Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
EPSIODE 32 - THE STATE OF BOSTON SPORTS, MEDIA AND THE PATRIOTS WITH JERRY THORNTON!!
218 Plays2 days ago
ENJOY!
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Jerry Thornton's Background
00:00:00
Jerry Thornton
Thank you.
00:00:00
Savage Boston
All right. Welcome back to the Savage Boston podcast, guys. Thanks for tuning in. We got a very special guest here tonight. A friend of the pod from Barstool Sports. Jerry Thornton is here. Thanks for coming on, Jerry. How you doing?
00:00:13
Jerry Thornton
ah Fellas, thanks very much for having me on. I'm a fan of all your work and you've had friends of mine on. and yeah You have my pal Fitzy on and you know you guys you guys are crushing it. So thanks very much for letting me do what I'm best at, which is just being super available because I'm not really busy and no one really needs me. so But yeah, it's it's it's a pleasure to join you, Katz.
00:00:37
Savage Boston
Well, thanks for coming on, man. um
Evolution of Barstool Sports
00:00:39
Savage Boston
I would say this. um I guess my first first question where I want to touch on is like, how long have you been writing with with Barstool?
00:00:45
Jerry Thornton
From the beginning. um Yeah, it it we we recently had.
00:00:47
Savage Boston
That's what I thought.
00:00:49
Bret
yeah
00:00:52
Jerry Thornton
so this is the summer before last had the 20th anniversary, which was at um ah House of Blues on Lansdowne Street. And that's when I realized i had been there just about 20 years.
00:01:04
Jerry Thornton
When it started, i just i i don't even know how.
00:01:05
Savage Boston
Wow.
00:01:09
Jerry Thornton
It was some kind of weird serendipity, a guardian angel or whatever. Had this ad pop up as I was just screwing around one night. And it was this site that was looking for sports writers.
00:01:19
Jerry Thornton
And I was doing comedy, and I i i'm still am, and did some sports stuff. And that got people to ask me to like write for different websites that they were doing.
00:01:28
Bret
with.
00:01:30
Jerry Thornton
And so I contacted this guy named Dave Portnoy and he said, you're looking for writers. And he said, sure, send me a sample. And I did. And he came back. He said, okay, you're hired. It doesn't pay anything.
00:01:42
Jerry Thornton
Okay.
00:01:42
Savage Boston
yeah
00:01:42
Jerry Thornton
And oh ok and um It was just a free newspaper that he had in some like you know boxes downtown by like you know Park Street Station or whatever or in bars.
00:01:53
Savage Boston
yeah
00:01:56
Jerry Thornton
And it was months before yeah i got my hands on an actual copy. And i I read him and the other two guys he had. So... Old stoolies will remember the names Chisholm and Manzo.
00:02:11
Jerry Thornton
And I would read their stuff and go like, but like, holy smokes, these guys are good. Like, I've really got to up my game. And it was really just the four of us for the longest time.
00:02:20
Savage Boston
wow
00:02:21
Jerry Thornton
And, you know, you you hear old stories about the Beatles and like, McCartney would hear something that Lennon recorded and go, okay, that's it. Challenge accepted. I've got to be better than this. And that's kind of how I felt.
00:02:35
Jerry Thornton
And then I finally got, I don't know, I badgered is the wrong word, but strongly encouraged by Portnoy to come to one of the events that they were having. I'm like, you sure? Because I'm, I'm a grown man with like kids and like little league and whatever.
00:02:49
Savage Boston
ah
00:02:52
Jerry Thornton
i don't want to be that weird guy in the, you know, the pleated khakis and the members only jacket with my phone outside my pants, you know, like just what's, what's that old weirdo doing here.
00:03:03
Jerry Thornton
And he encouraged me to, and I met those guys and they were terrific. And by that point there was a community of people around Boston. It was a whole like kind of social circle centered around this goofy little,
00:03:15
Jerry Thornton
bi-monthly newspaper that we, is it bi-weekly or bi-monthly? What's twice um a month? I could never figure that out.
Barstool's Unique Strategy
00:03:23
Savage Boston
ah
00:03:23
Jerry Thornton
Is it?
