MMQB let former Green Bay Packers tight end and onside kick botcher Brandon Bostick write a column about botching said kick, and that’s great. Less space devoted to fat man Peter King’s bloated ramblings and things he thinks he thinks about caramel macchiatos and the fucking Radisson in Indianapolis.
The gist of Bostick’s piece is this — I messed up and I’m sorry.
We know and good. Apology accepted.
Beyond that, Bostick also reveals that he’s gotten death threats. The Twitter kind, not the kind where Paul Kersey holds a Wildey against your temple and threatens to pull the trigger.
But hey, that stuff is par for the course. If you don’t want idiots to say nasty things about you, stay the hell off the Internet.
The one part of this column I did find interesting is when Bostick talks about getting the call. The one where he was informed he’d been released.
I was close to accepting my mistake, and learning to accept my new reality, when my phone rang on the morning of Feb. 16. I had just woken up and didn’t recognize the number. The caller said he was with the Packers organization, and immediately I understood: I was getting cut.
I was surprised. Yes, I was very surprised. I played in 13 games and had a pretty good season, but more importantly, I knew I was improving. But they said they have their guys, and that I didn’t develop as fast as they had hoped. They said the onside kick had something to do with it, but that’s all they said.
I feel as if there’s a little more to it than that. With how close we were to reaching the Super Bowl, I think a lot of people in the organization couldn’t live with me being there. I think seeing me would remind them of losing the NFC championship. I think the Packers wanted a new start, so I got one, too.
First, the fact that Bostick wasn’t able to name the person that called him tells us it wasn’t Mike McCarthy or Ted Thompson. I guess that’s why they have lackeys — to make calls like this.
Then again, there’s plenty of evidence that McCarthy and Thompson didn’t think much of Bostick to begin with. So, not all that surprising, although we have to wonder if A.J. Hawk got the same sort of impersonal call…
Second, “I played in 13 games and had a pretty good season.”
Mmmmmm… no.
Two catches for three yards is not a good season by any standard. In fact, on a team where all of the tight ends are average or below average and playing time is readily available for the taking, as is the case with the Packers, it’s a downright horrible season.
Third, and most importantly, Bostick thinks people didn’t want to see him because he would remind them of their colossal failure. There’s probably some truth to that. It’s also a probably a good idea to get rid of people who contributed to failure as great as the one we’re talking about.
That being said, the Packers aren’t cutting Aaron Rodgers, Clay Matthews, Morgan Burnett or Ha Ha Clinton-Dix and they contributed to the NFC Championship game failure in equal or greater proportions than Bostick did.
That brings us back to what we’ve been hearing about Bostick for a while now.
Unaccountable. Selfish. Doesn’t get it.
He’ll make a perfect Viking.