NESN/Howe: Wassup with Brandon Spikes

I haven’t made much mention of it here on the blog but if you follow Brandon Spikes on Twitter you’ve probably been scratching your head a bit. Jeff Howe breaks down some of the weirder posts below:

Patriots linebacker Brandon Spikes tweeted Tuesday that he missed the earthquake by 30 minutes, and I really wonder if that means he wasn’t with the team in Foxboro at that time since, you know, the epicenter was in Virginia.

Spikes’ Twitter account has taken some controversial twists and turns over the last couple of weeks. His location reads “Hell on Earth” and he has written some things that have been construed as anti-Patriots. He hasn’t outright said anything directly against the organization, but it’s easy to read between the lines.

It’s obviously dangerous to overreact to a Twitter account, but until we hear from Spikes himself, all we can do is wonder. He has missed 13 consecutive practices with an ankle injury, and I think he’s only spoken to the media once or twice since the start of training camp. This has definitely grown into a situation worth monitoring.

I agree it’s worth monitoring. Greg Bedard spoke with an NFL scout last week who said the Pats really need Spikes at MLB to make the 4-3 defense work, and while Spikes was a beast in the early parts of training camp he hasn’t been seen since last signing every last autograph after the in-stadium practice.

Now I’m wondering if it’s even Spikes who is tweeting on his account. We saw some twitter shenanigans this summer when a friend of Spikes said they were taking him to a hospital after a pick up basketball game. Who knows. Maybe I’m way overanalyzing this and we’ve sucked the mainstream beat writers in with us.

It will be interesting to see what happens when Spikes gets back on the field, but if he really had no one to blame but himself for all his off-the-field troubles last year. Hopefully he’ll get back out there and have a quiet off-the-field season and a loud on-the-field one.