00:03:24
Savage Boston
yeah bi-monthly sure sounds good
00:03:26
Jerry Thornton
Sure. not Non-binary ah newspaper that we had.
00:03:28
Bret
Thank
00:03:29
Savage Boston
but
00:03:31
Jerry Thornton
And um yeah, I made friends with them. Some of them still friends today. Eventually, we went to a daily blog. The legendary Uncle Buck joined us, and he is still a great friend. And i actually performed his wedding ceremony in the parking lot at Gillette a couple of years ago. We were on yeah ESPN for that.
00:03:52
Jerry Thornton
And he brought an element that had never been tried before in media, where he added um sex to the site.
00:03:52
Savage Boston
that's great
00:04:00
Savage Boston
He did. Well,
00:04:01
Jerry Thornton
And strangely, that made it take off. That apparently is really good for business. It's just pictures of celebrity chicks.
00:04:06
Bret
No.
00:04:07
Jerry Thornton
And, you know, and then we started doing pictures of local women who wanted to be on the site.
00:04:08
Savage Boston
but
00:04:12
Jerry Thornton
And i never in a million years thought I'd still be doing this in 2025.
00:04:14
Bret
no
00:04:18
Jerry Thornton
And it's my only occupation.
00:04:20
Savage Boston
Yeah. So, um, I mean, to touch on that, which it's super interesting. So like I've followed Barstool and I'm not, I'm not like ah crazy Barstool Homer guy, but I have followed Barstool for like for 20 years. I mean, I was in at Northeastern in 20, 2005.
00:04:34
Savage Boston
two thousand and five Um, cause we're in our late thirties. Right. So I'm at Northeastern in 2005. And I remember seeing, you know, you, people had physical copies at one point or another. Again, it was like probably a little over 20 years ago around that time. And then when the website launched, they used to have like was like girl of the week or something like that?
00:04:52
Savage Boston
Um, something, I forget forgot what they called it.
00:04:53
Jerry Thornton
ah Smoke, then it's like smoke show of the day became a thing.
00:04:54
Savage Boston
What did they call it? Jerry? Do you remember?
00:04:57
Jerry Thornton
um That was kind of Portnoy's brainchild about...
00:04:59
Savage Boston
It was like, was like girl of the week or something like that. ah
00:05:02
Snooty
Smoke show the week.
00:05:03
Savage Boston
Yeah, was that it? Smoke Show the Week?
00:05:04
Bret
Thank you.
00:05:05
Savage Boston
um And so, yeah, so um I remember doing that. And then, like, Portnoy actually came to my campus at Northeastern. um And, yeah, he came to the campus, and he basically was like – they had a whole ruckus on campus.
00:05:20
Savage Boston
And he was outside one of my freshman dorms, and it was it was crazy.
00:05:20
Jerry Thornton
Yeah.
00:05:24
Savage Boston
um Jerry, did do your audio cut out?
00:05:26
Jerry Thornton
Yeah. Yeah.
00:05:27
Savage Boston
Are you – Oh, good.
00:05:27
Jerry Thornton
You know, it, it, it did. And I, I don't know what, yeah, ah there's an element of this to like Homer Simpson going, Oh, the internet is on computers now.
00:05:29
Savage Boston
Glad you're back.
00:05:35
Jerry Thornton
ah But I swear I'm not touching a thing. um Yeah. When we started, you know, our target audience was really, guys in their 30s who worked in cubicles and were underpaid and overworked. And we just thought, okay, there's there's our mission. Let's make these guys laugh a little bit, you know, a few times a day.
00:05:57
Jerry Thornton
And then after a while, you know, I had a buddy whose son was going to UMass and said he would sit in one of those like amphitheater classrooms during a lecture and three quarters of the laptops it would be open to barstool.
00:06:13
Jerry Thornton
And eventually it kind of filtered down into the high school demo, which was, you know, weird for for sure.
00:06:13
Savage Boston
Mm-hmm.
00:06:20
Jerry Thornton
But um the fact that, you know, Dave and to some small extent, me and the other guys kind of got a lock on – That younger crowd who, and I think a lot of this was the rise of Boston sports.
