Is Rob Gronkowski the coolest guy in the world?

I decided that every now and again I will write a post based on something intriguing that deals more with off the field lifestyle of a person or an event. I know not everyone reading this cares about sports or is super serious about them so I hope I can keep your attention with these sort of posts. Which brings me to my topic for today: Rob Gronkowski aka Gronk. Whether you are a fan of the Patriots or not, you most likely have heard of this guy. He's known as that crazy football player who always in the news for getting with tons of women. Or that guy who was video-taped dancing and blacking out with an injured ankle after their Super Bowl loss to the Giants. Or that guy who spikes the ball after every touchdown he scores in a violent manner. Some people may say he's immature or unprofessional while others would say "he's the fucking man!!". But one thing is for sure, Gronk does what Gronk wants, when Gronk wants and Gronk can get away with it. Gronk has become almost a pop-culture phenomenon. This is very surprising however since the Patriots are thought of as the most professional and mild mannered team in the NFL. Their coach Bill Belichick is never in the business of trying to attract the media and tries to keep everything that's done in the organization as secretive as possible. Then there are guys like Tom Brady who may be in the public spotlight because of his marriage to Gisele, but during the off season he mainly keeps to himself, except when he does his modeling for Uggs (so manly Tommy). Well Gronk is the 1000% complete opposite of everything the Patriots preach for off the field behavior. 

Week 4: Patriots vs. Bills

Going into week 4 of the NFL season, the Patriots are in an unfamiliar position of being under the .500 mark. The team stands at 1-2 and is looking for a strong performance in order to regain their usual spot atop the AFC East standings. The Pats next opponent is a Buffalo Bills team who is surprisingly in first place in the AFC East with a 2-1 record. The Bills have defeated the Chiefs and Browns after being defeated in week 1 by the NY Jets. But this Bills isn't a team the Patriots can take lightly, especially on offense. The Buffalo defensive line is one of the most talented in the NFL. This off-season they added Mario Williams, formerly of the Houston Texans, and Mark Anderson, from the 2011 Patriots. These two have made the Bills pass-rush one of the best in the league and something that should worry Patriots fans. So far this season, the Pats offensive line has allowed Tom Brady to be sacked 7 times and hit many more times. 

Perfect caption.

I love this photo. Just shows what a joke this whole situation has become. Never before has the NFL had to deal with such a nationwide embarrassment. I read several stories today saying in Vegas somewhere between $100 million and $250 million dollars shifted based on that one blown call. The Packers were 3 1/2 point favorites and would have covered the spread since they would have won by 5 points. Damn it would have sucked to be on the wrong side of that bet. But anyways to make my point, this problem is affecting much more than one single regular season game. This problem is causing people to question the integrity of the National Football League. Over the past 36 hours countless players have gone to social media and absolutely blasted the Commissioner, the replacement referees and the league itself in a way no one has ever seen in the history of the NFL.  In the words of Aaron Rodgers, the star quarterback of the Packers, "I just feel bad for the fans," Rodgers said on a radio interview on ESPN Radio. Rodgers then said "The product that is on the field is not being complemented by an appropriate set of officials. The games are getting out of control. ... The game is being tarnished by an NFL that obviously cares more about saving some money than having the integrity of the game diminished a little bit." I agree with everything Rodgers said in that

You have got to be kidding me.

The NFL has turned into a joke. Not one person who watched MNF tonight thought Golden Tate caught that ball. Two officials making completely different calls and the wrong call ends up being made to cost the Packers the game. Same thing happened last night. The Ravens field goal was no good. Look at the picture from my prior post. You can clearly see the ball went to the right of the upright. In other games you have guys getting hit helmet to helmet all over the place with no calls. You see penalties being marked off according to college rules instead of NFL rules. Balls are being spotted 10+ yards from the correct spot.The NFL is trying to hold their ground in this whole situation with the regular referees but this is now affecting the product on the field. This is the greatest league in American sports and Roger Goodell is ruining it single-handedly. The NFL better reevaluate this whole situation because their league is looking more and more ridiculous every day.

Ravens 31 - Patriots 30

Welll…so much for that 16-0 season many people in the New England area were predicting for this year’s New England Patriots. Coming into this season the Pats had what was statistically the easiest schedule in the league based on last year’s results.  Yet three weeks into the season the Patriots are sitting in last place in the AFC East with a 1-2 record.  

