Boston is taking its lumps. Though the Patriots and their young quarterback, Drake Maye, were in the Super Bowl, negative off-field publicity is dominating headlines. There are the issues of the Celtics and Bruins being summarily dumped early from the playoffs, and the Red Sox, well, being the post-Dave Dombrowski-firing lousy Red Sox. They ain't what they used to be about sums that up.
Now, Bleacher Report's Joey Akeley is joining the dump-on-Boston campaign and has called the city the third so-called "most down bad" sports city in the nation. That means things in the sports world aren't looking up at the moment, even though the Patriots were just in the Super Bowl.
In any event, things could be better, and Akeley is right.
But if there is a silver lining to all this bad news, it's that Boston sports teams, like their fans, have a habit of bouncing back from adversity no matter how difficult things may look. It all started about 250 years ago when a bully kingdom tried to tell Bostonians how to run their own lives. That didn't end well for that empire.
Boston is an iron clad city and so are its sports fans
In the sports world, the Bostonian thing is to fight until the end, and lots of times take home the trophy as the Patriots, Red Sox, and to a lesser extent, both the Celtics and Bruins have this century, as well. If not, the down sports teams rise again like a phoenix from the ashes and march on to the next round of championships. They don't call Boston Championship City for nothing.
Here's how Bleacher Report's Akeley summed up the current situation for Boston sports.
"The bad news for Boston fans is they've had a brutal four-month stretch. The good news is the future looks bright for most of their four teams. It all started in February when the Patriots got blasted by the Seahawks in the Super Bowl...Things got much worse over the last few weeks. That the Bruins lost their first-round playoff series to the Sabres barely even registers.
The Mike Vrabel-Dianna Russini controversy continues to get messier, the Red Sox are a mess, and the Celtics blew a 3-1 series lead to the 76ers in the first round of the playoffs...To top it off, Jayson Tatum missed Game 7 with knee soreness.
The Patriots and Celtics should be title contenders for the next few years, so perhaps Boston won't be down bad for long. But the past few months have been brutal for Boston fans."
It's difficult to argue with that analysis of the current state of affairs. The Patriots' off-field issues are national news. The collapses of the Celtics and Bruins were an embarrassment. And, the Red Sox, well, in their recent past, can't get out of their own way. They're a mess that only an ownership change is likely to remedy.
Yet as Akeley correctly pointed out, "The good news is the future looks bright for most of their four teams...and perhaps Boston won't be down bad for long." Those are the two operative points he made in the article.
No matter how bad things may appear, Boston teams and their fans are resilient. They bounce back from the worst of times and then win titles again.
The Patriots have a new superstar quarterback in MVP contender Drake Maye, and they'll be championship-competitive as long as he's around. The Celtics have a championship-caliber team if they can stay healthy.
As for the Bruins and Red Sox, blundering managements are a major concern, but the emergence of a couple of superstars out of nowhere may bring those two floundering franchises back, too. The moral of the story is: Boston may be "down, but never ever count us out.
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