00:06:37
Jerry Thornton
Like, you know, that from the early days, the Patriots had won a couple of championships and then the 2004 Red Sox broke in.
00:06:37
Savage Boston
no
00:06:44
Jerry Thornton
And then if you listen to sports radio or if you read the Herald of the Globe, but you know, you read Dan Shaughnessy or whatever. It was all just the same 90s negativity playbook.
00:06:57
Jerry Thornton
And we were the ones going, look, we're fans. We don't have an agenda. we don't we just you know We just hate the New York teams and we love our teams and we it sucks when they lose and we love it when they win.
00:07:01
Savage Boston
Yeah.
00:07:07
Jerry Thornton
and And I think that really resonated with people who were sick of media people that have like axes to grind or somebody else that they're going to carry water for or whatever.
00:07:18
Jerry Thornton
I think we were just... genuine in a world that was increasingly not genuine. And I think that's a large part of why we're still, you know, crushing it and 25 later.
Media Controversies and Barstool's Resilience
00:07:31
Savage Boston
I mean, he obviously, Portnoy had clearly had a vision, which is, you know, I mean, you can look back hindsight 2020 and be like, wow, what a, you know, really, what a tremendous, what a tremendous run he had.
00:07:41
Savage Boston
I mean, a 20 year run and a vision for his company. So obviously, you know, I commend what he's done.
00:07:47
Bret
Thank you.
00:07:47
Savage Boston
um He had his own hiccup hiccups on the way, but part of that even attracted more people to him. it was kind of the infancy of the internet in some way as well. Just, just driving this kind of like the beginning of outrage culture, right?
00:07:59
Savage Boston
They they got more ah more clicks, more drive, because nobody knew yet that outrage drove clicks.
00:07:59
Jerry Thornton
Thank you.
00:08:06
Savage Boston
It was kind of like they knew a little with the news, and and the news was like outrage porn at the time, but you had to tune in at six o'clock. you know And this was just like, people were getting pissed all the time, which would drive more men to click on it. So it ended up being just an awesome business for Dave, and you know congrats to him, clearly really successful.
00:08:23
Savage Boston
ah
00:08:24
Jerry Thornton
Sure, and ah and a masterclass, I think, on how to handle it when people are coming for you.
00:08:28
Savage Boston
Yeah.
00:08:29
Jerry Thornton
And they're trying to shut you down. And I mean, like you said, cancel culture before cancel culture was a thing where there were groups that formed specifically –
00:08:30
Savage Boston
Yeah.
00:08:32
Bret
Thank you.
00:08:35
Savage Boston
Yeah.
00:08:39
Jerry Thornton
to get him to stop publishing like for existed for no other reason. There was one called K.O. Barstool that whatever.
00:08:46
Savage Boston
yeah
00:08:46
Jerry Thornton
And they would do like some of the most disingenuous crap you could do, like go to the comments section and look for the most vile, offensive stuff and go, this is what Barstool publishes.
00:08:58
Jerry Thornton
Well, you know what? You could do the same thing on. The Globe website, you could look at comments. Anyone can comment, you know, and and he never apologized, never backed down, didn't change the content.
00:09:12
Jerry Thornton
You know, I apologized when it was legitimate reason to apologize, which was rare.
00:09:13
Bret
Thank
00:09:17
Jerry Thornton
But just don't, you know, bend the knee to the mob. Don't sit there and capitulate and just be what, again, we don't see a lot of, which is authentic.
00:09:28
Jerry Thornton
you know We weren't out to hurt anyone that didn't try to hurt us first.
00:09:28
Savage Boston
yeah
00:09:32
Jerry Thornton
We just wanted to make people laugh. And that is, well, there's been some tweaks and changes along the way. That's been why it's now a half a million dollar business so um or more, whatever it is making.
00:09:45
Savage Boston
Yeah, a lot. It's a lot.
00:09:46
Jerry Thornton
Yeah.
00:09:46
Savage Boston
It's a many, many millions of dollars.
00:09:47
Jerry Thornton
Yeah. and
00:09:48
Savage Boston
Yeah.
00:09:48
Jerry Thornton
Yeah. And he, he took chances. Like passed up other opportunities and was broke for a while.
