Tom Brady rolls; Pat Gillick rolls into the hall-of-fame and the Leafs win on a Grabovskian spin-o-rama.
It must be seven in the morning:
1. Brady, as in de-ity
As Brett Favre turns to dust and Peyton Manning struggles, Tom Brady is slowly but surely securing the mantle of "quarterback for our times" or at least good enough to justify the hair.
Prior to last night's 45-3 beatdown of the New York Jets Brady had completed 70 of 95 attempts, threw for 877 yards and 9 touchdowns with zero interceptions in his three previous games.
"I'm not sure he can be rattled," Jets linebacker Bart Scott said before the game. "He's one of the best quarterbacks in the league. He's, well, he's Tom Brady, you know."
Last night Brady was, well, himself, if not quite perfect. He completed 21 of 29 passes for 326 yards and 4 touchdowns - a quarterback rating of 148.9.
And don't forget that this was against a team that was 5-0 on the road, the NFL's last remaining road unbeaten, with eight straight wins away from home overall.
"This humble pie tastes like a car tire and it goes down like peanut butter," Jets defensive tackle Sione Pouha said, perfectly capturing New York's night. "That's how it feels. Sunday can't come soon enough."
2. Down 4-1 the Leafs had the Capitals right where they wanted them:
The Alexander Ovechkins were humming along quite nicely, the universe unfolding as it should after Ovechkin scored his second goal in as many games - this after tying a career-long goal-scoring drought of nine games -- to make it 4-1 with more than six minutes remaining in the second period.
But then they got Grabovski-ed as the Leafs stormed back to tie and then win in a shootout:
"I don't know what happened [in]the last 10 minutes," Ovechkin said. "It started with our line when [Mikhail] Grabovski scored. . .a 4-to-1 lead after two periods is pretty big. Losing a game like this is pretty bad for us."
To make it even more orgasmic for Leaf fans - which is everybody, right? Right!? - Grabovski, who excels at shootouts because he doesn't get hassled for not passing, scored the game winner on a spin-o-rama. This is absolutely legal, by the way and is outlined in the NHL rulebook under section 24.2:
"The lacrosse-like move whereby the puck is picked up on the blade of the stick and "whipped" into the net shall be permitted provided the puck is not raised above the height of the shoulders at any time and when released, is not carried higher than the crossbar…
The spin-o-rama type move where the player completes a 360° turn as he approaches the goal, shall be permitted as this involves continuous motion."
3. Pat Gillick, a deserving hall-of-famer
For Blue Jays fans of a certain age - okay, my age -- the name Pat Gillick invokes an idealized father figure; a kindly-seeming type who never raised his voice, and was in turn eternally patient and brilliantly decisive. Pat could do no wrong; so no shock here when he earned his ticket to Cooperstown yesterday.
As Stephen Brunt writes: "His talents - and his quirks - are legendary. Gillick is, at heart, a scout of the old school, who loved to surround himself with the ancient wise men of the game long before he became one of them. He is blessed with a photographic memory, a remarkable repository of names and faces and telephone numbers which he can spin and access like one of those now-antique rolodexes."
But Gillick wasn't simply a (resounding) Toronto success story. He engineered two trips to playoffs Baltimore and of course helped the 2008 Philadelphia Phillies World Series champions; in Seattle he built one of the winningest teams in baseball history, the 2001 Mariners which won 116 games.
And while statistical analysis is the dominant theme in some corners of baseball now, Gillick believed in the human side of scouting:
As Mariners president Chuck Armstrong describes: "What comes to mind is, he got a fistful of plane tickets and he would go around and personally interview or talk with prospective players … and he would call me and say 'Arthur Rhodes has a good face and he understands what it means to be a Mariner.' And he told me what he wanted to do to get Arthur. And he did the same thing with Mark McLemore.
"Or he would call me and go 'I thought I wanted to get this guy, but now that I've talked with him and met with him ... "
4. But would Gillick have made the Shaun Marcum-Brett Lawrie deal?
Quite possibly, if the scouting report his Dad, Russ Lawrie, provided Robert MacLeod proves accurate. Father describes son as the type that would relish the pressure of being a Canadian on Canada's (baseball) team:
"Absolutely, bring it on. Brett's played this game since he was 6 and he's been different the whole way through. The crowd loves him because it's all or nothing every night...he's physical, he'll run the catcher, he'll run people - all in the context of the game, of course. He's exciting to watch. He can make plays and he carries a pretty big stick."
