Tag Archives: NFL

A spoiled Boston licks its sports wounds

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Eric Wilbur takes stock of the city’s last decade in sports:

This was the fifth year in the past decade in which Boston didn’t claim a championship.

Bummer.

It began with heartbreak in Indianapolis, where the Patriots choked away their second-straight Super Bowl. It didn’t get any better for the Bruins in April, when the defending Stanley Cup champs lost in seven games to the Washington Capitals in their first-round playoff matchup. A few weeks later, the Celtics gagged against LeBron James and the Heat, who went on to win the NBA title. Meanwhile, the Bobby Valentine experiment tossed one of Major League Baseball’s most storied franchises into new levels of embarrassment.

By all accounts, it was not a banner year for Boston sports.

The Cannons lost their only playoff game. The Revolution stunk.

Mike Napoli came and went. We think.

Maybe.

They cheered in Manhattan, San Francisco, Miami, and… at some point, Los Angeles. In Boston, there was little but angst and disappointment. The Celtics are an enigma, the Red Sox are in total disarray, and the Bruins are mixed in a web of greed that could ultimately ruin the NHL.

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The gloves come off in the New York Times newsroom

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From today’s editorial, “Amateur Hour in Pro Football:”

The Seattle Times said the last-second desperation pass “should be remembered as the Hail Mary that ended a labor dispute,” and let’s hope it is. Poor officiating has also slowed the game as officials huddle endlessly over calls, while encouraging players to stretch the rules (including outlawed helmet-to-helmet hits).

The officials want a salary increase. The owners want to change the defined benefit pension plan to a 401(k). We do not pretend to have a solution any more than the replacement referees know the rule book. What we do know is that the N.F.L. is, by some estimates, a $9 billion business. Surely there is room for compromise, and surely Mr. Goodell knows that it is in the game’s interest — not to mention his own — to find one.

Meanwhile, ESPN is now reporting that the lockout could end soon:

The NFL and the NFL Referees Association made enough progress in negotiations Tuesday night that the possibility of the locked-out officials returning in time to work this week’s games has been discussed, according to sources on both sides.

An agreement in principle is at hand, according to one source familiar to talks, although NFL owners have postured with a “no more compromise” stance.

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