NFL Boston

The New England Patriots are exporting the all-American art of cheerleading to China, where 200,000 people have volunteered to learn how to cheer at the Summer Olympics.

Cheerleading is foreign to China, so very few of those 200,000 volunteers have any experience. But the Chinese wanted to institute cheerleading as part of the Games, and Patriots owner Bob Kraft is a longtime proponent of exporting American football to China, so he spearheaded the effort to send the women who work as Patriots cheerleaders to Beijing to give cheerleading lessons.

Of those 200,000 volunteer cheerleaders, Olympics organizers have chosen 400 to be part of an elite group that will put on special performances. Patriots cheerleader Carrie Binette, who is working with those 400, told the Christian Science Monitor that the Patriots cheerleaders are teaching "how to entertain a wide crowd," and that the most important things are not dancing ability but "spirit" and "poisemanship."

Says a Chinese cheerleader named He He, "Everyone knows cheerleading is a Western activity, but we hope we can find a Chinese way to do it [and] show the world."

Well, that didn't take very long. Willie Andrews, arrested for pointing a gun at the head of his fiancee over the weekend, was released by the New England Patriots today.

It didn't take Nostradamus to see this move coming. Andrews had already been arrested once this offseason, a marijuana charge, when police were summoned to his apartment on Sunday night. He faces charges of a assault with a dangerous weapon and unlawful possession of a firearm after allegedly placing the gun on his girlfriend's temple because he thought she was cheating on him.

On the great scale of NFL justice, talent is always weighed against criminal activity. Andrews's importance to the team couldn't overcome the embarrassment he's brought them over the past few months. He'll probably face disciplinary action from the NFL if another team deems him worthy of a chance but I wouldn't hold my breath for the next sighting of Andrews on a Sunday afternoon.

In semi-related news, Andrews's release adds to what's been a hellish offseason for the Boston Herald. The paper lauded Andrews for turning his life around late last month. Time for another retraction.

New England Patriots defensive back Willie Andrews has been arrested and accused of pointing a gun at his fiancee's head.

Andrews' fiancee says he pointed the gun at her after she accused him of cheating on her. She told police she was scared because he "threatened to shoot her in the past." He faces a charge of assault with a dangerous weapon.

This was the second arrest for Andrews this off-season. The day after the Super Bowl, he was arrested for marijuana possession.

Last month the Boston Herald ran a puff piece about Andrews, talking about how he had put all his problems behind him. Now he likely has put his NFL career behind him; it will be a big surprise if New England doesn't release him.

Via PFT.

Asante Samuel spent the first five seasons of his NFL career with the New England Patriots, where he won two Super Bowls and got to another.

So it was a little bit of a surprise when, after signing with the Philadelphia Eagles in March, he said, "I just want to be able to win and get back to the Super Bowl.'' After all, if his real motivation was to get back to the Super Bowl, wouldn't he have been better off staying in New England?

His former teammate, Wes Welker, thinks so.

Monday loomed as a deadline for a Jet fan to show reason why his lawsuit against Bill Belichick and the Patriots should go forward. The lawsuit had languished with no movement for nine months and the U.S. District Court in Newark said the plantiff had until June 30th to make progress or have the whole thing thrown out. Carl Mayer wrote a letter asking for more time, however, and a judge has given it to him.

Mayer claims that his co-counsel was sick and that new revelations coming to light have forced him to amend the lawsuit. He didn't specify what the revelations were but it seems that Arlen Specter's involvement in the case has sparked some litigious ideas in Mayer's head.

Mayer has not specified what other defendants or issues might be included in an amended lawsuit. But he has said the new allegations relate to the efforts of Specter, the Judiciary Committee's ranking Republican and a critic of the National Football League's response to what has been called "Spygate."

Mayer now has until August 30th to amend the lawsuit and serve notice on the defendants. The suit is seeking $184.8 million in damages under federal rackeetering and New Jersey fraud statutes. He filed the suit on behalf of all jets ticket holders because the Patriots taping of signals deceived customers who thought they were seeing an honest competition.

Carl Mayer has made a career of filing lawsuits against high-profile politicians but most of them have gone nowhere. His Spygate-related suit against Bill Belichick and the Patriots seems poised for the same fate.

