Thank you to Signature Gifts for sending me one of their Football History books! I have plenty of Patriots keepsakes but this might just be one of my favorites. It’s a compilation of the Patriots’ history told through the pages of the Washington Post.
It goes all the way back to the Patriots’ first season in 1960, right up through their stunning win in Super Bowl 51. It was such a fun way to relive the trials and tribulations of the franchise, as told through the way people used to get their information — the newspaper.
It’s a wonderful compilation, filled with pictures and stories that even I had forgotten about. If you’d like to pick one up you can get all the details here. If you’re a fan of history, or especially newspapers and old time sports reporting, this would make a wonderful gift!
The Seahawks have the Legion of Boom, the secondary that defines excellence in the modern NFL. The unit helmed by Earl Thomas, Kam Chancellor and Richard Sherman instills the fear of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy on receivers on a weekly basis. The duo of safeties uses solid and technically sound acts of violence to intimidate opposing pass catchers who seek refuge over the middle of the field. It’s an impressive scheme that requires outstandingly athletic and brutal safeties and opportunistic corners to be successful. Pete Carroll has invested heavily in this unit, using almost 1/5 of his cap space on those three players. That may seem like a sustainable allocation of resources on arguably the best three players on your team, but as we saw last year they completely cratered after suffering the Earl Thomas injury because they could no longer serve their mantra “every last blade of grass” without depth at the position.
