Right here. They go up on Wednesday nights (at the latest, sometimes earlier if I think I'll be busy on Wednesdays).

Standings are not up tonight, however, because I think I've figured out what's been causing the Thursday night prediction issues (more on that soon).

That's only part of your original argument, and not the piece I've been taking issue with. Your original argument was, and I quote: "I don't care what you think about how AB handled the allegations. They never existed until he joined the Pats, and as soon as he was cut and the media conveniently decided those allegation weren't news-worthy anymore, the charges against him were all dropped."

Claim whatever you want about the Patriots' management supposedly being "duped," or giving into pressure, or whatever, but there were plenty of allegations against him before he signed with the Patriots. Using a racial slur against a GM, the furniture incident, stiffing payments from people, etc. These were all widely reported when the stories initially broke. Again, I'm not a fan of the way the media has handled certain incidents involving the Patriots in the past, but this one was absolutely not some "clear job by the media," as you claim.

If you want to argue that the Patriots just buckled under pressure (personally I think it's just Belichick giving a troubled player a chance and seeing if he can get his shit in order, then as soon as the text happened he was out the door), we can have that discussion, but that's an entirely separate issue from arguing the whole thing is just some media scheme to get AB off the Patriots.

When I said "allegations that didn't exist until he joined the Patriots", I was specifically talking about the 'rape allegations' that were only discovered after he joined the Patriots. The furniture incident, spat with the Raiders GM and all that other noise were all documented and proven events that we all knew about before he joined the Pats, so I'm not sure why you'd think I was referring to them.

The whole text message situation that you originally believed was 'threatening physical abuse', is really a stretch to even call a threat to begin with, when it was him group messaging his team of people to investigate the person who was trying to make a sexual assault case against him, and the only things threatening about it was his aggressively defensive way of sharing information about the accuser, and the fact that he included the accuser in the groups chat (intentionally or unintentionally, no one even knows).
The only thing he ever asked people to do was look into her and her credibility, and there was no hint of him trying to order anything like physical abuse or another threatening action. Only thing the accuser could have been worried about was the unwanted attention, which would beg the question why is she subsequently screenshotting and releasing all of this information to begin with? Along with only deciding to pursue these charges once he joined the biggest team in the NFL?
And again, just for clarity, AB is indeed a dipshit, and he handled the whole situation like a dipshit. But what exactly about this one scenario was so egregiously worse from his previous offenses that the Pats had to now take decisive action? Was this not just consistent with his usual dipshit behaviour? And was he not actively trying to keep these things from going public, and actively trying to not bring any distractions to the team by dealing with the issues as quick as possible? (in his own dipshit way)

The text messages were literally the only thing seen or heard from AB during his team with the Pats, and it he wasn't even the one that leaked them. Meanwhile all the teammates and coaches had nothing but good things to say about him and his work ethos with the team. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taUt7HREfPs&feature=youtu.be&t=345
(Brady still liking his posts on IG long after being cut)
All the antics from his time with the Raiders had all ceased once he joined the Patriots, yet the media made sure if he wasn't going to give them any stories they'd dig some up one way or another. And I guess the only thing that can make a character assassination that much sweeter for them, is if they can also drag the Patriots name through the mud, as they are always looking for ways to do. The fact they could also pressure them into cutting AB within a matter of days is just the icing on the cake.

We can keep going back and forth over this, but at what point do the Patriots management come out looking like they handled the AB Saga in a semi-competent way? Or that they somehow came out without some major casualties to their offense?


On another note, I see they've placed Josh Gordon on IR, meaning he's done with the team, even though he was out there practicing today. At least they managed to keep a spot for Gunner Olszewski. Brilliant.

When I said "allegations that didn't exist until he joined the Patriots", I was specifically talking about the 'rape allegations' that were only discovered after he joined the Patriots. The furniture incident, spat with the Raiders GM and all that other noise were all documented and proven events that we all knew about before he joined the Pats, so I'm not sure why you'd think I was referring to them.

