With the Worcester Railers season over, we’ll return to what will (hopefully) be weekly editions of “Friday 4,” where I discuss the four things I’ve been thinking about over the last week and the upcoming weekend in sports and the world.
ONE
The NFL draft was this past weekend, and regular readers and Twitter followers should be well aware by now that I think any draft grades put out by reporters and bloggers are just engagement bait. It’s absolutely impossible to grade a draft that just happened. All they can do is pick a grade based on their opinion of what a team needs or wants, and to be honest, most blowhard reporters and bloggers aren’t right any more often than NFL GMs are.
So there isn’t any chance you’ll see me grading the Patriots’ 2025 draft anytime soon.
But I’ll be glad to share my opinion on some of the picks they made, and we’ll start with OT Will Campbell, whom the Patriots drafted 4th overall. They needed a left tackle to protect Drake Maye, and at least on paper, they got a really good one. LSU ran a pro-style, pass-first offense, so the Patriots already have a good idea of what Campbell does well. The scouting reports say he has excellent athleticism, and his techniques are already NFL-ready.
New England then drafted RB TreVeyon Henderson, from Ohio State, with their second-round pick. People say he’s really good, including good friend Keven, who hates the Buckeyes so much it pained him to say he liked the pick. I guess that’s about a positive recommendation as you’ll ever get.
In the third round the Patriots drafted Kyle Williams from Washington State and center Jared Wilson from Georgia. The highlights I saw of Williams look pretty good, but I guess you could say that about pretty much every player in the draft. Word is Wilson is both quick and fast and was rated as one of the top pass rush defenders in college football. Those are good things, so I guess we’ll see come the fall.
The fourth and fifth round saw three defensive players taken, selecting California safety Craig Woodson and defensive lineman Joshua Farmer of Florida State in the fourth and edge rusher Bradyn Swinson from LSU in the fifth. These rounds are where championships are won and lost. Time will tell which is the case for New England.
They then took a kicker, Andres Borregales from Miami (Fla), an offensive interior lineman, Missouri’s Marcus Bryant, and a long snapper out of Vanderbilt named Julian Ashby. Apparently Ashby was going to be a free agent target of a lot of teams, so I guess drafting him makes sense if you really want him. The other two? Again, we’ll see.
And finally, the Patriots drafted this year’s Mr. Irrelevant, cornerback Kobee Minor from Memphis. He and I had the same number of interceptions last season, and he only had two more sacks than I did. This pick is an absolute flier.
Now let’s see if he flies or crash-lands.
TWO
Saturday night had the potential to be one of the greatest nights in playoff hockey in NHL history, with the possibility of four game sevens going on. All fans needed Thursday night was wins by the Senators, Wild, Avalanche, and Kings to have a full afternoon and evening of winner-take-all games on Saturday.
Unfortunately, Toronto, Vegas, and Edmonton all had other ideas as each won and eliminated their opponents, leaving us with just Colorado at Dallas Saturday night on ABC at 8pm ET. Oh, what could have been.
There are no former Worcester players on either team, but there is a city connection to the Stars as former Railers Community Relations Manager Paul Harris is the Programs Manager for the Dallas Stars Foundation. So I guess that means we’re rooting for Pablo and the Stars.
In hockey, the only thing better than watching a game 7 is your team winning one. In an elimination game, every little thing that happens on the ice is magnified in importance compared to a regular season game, boiling down to the whole “thrill of victory” and “agony of defeat” and almost every single moment until the final horn sounds.
One way or the other, Stars and Avalanche fans will have a sleepless Saturday night. The rest of us just get to enjoy the game.
THREE
Two baseball teams I’m not particularly a fan of is the New York Mets and Los Angeles Dodgers. But if one of those teams does something noteworthy, I’ll be glad to tip my cap toward them, and this week the Mets had one of the most amazing defensive innings that I can ever recall seeing. It’s worth checking out.
I can’t imaging three better defensive plays in a single inning.
I also can’t imagine the Dodgers being bigger jerks than they usually are, but this week their social media staff said “hold my beer”. Kike Hernandez, a position player, came in to pitch the ninth inning with the Dodgers leading 15-2 over the Miami Marlins on Tuesday night.
In the game Hernandez became the only Major League player in the modern era to score multiple runs, play multiple positions, and have a scoreless pitching appearance in a game he did not start. Whenever you get a ” first in the modern era” baseball stat, that’s pretty significant, because the modern era started in 1901.
So, you know, a long time ago.
But the Dodgers being the Dodgers, instead of just having fun with a position player pitching, which is almost always a fun thing to watch, they instead make fun of a piece of protective equipment Hernandez decided to wear.
Yes, the video and commentary are fine. That’s not the issue. It’s the tag the Dodgers social media tools decided to add, “Kike’s helmet? It’s called fashion.” and then added the laughing emoji afterwards.
Yeah, it’s not fashion. We’ve all seen the horrible videos of pitchers getting hit in the head with line drives back up the middle, so to be honest I’m shocked more pitchers don’t wear those helmets.
Although with the Dodgers’ moron social media idiots making fun of Hernandez, maybe I can see why pitchers don’t.
FOUR
There is nothing better than watching two sportsmen who are among the best in the world at what they do compete against each other, and that’s what fans were looking forward to seeing when England’s Joe Cullen and France’s Thibault Tricole were matched up in the second round of the Austrian Darts Open. With Cullen leading 4-1, the sixth leg turned into a comedy of errors that can best be viewed rather than explained.
Cullen would go on to win the match 6-2.
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