don Banks has the last word.
Shank will find a way, especially if by some chance Belichick takes Moss back.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Felger - that ain't happening. Why would you re-marry a woman you just divorced (my interpretation)?
ReplyDeleteAgain the Shank refuses to listen to other points of view and/or is too lazy to find out – isn't a reporters job to dig deep for fact finding.
ReplyDeleteFor example, from Jason Cole of Yahoo Sports:
On Monday afternoon, Minnesota coach Brad Childress lost whatever remaining control he had over the Vikings locker room.
“Really, I thought he was joking, then I realized it was Chilly and he doesn’t joke. Well, he jokes, but it’s not funny.”
Said another team source: “I just thought, ‘You’re kidding, right?’ This is nuts. We’re just getting to the point where he’s (Moss) getting on page with [quarterback] Brett [Favre] and the offense is starting to really move the ball and then we do this.”
When it was mentioned that Moss’ production hasn’t been that good since being acquired four games ago in a trade from New England – Moss had 13 catches for 174 yards and two touchdowns, and only one catch for eight yards against the Patriots on Sunday – both sources scoffed.
“Look at the tape. Look at the coverages,” one of the sources said. “Look at what he does for everybody else. Percy [Harvin] is running free all over the field right now. The running game is moving along. I don’t even care about the fact that he’s smarter than everybody on the coaching staff. He’s a game-changer.
“Make it work.”
So yes Moss has value. Remember that in the Pats system he was a force in 07-08. Then opponents made adjustments in 08-09 and this year. I think the main reason that Belichick and Brady agreed to trade Moss was that they couldn’t figure other options to free up Moss in the Pats current system so Moss was dead meat for them.
Perhaps Shank should’ve dug a little deeper and understood that working for Childress is hell and that many players feel Moss is a game-changer but he needs certain pieces in place to be a dynamo. It’s up to the coach to put together those pieces. Belichick was unable to design an effective counter to what teams were recently doing to Moss while with the Pats, and Childress has no clue (he is just lucky that he has Peterson).
Cole from Yahoo got it right. Shank tanked again.
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Felger is blinded to be a credible analyst anymore. This wasn;t a divorce - Branch, Milloy, Seymour, Vrabel, those were divorces; Moss was simply a goodbye without rancor.
ReplyDeleteWhile Anon has some good points about getting Moss more open, the fact that Pats offense (September-early October) averaged 37 points per game versus the 27 points per game of the last three weeks - and Moss had more TDs despite fewer catches than Branch - cannot be ignored.