Fittingly, perhaps, the trade was made in part because Jays general manager Alex Anthopolous sees in Lawrie an edge his team needs, telling Richard Griffin of The Star:
"The package, the upside, the ceiling he has is potentially as a five-tool player…he can run, he can throw. A lot of the scouts that have seen him talked about him playing the game harder than most players that they've ever seen. How intense he is on the field and he's all about winning. You look at his age as a 20-year-old, how fast he's moved through the minor leagues and what a great competitor he is, that's certainly appealing, especially fitting into the young core of players that we have. From a position player standpoint we're a little light and need to augment that, add to that."
We're presuming that Anthopolous checked out (what may be) Lawrie's facebook page, and is okay with it.
5. Wrong, wrong, wrong on Carey Price:
It's official, those who doubted the previously mercurial Habs goal tender have no choice but the recant as Montreal leads their division by five points heading into tonight's game against Ottawa and Price sports a GAA of 1.96 and a save percentage of .935; both tops among goalies with 19 or more games played.
Jack Todd of the Montreal Gazette eats his crow with ketchup:
"I thought he was lazy. I was wrong. I thought he was too lackadaisical. I was wrong. I thought his penchant for high living would always undermine his performance. I was wrong.
Above all, I thought that while Price might thrive somewhere in the NHL, he would never have the stuff to stand up to the pressure in Montreal. I thought that to succeed, he would have to move on to some NHL backwater like Nashville or Phoenix. I was wrong."
6. A bartender and a guy getting ready for his wedding; anyone can make it through Q-school, apparently:
Two more guys for Mike Weir to talk hockey with as Chris Baryla of Vernon, BC and Matt McQuillan of Kingston, Ont. will be on the PGA Tour next season after finishing 11th and 16th, respectively, at Q-school.
Baryla, who is getting married next month, got himself an early wedding present and is another success story for Sean Foley, better known as Tiger Woods coach, as Bev Smith writes: "[Foley]sat down with Baryla on Sunday night and they had a little golf discussion. Foley also accompanied Baryla on the back nine [Monday] when his swing was particularly sweet and his putter was hot [Baryla birdied his first five holes after the turn] Baryla has been with Foley four years. "He's a really good friend," Baryla said. "He's helped me a ton. He's helped to make my golf swing a lot more sound and a lot more fundamental, which helps it to hold up under pressure...He's a great sounding board. He's a good guy to talk to. He's knowledgeable, he's insightful, he's a nice guy to have to bounce things off when you have ideas or concerns. It certainly helps me out."
For McQuillan getting through is a reward for perserverence. He took two years off competitive golf and tended bar in his hometown, and reflected on what was holding him back. Writes Smith:"He used the time to figure out why he couldn't make it happen. He decided that he'd always been too hard on himself, getting frustated when he couldn't understand why he couldn't make a shot. But then he realized that even the top pros miss shots, too.
"It's all about moving forward and staying patient, just grinding things out," McQuillan said.
7. First jail, then unemployment, it's looking like
Edmonton Eskimos lineman Adam Braidwood, spiced up Grey Cup week when he was charged with two other men with cutting a man and locking him inside the trunk of a car. One of his co-accused also faces charges of trafficking cocaine. And now this: On Monday [Braidwood]appeared in court to face a list of new charges including assault, threats to cause death or bodily harm, two charges of unauthorized possession of a prohibited weapon, possession of a loaded or prohibited firearm, two charges of careless storage of a firearm, careless use of a firearm and two breaches of recognizance.
Just reading between the lines here, but Esks general manager Eric Tillman isn't happy:
"Learning of this second alleged incident with Adam is incredibly disappointing. We had a very candid discussion a couple of weeks ago, where I expressed our sincere concerns about Adam as a human being while at the same time being crystal clear about what our organization expected of him going forward. He understood our message was a balance of compassion and accountability. With this latest development, we will gather more information via the legal process and then do what is best for the Edmonton Eskimos."