The whole text message situation that you originally believed was 'threatening physical abuse', is really a stretch to even call a threat to begin with, when it was him group messaging his team of people to investigate the person who was trying to make a sexual assault case against him, and the only things threatening about it was his aggressively defensive way of sharing information about the accuser, and the fact that he included the accuser in the groups chat (intentionally or unintentionally, no one even knows).
The only thing he ever asked people to do was look into her and her credibility, and there was no hint of him trying to order anything like physical abuse or another threatening action. Only thing the accuser could have been worried about was the unwanted attention, which would beg the question why is she subsequently screenshotting and releasing all of this information to begin with? Along with only deciding to pursue these charges once he joined the biggest team in the NFL?
And again, just for clarity, AB is indeed a dipshit, and he handled the whole situation like a dipshit. But what exactly about this one scenario was so egregiously worse from his previous offenses that the Pats had to now take decisive action? Was this not just consistent with his usual dipshit behaviour? And was he not actively trying to keep these things from going public, and actively trying to not bring any distractions to the team by dealing with the issues as quick as possible? (in his own dipshit way)

The text messages were literally the only thing seen or heard from AB during his team with the Pats, and it he wasn't even the one that leaked them. Meanwhile all the teammates and coaches had nothing but good things to say about him and his work ethos with the team. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taUt7HREfPs&feature=youtu.be&t=345
(Brady still liking his posts on IG long after being cut)
All the antics from his time with the Raiders had all ceased once he joined the Patriots, yet the media made sure if he wasn't going to give them any stories they'd dig some up one way or another. And I guess the only thing that can make a character assassination that much sweeter for them, is if they can also drag the Patriots name through the mud, as they are always looking for ways to do. The fact they could also pressure them into cutting AB within a matter of days is just the icing on the cake.

We can keep going back and forth over this, but at what point do the Patriots management come out looking like they handled the AB Saga in a semi-competent way? Or that they somehow came out without some major casualties to their offense?


On another note, I see they've placed Josh Gordon on IR, meaning he's done with the team, even though he was out there practicing today. At least they managed to keep a spot for Gunner Olszewski. Brilliant.

Let's go through this piecemeal.

First, I would honestly hope you're referring to anything but the sexual assault allegations, because arguing that those were only conveniently discovered when he joined the Patriots would be even more absurd than anything else you've put forth so far. Civil cases like this have to be filed long in advance, usually weeks or even months. There is no possible way the accuser could have known he would be on the Patriots at this time. Media outlets picked up on the case as soon as it was filed, and it's received as much attention as any NFL star accused of sexual misconduct. Beyond this, it's just a simple matter of the media choosing to focus in on the latest AB story...which they had been doing for months on end anyway.

Second, we don't know the details of what happened behind the scenes with Pats (as is often the case). My suspicion is BB saw how damaging AB could be to a team's culture if he was allowed free roam on social media, and gave him a strict one strike policy. Regardless of whether you think those texts are "bad" or not (threatening physical abuse is admittedly a bit much looking back on it), it's still communicating directly with an accuser during a civil suit (bad), and directly sharing pictures of her and her kids for people she doesn't even know to investigate (really bad). If you can't trust someone to follow instructions like that, then they're not safe to keep around. Again, this is spitballing one hypothetical way that things could've gone, but there's plenty of scenarios in which there are, y'know, actual reasons for AB to be let go rather than the organization just suddenly caving to media pressure. If he's a previously troubled individual, he gets far less leeway before he's out the door.

Which brings me to the consistency argument. Yes, he was still acting like a dipshit. But that's entirely the point: BB brings these "problem" players into NE with the hopes of, for lack of a better word, reforming them. Randy Moss, Aqib Talib, Rodney Harrison, etc. The idea is that you get brought into NE with a clean slate. They'll forget about what you've done previously if you don't do it here, but if you do anything resembling what you did previously, you're gone. There's little to zero tolerance in NE for going off script, so to speak.

