If this was your 2014 fantasy football draft, you’d be loving the Patriots right now. The Pats now have Jeremy Hill as a running back, and they traded for Oakland wide receiver Cordarrelle Patterson on Sunday. Patterson figures to be mainly a kick returner for the Pats as they need one with Dion Lewis and Danny Amendola elsewhere. Patterson figures to be one of the more explosive kick returners the Pats have had in some time as he has five career kick returns for TDs in his five year NFL career. He’s returned just one punt in the NFL, but showed explosiveness in the punt return game while in college at Tennessee (there are some nice kick/punt returns in the video below).
It’s tough to tell if Patterson will see much time as an actual receiver as he has just 163 catches and just seven catching touchdowns in his career. That said, there’s a big difference between catching balls from Tom Brady, and catching balls from the likes of Christian Ponder, Teddy Bridgewater, Matt Cassel, Sam Bradford and Derek Carr.
Just the tip
Former Red Sox manager John Farrell was supposed to be the pitching guru, but new Sox manager Alex Cora might have him beat in the pitch tipping category.
Cora says that Eduardo Rodriquez’s days of giving away his pitches are over. “It got to a point a few years ago where just watching from the couch, I saw the tipping,” Cora told WEEI.com. “I know that was a big deal here. We’re working on that. I guarantee that … The other stuff the whole league knows probably won’t be there anymore. Now you’ll see the ball and hit it. You won’t see the glove and hit it. It was obvious. As long as you knew the fastball was coming, you were fine. It won’t be there this year.”
Cora is coming from the champion Astros, who allegedly picked up on Yu Darvish’s pitch tipping during last year’s World Series. Cora was asked about the Darvish pitch tipping when he was hired by the Red Sox and he simply smirked.
WWE Hall of Lame
Ya know how people make fun of the Celtics for having retired like every average-to-great player’s number? Well, the WWE takes the cake in the over-the-top post-career accolades department. Here is the WWE’s Hall of Fame class for 2018: Goldberg, Mark Henry, The Dudley Boyz, Ivory, Jeff Jarrett, Hillbilly Jim and Kid Rock. I can see Goldberg … but Hillbilly Jim? Kid Rock, because WWE paid him 50K once to sing one song at a WrestleMania?
Here are some other WWE Hall of Famers – Koko B. Ware, Donald Trump (seriously, the sitting President is a WWE Hall of Famer), Mr. T, Drew Carey, Pete Rose, The Godfather, and The Bushwhackers.
Expect the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2023 to include The Repo Man, Duke “The Dumpster” Droese, Glacier, The Boogeyman, Eugene and Bastion Booger. Expect the class of 2024 to include no one as they will have run out of names.
