There are a lot of truly significant things going on these days in Boston sports.
Three of the four major teams are playing critical games in front of full-house, post-pandemic crowds.
Boston is back, baby!
The Bruins are on a potential Stanley Cup run, their second-round series with the Islanders tied at one game apiece.
The Celtics are undermanned underdogs fighting for their playoff lives, led by Jayson Tatum’s budding greatness against the villainous star power of Kyrie Irving’s Nets.
Heck, the Red Sox remain one of the best teams in Major League Baseball as we hit the month of June, a year after bumbling through irrelevance of life in the basement of the standings.
And lest us not forget that the Revolution are in midseason MLS form while the Boston Cannons will be rebranded and reborn Friday night in their PLL debut at Gillette Stadium.
We should also take note of Boston College women’s lacrosse team taking home the NCAA title this Memorial Day Weekend.
But in some ways it feels like the one New England sports team doing very little of any import these days is still getting far more than its fair spring share of the attention.
Fresh off admittedly the most exciting free agency period in team history and the first first-round QB selection since Drew Bledsoe, Bill Belichick’s new-look Patriots have been taking part in voluntary organized team activities (OTAs) on the practice fields behind Gillette Stadium.
Yes. Voluntary. Activities.
Not a game mind you. We’re talking about something below even an Allen Iverson practice on the scale of sports importance. We’re talking about activities.
But the way some are ingesting this tiny little taste of what could become the 2021 Patriots -- a team with worthy newfound hope after missing the postseason for the first time since 2008 in its first year without Tom Brady entrenched under center since 2001 – you’d think it was bye-week preparation for the Super Bowl.
Somewhere along the line it feels like we – all of us, pointing with thumbs as well as fingers here – have forgotten Belichick’s endless reminders that OTAs are a teaching environment, not one of evaluation.
That they are soooooo meaningful that respected core Patriots veterans and team captains Devin McCourty, Dont’a Hightower and James White are among the more than two dozen players not taking part in the action that would need to be ramped up multiple notches to be even worthy of being dubbed practices.
Yet each of the minutes the media got to witness last week during workouts– and will get a chance to digest once again this coming Friday in Foxborough – have been dissected and analyzed more than the footage of Cole Buckley’s idiotic (alleged?) water bottle toss at TD Garden.
In case you hadn’t heard, future franchise passer Mac Jones is short, but also clearly throws the best ball of any of the four New England quarterbacks who threw maybe a grand total of 12 borderline “meaningful” passes in the OTA work. That doesn’t include the fun game of tossing toward the garbage can in the end zone, one that Hunter Henry joined and apparently didn’t look like a tight end out of position.
Oh, and Jones is obviously the No. 2 QB at this point based on the reps he took and the places he took them on the practice field. He’s pushing Cam Newton. No question.
And Jarrett Stidham, poor forgotten Stid, is relegated to afterthought action with journeyman Brian Hoyer. The heir that never was.
The too-soon, too-serious analysis wasn’t limited to the quarterback competition that will be the talk of the summer, though.
Did you know that Nelson Agholor is fast? Really fast in shorts and t-shirts in a non-contact environment in May. Gonna take the top off the defense in a way that New England hasn’t been able to do since, well, Randy Moss.
Don’t doubt it. Just run with the hype like Agholor can run with the wind, which was all that was essentially covering him.
The power of the NFL across the country and the stronghold of the Patriots on Boston sports has been on full display of late. While the rest of the teams in town have been playing actual games, competing for actual championships, the local football team has been actively organizing volunteer workouts on Route 1.
And for many fans of the region, that’s been more worthy of attention, more worthy of hope than the real games. Reason for hype heading toward actual action that will include Brady himself returning to town to take on his former team that remains the talk of the town.
It really is something to inexplicably behold.
Tatum is scoring 50 points in back-to-back home games to try to keep his team afloat and it feels like as much attention has been heaped on whether Newton’s throwing mechanics have been tweaked, maybe elevating him from shot put-like to simply ugly at this point in his passing career.
David Pastrnak is putting the puck in the back of the net near perfection levels – even bringing a Newton-like fashionable attire and hat to his own hat-trick performances -- and some circles are more attuned to Matt Patricia’s role following Belichick all around the practice field.
Make no mistake, playoffs in 2021 or not, the Patriots are still the biggest, baddest team in Boston and the story of the town more often than not whether they actually do anything meaningful or not.
As their coach would say, it is what it is.
But can we take a step back for just a spring second and let’s not put too much stock in voluntary workouts and breathless “practice” reports?
Especially when there are a lot of really fun, important, meaningful things going on in Boston sports these days.
Like Irving stomping on Lucky the Leprechaun’s face.
