When NFL teams face off in the divisional games this weekend, it can be tempting to evaluate the matchups in a black-and-white manner. But the NFL has taught us repeatedly that the Super Bowl puzzle is nebulous and complex. With that in mind, I’m diving into the narrative-driven arguments for every remaining team to go all the way.
It is only Week 14, butreports of Urban Meyer-created dysfunction in Jacksonville and speculation about offensive-wonderkid Joe Brady’s next destination has already begun to fuel the 2022 NFL coaching carousel. While teams will likely have household names such as Eric Bieniemy, Brian Daboll and Todd Bowles at the top of their lists, I am going to dive into some of the underrated head coaching candidates and their best fits around the NFL.
For my last column, we’ll talk about the station nearest and (questionably) dearest to all of us: Davis Square. Today, it’s the most convenient place to catch a train to downtown (at least before the GLX opens in 2050). But before there was the Red Line, you could catch other trains at Davis: luxury sleeper trains, mile-long freight trains and even Green Line trains. Let’s talk about these long gone trains of Davis Square.
As New England Patriots fans, we truly do not recognize the magnitude of greatness that this franchise has sustained over the past two decades. Since 2000, the team has been to nine Super Bowls and has won six Lombardi Trophies; they've missed the playoffs only four times in that span and have produced some of the greatest seasons in NFL history. Even with Tom Brady's upsetting departure from the Patriots to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the former team strategically retained most of its core and treated the 2020 season as a re-tooling year to develop a few young prospects. After drafting quarterback Mac Jones 15th overall in the 2021 NFL Draft, Bill Belichick slowly developed a talented and experienced depth chart. Free agent additions Matthew Judon and Hunter Henry excelled in the offseason and only offered more promise for this revamped Patriots team. Now, with four games remaining in the season, the Patriots lead the AFC East at 9–4 and hold the AFC's first overall seed.
Winter is not just coming, winter is here — well, in its own fluctuating, New England, under global warming and pre-solstice sort of way. The roads are salted, the wind tunnels are biting and my corduroy Uniqlo jacket is decreasing in utility, no matter how many long sleeves I layer underneath.
The Phoenix Suns always seem to be a fun, exciting team to watch, year in and year out. From Steve Nash and Amar’e Stoudemire to Chris Paul and Devin Booker, their superstars engineer a brand of high scoring basketball that makes them a favorite of fans around the league.
The Premier League is about a third of the way finished, and about six managers have been fired, with the last one being Manchester United’s club legend, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. His team was underperforming, and the argument for his sacking is convincing — Solskjaer won only three out of his last ten games in all competitions. Moreover, Manchester United lost abysmally to its rivals Liverpool and Manchester City. Both games also echoed a discouraging view of the future as both Liverpool and City outplayed and tactically asserted their dominance over Solskjaer’s team. Although it is difficult to defend a manager with such a record, the sacking is frustrating since Manchester United appeared to have finally gained a stable leadership and an attacking playing style.
I just read an article in GQ in which Lil Uzi Vert talked about his newest alter ego, “AstroCat.” I know Uzi has adopted several egos in the past, and I thought it would be interesting to do a quick enumeration of some of my favorite celebrity alternate personalities.
I found myself in the company of an old friend this past Sunday. After he transferred from my high school during his first year, I’d really only seen him grow up via Instagram, and now, here we were: two fully formed handsome humans armed with the recollections of 15-year-olds. This felt like it should’ve been stranger than it actually was. Once we stopped trying to map out every year since then, all that was left was now and next.
Minutes before the MLB owners and MLPA issued a lockout of the 2021 offseason over the expired Collective Bargaining Agreement, the Red Sox orchestrated a trade that received a questionable response from the fan base. Hunter Renfroe, one of the bigger offensive contributors for the team in 2021, is now a Milwaukee Brewer; in compensation, the Red Sox receive Jackie Bradley Jr. (JBJ), a fan favorite in Boston, and two young prospects. Without examining the fine lines of the deal, this seems like a lopsided trade for the Red Sox. In 2021, Renfroe was a 2.3 WAR player with 31 home runs and 96 RBIs; JBJ could barely hit his weight in 2021 with a .163 AVG and -0.7 WAR. Although JBJ does provide a massive defensive value to a team's outfield, Renfroe was an average defender with a cannon of an arm; he had 16 defensive assists which led all MLB right fielders. By simply looking at statistics, the Red Sox gain nothing from this head-scratching trade.
It’s Week 14 and for the final time this year, let’s look at who’s Hot and Cold:
Nobody thinks of an American labor union and pictures multimillionaires fighting against a multibillion-dollar corporation. Nor does anyone usually assume that the union holds the upper hand in negotiations. Major League Baseball’s latest dramatic implosion, however, checks both boxes.
Christina Tung created the brand SVNR to sell ethically-made pieces of jewelry that each have their own unique stories. Before founding SVNR in 2018 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, Tung worked at her PR showroom, House Of. Tung is described as having an “eclectic, globally-influenced style,” which carries through to each handmade jewelry piece and their wide variety of materials.
It seems, fellow potty talkers, that our semester together must now draw to a close, and with it, our exploration of the annals of Tufts’ historied restrooms. Much like the conclusion of any good mid-lecture bathroom break, we meet this moment with a mixture of melancholy and relief.
In my last column, I talked about the Silver Line, the black sheep of the T. To recap: The Silver Line was designed as Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) — buses providing subway-like service using several key design features, including high-capacity stations and dedicated lanes. What we got instead was a haphazard cocktail of overpriced construction, slow speeds and broken promises, an embarrassment of a BRT system. But that would change in 2018, when the SL3 line opened.
Over the pasteight columns, I’ve pondered many memorable shows, exploring what works and what doesn’t, which characters are interesting and which aren’t and why I — or you — should even care. Reflecting back, I’ve identified key criteria for evaluating what makes a show both subjectively and objectively ‘good,’ in no particular order:
Sophia Grekin (SG): "Can you tell me about something you've overcome?"
When I was a first-year, I wasn’t comfortable eating alone in dining halls. It terrified me. I didn’t want to be seen overloading my plate, or appear lonely and friend-less. Often, I just didn’t eat because of it. I kept crackers and granola bars in my room to satiate myself, or planned meals days in advance to ensure I wouldn’t be alone. Thankfully, I grew out of this — slowly. I still avoid dining halls, but only because I no longer want to be in a place where I don’t enjoy food as much. Hence, the restaurant column.
At a certain point in a team's successful run, the discussion of the "championship window closing" becomes a hotbed topic; for the Boston Bruins, it's all they've been hearing since 2019. Although they've been to two Stanley Cup finals since their win in 2011, the Bruins continue to fall short of expectations in the most frustrating of fashions. Take for example the recent playoff series loss to the New York Islanders; even though the Islanders took the Tampa Bay Lightning to the brink in the Eastern Conference Finals, they weren't the better team in the Bruins series. In each loss, the Bruins committed frustrating mistakes that ultimately led to their demise — bad turnovers, horrific shot attempts and undisciplined hockey, just to name a few.
Rest peacefully, Virgil Abloh. I was never his greatest fan, but I certainly could not ignore the impact he had on both hip hop and fashion. Founding Off-White (originally called “PYREX VISION”) and eventually joining Louis Vuitton as its men's artistic director, Abloh was a pure creative — he was an artist as much as a designer. In fact, Abloh designed over a dozen album covers in his career. He was someone whose talents were not confined to one genre. No matter what medium, Abloh was always for the culture.
