KIBBLES AND BITS

As I have a tendency to do, I often harass the Boston Globe sportswriters, I mean email them to find out a little more behind the stories in the papers. On Wednesday, the polished, polite, and professional Mike Reiss responded to a follow-up I had after reading his piece on Asante Samuel. Samuel, along with Daniel Graham, are both free-agents at the end of the season that I would like to think the Patriots would be more than anxious to keep. Having talked to the agent of Samuel, I bothered Mike about whether he thought this agent was as Scott Boras type playing hardball to get Asante to the open market, or if he was sensible and seemed amenable to working something out and getting some long-term security in a comfortable location for his client. I was relieved to hear that his agent is more along the lines of the latter (aka not a Scott Boras type). Though I feel guilty picking up scraps from legitimate writers who pass on information to shlubs like myself out of the kindness of their hearts, I would feel even worse not sharing it with my two or three semi-loyal readers.

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In return for his kindness, I want to plug that Mike Reiss also appears on The Boston Globe SportsPlus on NESN Friday night at 5:30 and 11:30PM and replayed over the weekend. The program is hosted by Neumy (Bob Neumeier, late of WEEI and before that one of the local news channels, and only the best horse racing analyst in the country) along with my favorite New England Patriot when I was a kid, Tim Fox. It is very informative and interesting, especially compared to the three Big Show WEEI tubs of lard on FSN Thursday nights: the Big O, Fred Smerlas, and Steve DeOssie. Wide-angle lens are not optional. Heck, this past weeks program included the three musketeers wearing Halloween costumes, making it the first time the three tele-genic personalities looked good on TV (yes, masks were on). So check out Mike Reiss, drive up the ratings, make him more money. If he takes time out of his day to answer my idiotic ramblings, you know he has to be a prince of a guy.

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Great article by KC Joyner at ESPN.com (subscriber only, sorry!) details an NFL team winning games with a very strong defense, good special teams, winning the turnover battle, a very good running game, and multiple questions with their wide receivers. Nope, not the New England Patriots, but rather the Denver Broncos. Joyner details how the Broncos are basically a one-dimensional passing team (all Javon Walker, all the time) and that just maybe the problem is not Jake the Snake at QB. It makes sense to me, but still I would take a rookie over Plummer in a playoff game any day.

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