Niagara Falls, NY – Happy Monday. The Super Bowl has lost its muster for me, BUT I have no choice but to at least talk about it—it’s Monday, the day after the Super Bowl. Which always brings me back to this idea: they should make the Monday after the Super Bowl a holiday. Anyway, here’s what we’re talking today: Super Bowl 60, Knicks Update, Fire Chris Drury
Super Bowl 60
The good guys won. The Seattle Seahawks defeated the New England Patriots. And it wasn’t even close. Seattle’s defense dominated from start to finish, forcing a fumble and even returning it for a touchdown. They fully pulled away.
The Seattle offense, led by Sam Darnold, wasn’t great but moved the ball just enough and kicked enough field goals to make sure their defense could rest. I wasn’t really surprised by the poor performance of New England’s offense. I mean, even against Denver, they barely pulled it out a 10-7 victory. They only won by a field goal against a team with their backup quarterback playing for the first time all season.
For all the hype around Drake Maye, you have to be able to take what the defense gives you, and when they tighten up, you have to push down the field at the right time to make a play and break them. The Patriots’ offense is bad. The Patriots never looked great offensively.
Any assumption that the Patriots will be back next year is big, because a lot of the top teams in the AFC under-performed this year—Baltimore and Kansas City, Buffalo, Cincinnati trying to get back to where they were, the Chargers wanting to be out there, and Denver hoping to get a fully healthy Bo Nix back. So it’s not going to be a window that’s wide open for them for a few years.
Knicks Update
The Knicks have won 9 of their last 10. Their one loss came a couple of nights ago, where they got dominated by the number-one seed in the East. The Knicks are currently the number two seed and still have time to see if they’ll catch the Pistons—I mean, the Celtics. The Knicks will need to take some time to figure out how to defeat top competition in preparation for the postseason.
They also made news at the trade deadline. The Knicks traded their solid bench PF Guerschon Yabusele to Chicago for Dalen Terry and two second-round draft picks. They then traded Terry and the picks to New Orleans for Jose Alvarado – who was great yesterday in dismantling the Celtics in Boston. Alvarado was acquired because backup point guard Miles McBride is out with a muscle injury, and his timetable for recovery is still unclear. Alvarado’s high-energy, in-your-face style should fit well with the Knicks, and he might be what they need off the bench to keep that second unit thriving as they try to get the number one seed in the East.
Fire Chris Drury
Chris Drury has lived a charmed life since he retired from the Rangers. He was picked up to be part of management immediately, hired as a special assistant to the GM. He moved up to Director of Player Development, then to Associate General Manager, then to Assistant GM. He spent so much time learning under Glen Sather and Jeff Gorton.
But when things went south and the Rangers missed the playoffs, both Sather and Gorton were fired, and Drury was named the new GM and President of the Rangers. I’ve never really seen this as a merit-based move, but more as a case of the “as making afo” You make a “hockey guy” part of your franchise, and eventually, you end up with a front office full of them because they hire people just like them.
Drury does know hockey and has made some decent trades, but he’s also made some very bad ones. The thing that stood out to me the most was hearing him in an interview talking about what he’s trying to do with the players. A lot of GMs say, “We’re trying to build a winner,” but they don’t go on to say, “Well, we’ve based our team on the press too much and playing to the market.” Drury does that. He says the politically correct thing, but it doesn’t always translate on the ice.
However, I don’t see how the Rangers can go from the Eastern Conference Finals to being 15 points out of a playoff spot in only a matter of years for no apparent reason. It’s time for him to go. They might want to wait until the end of the season, but I don’t see why we keep him when we’re changing everything else. But the owner, James Dolan, loves his fellow “hockey guys,” so it’s hard to pull the plug.