Now I’m not going to sit here and just bash this team for losing last night’s game. There are a few silver linings to take out of this. For one, the Tom Brady to Brandon Lloyd connection showed up last night in a big way for the first time. Before the season started every Pat’s fan was fantasizing over the thought of a legit deep threat after dealing with the debacle that was Chad aka “Wife Beater” aka “Ochocinco” Johnson. Lloyd's experience with new offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels with both Denver and St. Louis was a major factor in his decision to take less money for a chance to win in New England. Through the first 2 games it seemed as if Brady and Lloyd were not quite on the same page. Lloyd had proven a few times in those games that he had the skill to be the threat we all envisioned, but last night was definitely his coming out party when he recorded 9 catches for 108 yards.

Where's Wes Welker?

Through the first 2 weeks of the Patriots season, there has been one major topic that seems to have everyone confused. Why has Wes Welker only been targeted a total of 16 times for 8 receptions and 109 yards? This is the same player who last year had a career year with 122 receptions, 1569 yards and 9 touchdowns. Since he has joined the Patriots 7 years ago, Welker has been the most productive wide receiver in the NFL. In his prior 6 seasons with the team, Welker compiled ridiculous stats that put everyone else's to shame. In 79 career regular season games with the Pats he has a staggering 562 catches for 6214 yards and 31 touchdowns. His season average is 111 catches and 1221 yards!! But yet with all of these spectacular numbers, his has been replaced in the Patriots offense.

There have been several rumors swirling around Foxboro about why Welker's usage has become so diminished within the Patriots offense. The most prominent rumor has been his contract situation. This off-season, Welker came out publicly that he wanted a long term deal with the Pats, and to his credit he deserved it. But as any Pats fan knows this team has their own "special" way of doing business. Past performance doesn't necessarily translate to a big payday in the future.In the past players such as all-pros Vince Wilfork and Logan Mankins have held out for new contracts. Wilfork sat out of all of training camp a few years back before getting a big payday and Mankins sat out 8 games in 2010 before signing his franchise tender. The Pats have also let prominent players such as Asante Samuel, Ty Law and Ben-Jarvis Green-Ellis walk away because their contract demands have been to high.

In Welker's case, he was a very productive 31 year old receiver who wanted a multi year deal and wanted to be paid like a top wide receiver. According to sources close to the team, the Patriots did offer Welker a fully guaranteed 2 year deal worth $16 million towards the end of last season. Welker turned this offer down because he wanted more security then just 2 years. It is thought that Welker's age played a large factor in the Patriots deciding not to offer him a multi year deal more then the original 2 year offer. Instead the Patriots opted to place the franchise tag on Welker, which was for 1 year and $9.5 million. Welker initially refused the tender. He then made public comments about how this team doesn't respect their players or consider past performance as a viable option for awarding players new contracts. The team instead considers the past but looks at their future value and a measuring stick for deciding on contracts. About a week after these comments were made, he signed the franchise tender.

Why I hate the NHL.

In my opinion the NHL is the most unprofessional sports league in the world. Let’s go back to pre-2004-05 when the NHL was thought of as a respectable member of the big 4 American Sports leagues. There was Hockey Night on ESPN that every kid my age grew up watching. Think about it, having a sport that’s actually on regular cable TV. Seems normal correct? Well that’s where the NHL first screwed up. The owners and players decided they had the freedom to have a year-long labor dispute, basically saying screw the fans, we are going to take as long as we want and when the time is right, we’ll be back. Well ESPN wasn’t on board with that. In their mind, and I would have done the same exact thing, as they decided to abandon the NHL after their TV contract ran up. Every sports league, NFL, MLB and NBA all have games nightly on the network, and to coincide with that, all the highlights are run continuously on SportsCenter for the world to see.

Once the NHL owners and players were able to come to an agreement before the 2005-06 season, they were without a TV deal to showcase their product to a national audience. So apparently to best deal they could get was with OLN. That’s right, the Outdoor Life Network. You know the channel whose main audience was hunters and fisherman. The same channel who’s main attraction was the Tour de France. Another great quality about this network was that roughly 1/3 of homes in the US had access to this channel. Seems like a good deal for a sport who was trying to recover and gain back its respect and popularity. Starting in April of that year, they started showing games on NBC, their first action back in the national spotlight. There was one thing missing though. Every person in America who follows sports tunes in daily to ESPN to watch SportsCenter, but hockey was nowhere to be found. Maybe if Crosby scored a hattie they would show the highlights right before the bowling segment of the show. To be honest, you'd be lucky to see highlights for even 3 games. 