As for NE looking competent, I don't think there's anything involved in this that makes them look especially bad. They took a chance on a receiver who they thought they could straighten out. The chance ultimately cost them $178K (chump change in the NFL), and Demaryius Thomas' roster spot (who's been a mix of injured and playing badly this season anyway). They didn't lose major resources in this, nor were there major casualties to the offense. Maybe some of the younger receivers like Gunner or Jakobi didn't catch on as soon as they would've had they gotten the attention AB did that week, but the team's still 7-0 regardless, so...it's not exactly like they suffered in the meantime.

We also have no idea the extent of Gordon's injury. Being able to participate in practice isn't a great indicator unless it's full contact (which that one wasn't). It's possible it was more serious than originally thought, and that's what I'd imagine. This is Bill Belichick we're talking about here, the guy's won six Super Bowls working as a de facto GM. Have a little faith that he knows what he's doing.

I'm not even gonna bother replying to your whole 'piecemeal' argument here, because the whole thing can be blown up by the fact you actually believe Belichick orchestrated every step of the situation, when the evidence we have shows that wasn't the case.

https://popculture.com/sports/2019/09/27/bill-belichick-robert-kraft-antonio-brown-cut-disagree/

"Curran wrote that Kraft was all about cutting Brown while Belichick understood the decision, but he did not agree with it."
""After more conversations this week, I’ve come to understand that unanimous decision wasn’t easily reached," Curran wrote via Deadspin. "Belichick accepted the decision and understood it. But he was by no means leading the charge to move on — and if Kraft hadn’t insisted, Brown would probably still be here.""

Hence why I'd always referred to the problems being from the Patriots management and organisation, rather than just singling out Belichick. Even though the Patriots are masters of being tight-lipped and not leaking any stories, there's clearly some disharmony and disagreement on some levels (players, coaches, ownership), about some of the choices being made. And I doubt that was helped when not long after the owner made an executive decision to cut AB, he then went live pre-game on TNF practically begging Gronk to come out of retirement, when everyone could see by the end of last season how badly he was breaking down on both a physcial and emotional level.

You can choose to keep speculating or 'spitballing' about what you believe might've happened behind the scenes, and how perfectly they must've handled it based on your trust of the organision. But I'm just following the breadcrumbs of all the information we do have right now, and to me, it leads to some clear dysfunction on some level.

Yeah, Tom Curran, the guy who said Jimmy Garoppolo was probably going replace Tom Brady by 2017? The guy who insinuated that Brady was using his Netflix documentary to get back at Kraft, peddling the very story you complained about earlier? Get real.

Look, I respect Curran more than the average Boston sports reporter (especially so for retracting that tweet later on), but none of these so called sources have an insight into decisions being made on that high a level. It's all just insipid speculation about dysfunction and how the team is falling apart on the inside. Stories get blown up to ridiculous proportions. It happened in 2014, it happened in 2017, and it's happening now.

This wasn't a story that was blown up to any degree. None of the mainstream sports media have even mentioned it to my knowledge, and it was difficult to even find the articles about it. It was just a nugget of info that got buried in the fallout of everything.

And what exactly makes his insipid speculation about dysfunction any less reliable than your spitballing about what must be happening behind closed doors? At the very least, he is closer to the team than you are. So if he's trying to report things like this, there must be something going on, with some kind of tension.
Not that I'd ever bet my life on the total accuracy of his reporting, but where there's smoke there's fire. From reports before AB joined the team (Kraft texting Brady about whether he was in on AB, in hindsight probably because he himself didn't really want him), and then while AB was with the team, when he was apparently outraged to hear about the allegations. So it's not like Mr. Kraft being the main reason for AB being cut just came out of nowhere.
And it's not difficult to figure out why he wouldn't want that attention right now, especially of that nature.

Standings are updated on the Google Sheet through Week 7, with Rol's extra win included (although I honestly probably should've taken it away considering he picked the Jets to beat the Pats last week). I think I found the issue with Thursday night picks not showing up on time: I believe the problem is that the sheet only shows edits after it's been specifically generated, and since I was a little late generating the sheet the past couple weeks it didn't show up. To that end, everyone who picked KC last week gets credit for a TNF game...because I can't guarantee if they were late or not. Qwerks of trying out a new system I suppose.