00:09:51
Savage Boston
yeah
00:09:54
Jerry Thornton
Believe me, when, when I finally went to him about like, maybe I could get like some money on the side here. And he started paying me. It was like, great. You know, he says, yeah, yeah, that's true. And then like, I'm telling the tales out of school here, but like my second quarter check wouldn't arrive until the end of the third quarter of say, Dave wasn't doing well at the track.
00:10:17
Savage Boston
Oh. Yeah.
00:10:18
Jerry Thornton
like you know
00:10:18
Bret
Yeah.
00:10:19
Savage Boston
yeah
00:10:19
Jerry Thornton
ah If he lost some money on March Madness, he'd be like, okay, well, i'll I'll wait. But then sometimes he gave me money that I wasn't asking for, like zero beefs. And when I went, I springboarded that into leaving my full-time job.
00:10:36
Jerry Thornton
working for the state of Massachusetts where I had like a pension waiting for me and the and the whole, like no one ever leaves those jobs.
00:10:40
Savage Boston
oh
00:10:43
Savage Boston
yeah
00:10:43
Jerry Thornton
And um I, WEI offered me like a ah full-time gig on their afternoon drive time show. And I took it in. We know when the two years was up and they offered me another deal, i reached back out to Dave and our negotiation lasted maybe 45 seconds.
00:11:01
Jerry Thornton
He's like, well, you want to come back and do the stuff you're doing before? Yep. But full time. Yep. He goes, okay, it's it. what What would it, what would it take? And I named a price. He said, cool. Now that was it. And everybody should have a boss like that.
00:11:11
Savage Boston
Yeah.
00:11:14
Jerry Thornton
Everyone you care about in your life. should work for someone who just says, i i appreciate you and, you know, I'll be loyal to you and I'm loyal to him. And yeah, I wish that for everyone in this world that I have any sort of affection for.
00:11:31
Savage Boston
That's great. mean, obviously, we've all probably had our share of bad bosses throughout the time. It's great if you can find a good one. um You know, and i so shifting gears a smidge, I wanted to ask, um you know, obviously, we followed, we all did.
00:11:41
Jerry Thornton
Sure.
00:11:44
Savage Boston
We followed Belichick's whole career, right? You know, we followed him every game. we asked Us two, I watched every single Patriots game Belichick coached.
00:11:50
Jerry Thornton
Yeah.
00:11:53
Savage Boston
um and And now, you know, this is like the hot topic, right? And like some people, for some reason, the Belichick and Jordan Hudson stuff has turned into me to be like the third rail.
00:11:57
Jerry Thornton
and
00:12:02
Savage Boston
Like if i'm if I'm tweeting something about Belichick, not even trying to be like sensational, just like a news thing that like, you know, she's worth not, she has a $9 million dollars real estate portfolio.
00:12:11
Jerry Thornton
its yeah
00:12:12
Savage Boston
People get crazy angry. I mean, crazy. it's like It's like you somehow hated him as a coach now.
Bill Belichick's Legacy and Media Relations
00:12:19
Savage Boston
And you know what I want to get your take on is how do you feel about what is Bill doing to his legacy?
00:12:19
Bret
Thank you.
00:12:26
Savage Boston
And just in general, what is Bill doing with this Jordan Hudson situation?
00:12:31
Jerry Thornton
Well, there are a few topics that I can be less objective about because Belichick, I have a card in my wallet that says I'm an organ donor, but only if Bill Belichick needs it.
00:12:43
Jerry Thornton
Like, I mean, clearly you can't do anything with my liver. I've damaged that beyond control. But if he needs heart or anything, he can have mine. He needs it more than me.
00:12:55
Jerry Thornton
A real quick story. The first time i was ever full time on the air at EEI, we were broadcasting from Gillette. This was November 2014. fourteen And they filled my head full of all these things like, don't say this to him.
00:13:12
Jerry Thornton
Don't try to be too funny.
00:13:13
Savage Boston
Well, now,
00:13:14
Jerry Thornton
Don't try to be too serious. Don't try to show how much you know. Like, oh, thank you for this tiny window that you can let ask me to squeeze through. And he walked in while we're on the air.
