It's apples and hand grenades. Sure, I'd rather the teams I root for not have drunk drivers or serial abusers and the like on the roster. And there is a point at which I'd stop watching or rooting for a team if they signed someone particularly heinous (I would have a really hard time rooting for Deshaun Watson as the QB of the Pats, for example). But the reality is that if you follow professional sports and root for particular teams, there are going to be guys on the rosters of the teams you root for who are not good people. The only solution to me is to not follow, which is completely reasonable and I'd understand anyone who made that decision. I just personally don't feel the need to completely give up professional sports because of that (at least yet).
A good example is when Gronk dove on that Buffalo DB after the INT where he got held. It was a dirty play but was out of character so it’s easier to forgive. Mac’s pattern of on field behavior is just not good right now and he’s had multiple instances of this stuff.
Why aren’t we seeing dirty plays from others on the team? Mac isn’t the only player impacted by Belichick’s poor coaching decisions. Mac is an adult. He’s a grown man. It’d be nice if he started acting like one. I hope he turns everything around. He’ll get more chances to do so next year. True growth typically comes when someone looks inward, not outward.
Yeah, I'm baffled by people's rush to blame the coaches for everything. Yes, Patricia's playcalling isn't good. Bill Bellichick didn't become a bad coach after 35 years overnight. Players can suck, players can be dumb, players can be undisciplined assholes. In fact, usually that is the case far more than coaching issues.
Not sure if you misunderstood me here. I'm not saying that the coaching is crap and can't coach Mac into a model citizen. I'm saying Mac needs to grow up (I think we agree there) and that if the team around him was performing better, that would probably help him out. I'm not a college FB person, but did he pull this stuff at Alabama? Another poster mentioned a DUI, but I don't recall any pre-draft stuff about him being an a-hole (but maybe I missed it). But Bama was a great situation that he just wasn't pushed to act out.
My post was more on a commentary that we seem to reflexively defend/rationalize Mac’s actions on this board because he is operating in a suboptimal setting. Most people generally act better when they’re winning so if the Pats were 11-4 right now, I’m sure we’d see a different Mac.
I guess because they're both... behavior? I could just as well ask you why you're separating them, but, I'm really not criticizing your/any reaction so much as I am thinking about where it comes from and what it says about sport, fandom, etc. I think it is interesting that the rules of the game might govern someone's opinion about a player in a way that the rules of society might not. I agree that frustration is no justification for trying to hurt someone, and am sorry if I implied as much; Risking someone's NFL career is doubtless serious business, though in fairness, more is certainly risked by the DUI. I just meant that I can imagine making that mistake of sport-frustration more easily than some other ones. YMMV, as they say.
Agreed.
Thanks, that's pretty fair I think. In the end, it's the same thing; where is the line for rooting for an odious person crossed. Probably that we see (and replay) the on-field stuff, and engage with it emotionally more than we'd readily admit while sober, likely explains some of the "scale" discrepancy I suppose I'm talking about.
You haven’t derailed the conversation at all. It’s one worth having. I think my simple answer is that fans generally don’t care about what athletes do after games as long as it’s not some Tyreek Hill or Ray Rice level of depravity. Additionally, most of the time there isn’t video so it doesn’t have the same impact.
They control their own destiny to make the playoffs and can potentially grab the final WC spot even by going 1-1, the chance of them starting Zappe in these games is zero point zero. Had the Dolphins beaten the Packers there was a shot.
Learned from the link that he was fined earlier for unsportsmanlike conduct vs the Bills.
Within that link there’s another link to a video compilation of 4 different “dirty” plays by Mac.
Well, they had an offensive system that worked well enough last year, they scrapped it, and now they are a complete undisciplined, assignment-missing, wrong-route-running mess.
By all reports it started in the summer. Seemed like he was making mistakes, unsure if it was work ethic related or what. But he was in the doghouse super early.
Well if that’s true then instead of us blaming Mac or even the coaches for freezing him out, maybe we should lay the blame at Bourne’s feet for crippling the offense.
