New York Post and New York Daily News mocks Patriots, Belichick and Gronk ahead of Thanksgiving game

Every now and then you think the sporting media in New York cannot go any lower, and then something comes along that recalibrates your expectations lower still. Today, the New York rags were working in overdrive, The New York Posts’ cover featured New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick Photoshopped onto a turkey, and the New York Daily News also made Belichick its back cover with the headline "Brain Freeze."

Both rags were making clumsy, over dramatized and boneheaded references to Belichick keeping Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski in for the final extra point of Sunday's blowout win over the Colts. Gronkowski broke his arm on the play and had surgery Monday.

What they are missing is glaringly obvious. This is professional football. Not college ball. There are smaller squads, sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and have your guys on the field. What they are also missing is that no doubt Gronk, who simply loves playing the game of football, probably wanted to be on the field anyway.

Above and beyond those obvious points, their greatest mistake, other than taunting a superior team, other than talking trash when you are trailing badly in the standings and other than making fun of a vastly superior and more decorated coach is their taking the exceptionally slimy path of making jolly of a players injury. That’s just pathetic. Making fun of an injury is one of the last remaining taboos in sports journalism

Most don’t do it. Even the more fringe online entities don’t do it.

The Post and Daily News seems to think it’s ok though, poking fun at a serious injury that stops a man from doing his job. Really base stuff, scraping the bottom of the barrel, but then with the Post in particular, this is basically nothing shocking. This is actually The Post living down to their lowly expectations.

Hopefully the Post and Daily News get their kicks out of their eye catching headlines today. The acid test will come Friday morning, we will see who is laughing then.

Current game handicap?

New England -6 points.

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The New York Jets end of season implosion starts prior to NFL week 12

The New York Jets annual implosion is happening a little early this season. The New York Daily News and ESPN are both reporting major commentary coming out from both named and anonymous Jets players, all basically coming down on the side of the incumbent in the Jets’ QB controversy. The comments are pretty shocking in their openly derisive slant towards Tim Tebow in particular, although they also verbally assault the Jets’ receivers.

The fact of the matter is though, this is all just noise.  Why is the New York Daily News writing a hatchet piece about Tim Tebow? Why is ESPN gleefully getting in on the act? Is it a clumsy attempt at distracting the public from the ugly truth, that it doesn’t matter what people think about the backup QB, the New York Jets are absolutely awful

They are 3-6 and fading faster than Rex Ryan’s waistline. Mark Sanchez is playing absolutely horrible football, with a league-low 52% completion rate and league-high four red-zone interceptions. What’s the point in focusing on the backup QB?

The comments are surprisingly inflammatory (although, at this stage, should we be surprised by anything coming out of the Jets locker room?)

“He’s terrible,” a defensive starter told the Daily News. Both offensive and defensive players said that they hadn’t noticed any improvement in Tebow’s quarterback skills in practice. Left guard Matt Slauson didn’t even bother staying anonymous. He made it clear that Sanchez is the Jets’ best quarterback. “It’s not even close,” Slauson said. “All the other quarterbacks know it. I have all the confidence in Mark. We don’t really have a choice.” When asked about the team’s two other quarterbacks on the depth chart as possible alternatives — Tebow and Greg McElroy — Slauson said again that the Jets have only one backup quarterback. “We have Greg . . . and we have an athlete,” Slauson said. In reference to the wildcat formation “We can’t win running that sh--,” one player said. On and on it went “Now we’re depending on miracles?” a member of the organization said. “You can’t play that way.” Does anyone want Tebow as the starter? Anyone on the Jets at all?  “Nobody,” a member of the team said.

It’s not only Tebow who is under attack “Look at some of the players he’s throwing to,” a Jets official said. “It’s garbage.” Said another Jets source: “I’ve seen better receiving corps in college than we have on our team.”

Here’s then thing, whatever about those crazily open, aggressive comments, forgetting completely for a second how outrageously damning they are towards Tebow, imagine for a second the impact those comments have on what’s left of the Jets' confidence within the locker room. You think Tebow wants to work with these guys going forward? Perhaps more importantly, how do you think the Jet’s wide receiver corps are going to react to such blatantly coercive internal criticism?

Not well, would be the obvious answer to that.

This team is an absolute mess. There is absolutely no sense of cohesion or a plan or any kind of stability. It is a train wreck and it is about to go off the tracks. The New York Jets are blowing themselves apart a little early this season, and the explosion that’s causing the drama is coming from within.

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