Mayer, a Jets season-ticket holder, accused the coach and team of violating the contractual rights and expectations of ticket holders. He hoped to make it a class-action suit but has done nothing to advance the litigation since a failed attempt to serve the defendants in October. That's why the U.S. District Court in Newark has told him he has until June 30th to produce a reason for the suit to go forward or it will be dismissed.

Mayer vows to fight on, though, and hints that Arlen Specter's entrance into the fray has opened up new doors for his suit.

"He (Specter) uncovered additional facts regarding videotaping. We've been working to incorporate those with regard to other defendants," Mayer said. "Could we have pressed on earlier? Yeah, but tactically, we are doing what we need to be doing."

Mayer seeks damages for every ticket-holder for every game that Belichick has coached in the Meadowlands against the Jets. That amounts to $184.8 million in damages under federal racketeering and New Jersey fraud laws. Whether or not it continues past June 30th, it's hard to see the suit succeeding as anything more than a nuisance.

After ESPN's day-long coverage of Matt Walsh's Spygate revelations last month, Patriots quarterback Tom Brady criticized the Worldwide Leader for spending an inordinate amount of time on the issue -- an opinion that Brady arrived at without having watched ESPN's coverage.

But now someone who did watch that coverage is weighing in with a similar opinion to Brady's. Le Anne Schreiber, ESPN's ombudsman, writes today that the network went overboard in covering the Spygate story, and she especially singles out NFL analysts Cris Carter and Mark Schlereth:

Schlereth imagined how such tapes might affect the outcome if film was shot, edited and utilized "during the course of a game" ...

"To think that a Super Bowl might be slanted in a team's favor!" Carter fumed.

Schreiber is right that Carter and Schlereth wrongly suggested that Walsh's tapes were used during games. In reality, the tapes were used between games. But for the most part, what I've found from fans is that those who like the Patriots think ESPN and the rest of the media have been too hard on them, while those who dislike the Patriots think ESPN and the rest of the media have been too easy on them.

Patriots coach Bill Belichick made what I thought was the worst coaching decision of the Super Bowl when he decided to go for it on fourth-and-13, rather than sending in kicker Stephen Gostkowski for a 49-yard field goal attempt. The Patriots didn't convert and ended up losing by three points.

That was more than four months ago, but people in New England are still talking about it. Gostkowski was asked whether he should have gone in for that field goal, and he said this:

"I didn't think of anything. I get ready to go, and if my name is called, I go out there. If not, I go back to the sidelines. I'm not a coach. I don't know much about football. I know about kicking. When they send me out there and call my name, I try to do the best I can. Other than that, I keep my mouth shut and do my job."

Gostkowski wouldn't say whether the kick was in his range, but it was: He hit a 53-yarder in warm-ups. Belichick screwed up by not sending him in. But Gostkowski is smart not to say so.

Bridget Moynahan has kept a fairly low profile in the 16 months since we found out she was pregnant with her ex-boyfriend Tom Brady's baby.

But she granted Harper's Bazaar access to her life, and she says motherhood was tough for her at first:

"Everyone says, 'You give birth, you go home, and you have this amazing baby and it's just beautiful,'" says the 37-year-old Massachusetts-raised model turned actress. "And I walked in and I just started sobbing. ...
"I'm not sure anyone - and I could be wrong in this - grows up thinking, I want to be a single mom."

Now, however, Moynahan says she's warming up to being a single mom. And she says there won't be any magazine articles quoting her saying anything bad about Brady, who does occasionally spend time with their son, because she wouldn't want her son to read them some day: "There's no reason why my son years down the line would need to read anything [personal] about his mother or his father."

A couple of months back, the Steelers brought Kyle Brady in for an interview with an eye on bringing him in as the team's No. 3/backup blocking tight end. It seemed like a perfect fit--an inexpensive veteran with the reputation as a great blocker.

But nothing happened at the time, and according to the South Coast Today, that might be a good thing.

The paper reported that Brady's blocking did not live up to its reputation. He frequently missed assignments, and after he received flak about his mistakes, he left the team and had to be convinced to come back.

The Steelers could determine by watching film whether Brady's blocking is still good enough to help a team, but if he bailed on the team in the middle of the season, that's a black mark that is hard to erase. And with few decent tight ends left in free agency, it seems like the Steelers might end up relying on Jon Dekker (who apparently has added some solid muscle) to be the team's No. 3 tight end.

Hat Tip: Pro Football Talk