I don’t disagree with a lot of your frustration. The issues with the offense this year are legion. I also can’t tell what was scrapping the system and what was losing the system when McDaniels left and took most of the offensive coaching staff with him, plus Ivan Fears retired.
That's not a good excuse.
Their head coach designs and calls the plays, they lost mid-level guys not the top. Shanahan runs that offense top to bottom.
I do think BB has a history of sending people to the doghouse fast for reasons that people will never know (or agree with, maybe). Off the top of my head, Bourne this year, benching Butler in the SB, Adalius Thomas (at the time, thought to be *the model* BB player) having friction from day 1, Jonas Gray... I am sure there are others. Brady did this a bit too when a rookie would miss a thrown ball and Brady would pointedly refuse to throw to them for a long time. I assume this is some way of ensuring everyone stays in line, but it also seems like it pisses off other people who don't want to play in a system that demands total perfection or you never get another chance. And in the case of Bourne, might be affecting the season. This is all speculation and clearly BBs stuff works (or at least has worked), but I feel like at one point there are diminishing returns with that style.
I’m not saying it’s an “excuse” for anything — I was responding to the suggestion they scrapped the 2021 offense.
Not quite true. Shanahan would call the plays on game day but McDaniel would come up with the schemes and game plan.
In my opinion the offensive coaches should have brought Bourne back into the rotation earlier this year. You can be a hardass but you’ve got to do it with a plan. You can’t just keep a player on the bench indefinitely. He’s even signed for next year.
I made a post in the Pats offense thread but all the reports from camp were that Thornton looked very good and Bourne did not. And if he mouthed off to Patricia or whatever, limiting Bourne early on made some sense in that context.
Do we know this is what happened? I'm not doubting you, just honestly curious if there are sources/quotes from BB or assistant coaches that confirm this.
This was a bit off the cuff. I don't think they did more rest than was usual but they didn't seem to be putting any extra work in from how the players were talking. I did not do an exhaustive search though.
Yeah, that reads a little more like it in terms of self-scouting and evaluation. It's pretty hard to do a major repair job mid season, but I hope they did at least scrap some glaring things that weren't working, and at least attempted to emphasize a couple that were. Though the results certainly have not been there either way. Ultimately though, the offense has been dysfunctional going back to the start of camp, and really going back to the experiment of putting Patricia and Judge in charge of it. It's going to take significant staff changes, and an upgrade in player personnel, to truly get it fixed.
This seems to be a popular belief but it simply isn't true. Bourne has had several games this year where he did very little with significant snaps.
Yep. The Niners offense from a coaching standpoint is what the Patriots defense is. Shanahan is the guy for the Niners offense, and BB is the guy for the Pats defense. Whether they call the plays or not, that's their expertise, and they are top .00000000000001% of the planet at it. They can lose coordinators/coaches on that side of the ball every year, but their head coaches can make up the slack.
at GB: 26 snaps, 3 targets, 2 rec, 23 yards
To me it's seemed like other than the one big game he's been the guy struggling to get open the most. Agholor had drops, but he also gets open decently often (he's the guy Mac struggles to hit in stride most) Jakobi gets open the most, then Parker. When one or both are out there Agholor gets open, without them he gets eaten up by #1 CBs.
Bourne was, if I recall correctly, involved in a fight or two in camp that supposedly hurt him.
To be fair, they didn't have any 100 yard receiving games all year in 2021.
Others have pointed out that Bourne has had plenty of games where he's played quite a bit and not done anything. Overall he's averaging 27 snaps per game this year as opposed to 34 last year, and even that overstates the difference because a) he left the Cleveland game after just 4 snaps and b) the offense as a whole is averaging 3 fewer snaps per game than last year. The perception that he's been stapled to the bench all year is not the reality.
So then my statement "he's been the most productive receiver when on the field" should be amended to "He has been more productive than Agholor and Thornton and should be playing much more." No one would argue he's been great but there is no reason he should be getting just 11 snaps against say las vegas in week 15 when Thornton and Agholor have 60 and 54. Everyone on the offense has had multiple games where they disappeared for various reasons.