Pats vs. Ravens...AFC Championship Preview?

This weekend's week 3 match-up between the New England Patriots and the Baltimore Ravens has many people imagining another January AFC Championship rematch. These two teams have so far shown themselves to be the top of the class in the AFC. Although the Patriots did stumble last weekend in their loss to Arizona, no one believes that game will be a sign of things to come for this years version of the Pats.

Tom Brady finally has himself a consistent running back in Stevan Ridley and a deep threat in Brandon Lloyd. Ridley is just what the doctor ordered for this team. He's a running back who can also receive passes, something that will definitely come in handy since new Offensive Coordinator Josh McDaniels loves to the screen pass. He also runs hard on every carry, but also has the finesse to be able to make a defender miss, something the running game lacked with Ben-Jarvis Green-Ellis. The addition of Lloyd as already proved helpful as the receiver has already made several spectacular catches thus far and has enabled all of Patriots Nation to forget the horrible "Ochocinco" experiment of 2011. Add in the growing experience of Gronk, Solder and Hernandez and this offense looks like they're prepared to top last years historic output.

Bobby V. - Should he get another chance?

Within the last couple weeks there has been an ongoing debate on whether or not Bobby Valentine should be fired after the season ends. Although the majority of Red Sox fans think he should have been axed long ago, there is a fair share of people saying he deserves another chance.

It is well known that Valentine was hired basically as a puppet to Larry Lucchino. Ben Cherington wanted no part in hiring him, but as a first time GM, it seems as if he just played along with the whole hiring process since he hadn't "earned his stripes" to make that sort of decision by himself. It is also well known that the Red Sox players were against the hire of Bobby V and were told the next manager would not be a tough minded guy, like Bobby V. So as it turns out, Valentine was hired and as it turns out, had no hope to succeed with this current group of players. His GM was against his hiring, his players were against it and what it produced was one of the most embarrassing and dysfunctional seasons in the history of the Boston Red Sox. One quality I think that is mandatory for a manager to succeed is respect, and Bobby never received any of it from his players. Early in the season, when Youkilis was obviously struggling, Bobby came out and told the press that Youkilis seemed to be distracted both on and off the field and needed to work harder. Instead of other players respecting their managers words, players like Pedroia and Gonzalez spoke out and to quote Pedroia, "that's not the way we do things here".

2012 Boston Red Sox: A season to forget...

So as you could guess, this summer has been a rough one for any Red Sox fan. Trying to root for this team especially April-July was anything but fun and actually became a painful habit of mine. Whether it was David Ortiz bitching about his annual contract situation or Josh Beckett and John Lackey laughing on the bench while the team is getting blown out by Texas 17-2, this season has been painful. 

I will be the first to admit, when I first heard of the proposed trade for Gonzalez, Crawford, Beckett and Punto, I couldn't believe Cherington would even give this trade any thought. I'm a Red Sox fan, and for the past 10 years, I have been spoiled with a team that competes year in and year out for a playoff spot. This team doesnt trade away talent at the deadline!! Thats what teams like the Royals and Astros do, but never my team! How could they just give up?? I couldn't fathom trading our most productive player in Gonzalez and possibly our most athletic player in Crawford for a bunch of possible major league prospects. As for Beckett, get the fuck off my team.

Let's see how this goes...

Hey, I'm Kyle and this is my blog Real Sports 24/7. I've had several people tell me I should give this a shot since sports is one of the only things I know a lot and actually care about.  I have a feeling some of these posts may get a little entertaining and unfiltered since I seem to only want to write when one of my teams screws up so hopefully I can provide you some enjoyment.

As for a little background about myself, I am a huge Boston sports fan. Red Sox and Patriots are interchangeable for the top two spots and then third is the Celtics and fourth NY Rangers. I know I know try and figure that one out. I guess my first memory of pro hockey was in '94 when the Rangers won the cup. As for the rest of the teams in NY and NJ, fuck 'em!

I spent the last 19 years of my life playing competitive hockey, until last October when I was forced to quit due to concussions. But enough with my sob stories, the main point is that I will rarely write about hockey since no one cares about hockey. Any sport that would allow 2 lockouts within an 8 year span is a joke and any sport that isn't on ESPN isn't a real sport.

I'm very passionate about professional sports as anyone who knows me could tell you, so like the blog says, I hope to give you Real Sports Talk that's uncut and unfiltered.

I can be reached at Kyle.c.letourneau@gmail.com and www.realsports247.com/

Twitter: @kyle_letourneau