Content available exclusively for subscribers
A few different items to get into today in our latest edition of “News To Me.” A little Bowles, a little Pats. Let’s get started . . .
Todd Bowles continues to do a great job not allowing the distraction mongers to gain any traction.
If it doesn’t have to do with winning on Sunday, he really doesn’t have a lot of interest in discussing it.
At times, Rex Ryan would get sucked into memes that were a waste of time. Bowles doesn’t. He learned well from his mentors – Bill Parcells, Brian Arians and Joe Gibbs.
Don’t chase windmills. It’s hard enough to win in this league without worrying about things that floats media boats, but are meaningless to winning and losing.
On Monday, Todd Bowles was asked about the Odell Beckham-Josh Norman imbroglio.
“It’s not my fish to fry,” Bowles said.
Today, Bowles was asked about which of his players belong in the Pro Bowl.
“I don’t know.” Bowles said. “Got other things to worry about.”
Both answers handled with aplomb.
Neither issue has anything to do with winning and losing on Sunday.
And he never falls for this stuff.
He has a single-mindedness of purpose – winning. And he’s hell-bent at avoiding ever adding fuel to distraction fires.
“I think he changed the culture and environment and his message has been consistent since Day One,” said Rich Gannon . . .
The Pro Bowl is a joke – both the game and voting process, so I don’t want to spend much time on this.
Do you think anybody voting is spending time breaking down film of all the candidates? No way. It’s a lot of guessing.
And as for the game, the only time I went, when it was at Sun Life Stadium in Miami, I left at halftime. It was so awful, I couldn’t take it anymore.
I will just say this – Brandon Marshall and Mo Wilkerson definitely earned their Pro Bowl trips . . .
Two Pats players who give the Jets fits aren’t going to play – slot receivers Julian Edelman (foot) and Danny Amendola (knee).
That is huge news for the Jets, and will help them a great on Sunday.
Also likely out on Sunday is linebacker Dont’a Hightower, who had a heck of game in the first Jets-Pats game.
The Patriots are so banged-up, while it flies in the face of Bill Belichick’s DNA, he’s going to handle this game with great care from an injury standpoint.
It sounds like he’s not taking any chances on Sunday with the playoffs in the offing. It’s almost like he’s giving a heads-up that this year is going to be different. They are going to error on the side of caution. I’ve never seen Belichick give an answer about injuries this in-depth.
“We do the best we can to manage all those things (nagging injuries, more serious injuries and players coming back to action),” Belichick explained. “They’re all somewhat of a consideration. We just gotta try to balance it.
“Each part of the question requires some thought and every decision impacts other things as well. You can’t act independently. When one thing happens, there’s a residual effect to it one way or another. We’ll just have to do the best we can to balance all those things out.
“It’s something we’ll have to give some thought to and get as much information as possible because there are some guys that are in various states of physical health.
“The first thing is, strictly, what’s the player’s medical condition? If he’s out, he’s out. Then it’s, ‘Can play but less than 100 percent’ and that conversation continues to how it goes in practice, how it looks in practice, how the player feels, possibly what you’re gonna be asking him to do in the game if you can determine that.”
December 22, 2015
Premium will return by 9:30 pm on Wednesday.
