Just Another Wednesday Patriots Linkage

First off I have to comment on the Costas Now segment where Deadspin.com head honcho Will Leitch and Friday Night Lights author Buzz Bissinger went toe to toe over the value of sports blogging. Buzz gets pretty fired up about the whole thing as you can see here but Leitch did a good job holding his own. Bissinger's biggest complaint is that anyone can post anything and thus the quality of sports reporting is going down the tubes.  Earlier in the piece Michael Schur, a writer for The Office and blogger of Fire Joe Morgan, makes the argument that the presence of blogs account for complete transparency in journalism and therefore they are beacon of democracy. I don't know if I would go that far but I would say that blogs are the future and while the writing style and skills necessary to be successful are different that traditional journalism there are still basic tenets that anyone who consistently writes and has a readership should follow. 

I understand Bissinger's argument. There are many blogs out there just looking to find dirt on people and I believe Perez Hilton (purposely no link) is the ultimate example of everything Buzz hates. It's sad that a mean-spirited gossip site without any other purpose than tearing people down and exposing unflattering pictures can gain so much popularity. But the National Enquirer was around long before the Internet. Like anything you would hope that quality sports reporting will be respected and passed along and those just looking to unjustly criticize athletes will fall by the wayside. Ultimately I can only worry about what I post here in this space and from the beginning I've avoided negative and obscene material. I write about football, not about what the players are doing with their free time during the off-season.

Gone are the days of sports fans sitting down and reading the morning sports section for a well-crafted account of last night's big game. Fans in 2008 want constant updates about everything their team is doing. Who's practicing, who's injured and how bad is it, who's looking good in preseason practice. Most fans aren't getting this news at home, they're getting it at work while they scan the Internet and the more updates a site can offer the more hits they are going to get. Though it may make writers like Bissinger upset, volume is trumping quality these days. Bloggers who can produce a high volume of quality material will be the most successful.

I love watching the Patriots. I root against the other teams but there's a bond between NFL fans. This isn't life or death. But it's fun to pretend it is. I may make fun of the Jets, Dolphins, etc. but no more than I would expect back from them. I'm not going to games looking to get drunk and fight fans from other teams. But some healthy trash-talking is always fun. That's the perspective from which I write this blog. Sports are meant to be fun and the true fan's voice is one that is never heard from traditional journalists. I find a fanatics account of a game or team to be often much more interesting that an impartial observers. And who are we kidding? There are no more impartial observers. Just ask Judas Tomase and the Boston Herald. Anyway, onto the important stuff like Patriots linkage...

Technically this SI.com article isn't really about the Pats but it's written by Ross Tucker who played for New England for a brief stint and I really find his articles to be fascinating looks at what it's like for players on the inside. This is another great one about what mini-camp is like.

Check out Pats Pulpit, another Patriots blog that has some good stuff.

Mike Reiss talks to new Pats CB Fernando Bryantand after reading it I'm even more excited to see him on the field. The cornerback competition will be one of, if not the number one, top story of Training Camp (along with how the linebacker rotation flushes out).

Speaking of cornerbacks, for those of you Pats fans who didn't hate Asante Samuel already, check out these pics... I truly believe the Pats will be stronger at cornerback than they were last year, Asante's interceptions will be missed but there's something about him that lacked the "hunger". Maybe it was the Super Bowl he won early in his career. He just seemed more interested in getting paid than winning and I think the new cornerbacks will be all about winning games.

We'll be back later in the day with our Top 5 Pats fan experiences from 2007...