00:13:25
Jerry Thornton
And gets the intro and he goes to my co-host, says, Dale, good to see you. Michael, good to see you. And Jerry, it's an honor to finally meet you. As God is my witness, that's what he said.
00:13:36
Jerry Thornton
i was like ah I was like a little kid meeting the mall Santa. Like I was i was wet myself.
00:13:40
Savage Boston
ah
00:13:40
Jerry Thornton
I cried. ah giggled uncontrollably. It was it was it was awful. So, i'm yeah, I'm beholden to him. um As far as this thing goes, and in the light of that, about me not being objective, let me just say this.
00:13:54
Jerry Thornton
I'm a hopeless romantic and I love their love story. I just think it's, it's like, it's like something out of a rom-com, right?
00:14:00
Savage Boston
Beautiful. Very
00:14:02
Jerry Thornton
It's like a meet cute, you know, it's, it it's like meeting Natalie Portman and that one where she's like the manic pixie dream girl, like,
00:14:04
Savage Boston
very much.
00:14:11
Jerry Thornton
They're on a plane and he chats her up. She's reading detective logic. And wow, I love, I love philosophy too. Really? You know what else I love? Special teams. I love special teams. Tell me stories about Ted March or Broda.
00:14:22
Jerry Thornton
And I think it's, just they're so opposite and yet they're so perfect for each other. um Yeah. Now having said that, by the way, every woman in my life hates when I go on this rant.
00:14:35
Jerry Thornton
uhu ah What's he, what's he doing to his legacy? Look, I, I, I respect that he doesn't care what people think. And I kind of think he's trying to work that side of the street.
00:14:50
Jerry Thornton
But when she did that thing on the CBS show, you know, she's going, we're not talking about this.
00:14:55
Savage Boston
Yeah.
00:14:59
Jerry Thornton
ah look, darling, I know you're well-intentioned, right? You want to stick up for your man. He's the greatest that's ever been in the world at deflecting from controversies, right? He doesn't need the help.
00:15:11
Jerry Thornton
Just stand back and let your man do his thing, right? like How many controversies, and this of all his geniuses, Putting up the deflector shields and taking the air out of the room when people are coming at him has been his absolute superpower.
00:15:28
Jerry Thornton
I mean, from Deflategate to Spygate 2.0 or whatever.
00:15:33
Bret
Yeah, yeah.
00:15:35
Jerry Thornton
Do you remember when Tim Tebow was with the Pats in like 2012?
00:15:39
Savage Boston
In all the media attention.
00:15:40
Bret
yeah yeah
00:15:40
Snooty
Mm-hmm.
00:15:41
Jerry Thornton
Right. That first day I was there and there were at camp, was easily two dozen satellite trucks. Right. And the first question was from this guy who wanted to establish his bona fides as like a solid newsman.
00:15:54
Jerry Thornton
Like, Bill, I'm from W-whatever in New Hampshire. um I'm Joe Forehead, and I've been covering presidential politics. Well, I want to ask you about Tim Tebow.
00:16:06
Bret
Cheers.
00:16:06
Jerry Thornton
And he just said...
00:16:09
Jerry Thornton
Everyone who's here here is here to help the team. Well, what about Tebow? I'm not talking about any one player. We're all here. The next day, two trucks in the parking lot. They all just said, we can't defeat this guy. We get his his defenses are impregnable.
00:16:24
Jerry Thornton
So, yeah, bad look for her to, like, chime in there. but And the whole thing is. Peculiar. ill I'll say that. It gets it gets weirder, but I just see a guy just doesn't care, you know?
00:16:38
Savage Boston
Mm-hmm.
00:16:39
Snooty
especially in
00:16:39
Jerry Thornton
And it
00:16:39
Bret
Jerry, I got to say, i love the defend the wall at all costs when it comes to Belichick. You've been a card-carrying member of that since the beginning of time with Belichick. So I got to respect the commitment there. But to me, I just look at it and i get the fact of like, hey, he's an old guy and let him do what he wants to do and you know if it works for him. But The biggest thing that i have an issue with is just that control factor like you just touched upon that came on the CBS interview. And then we get the reports about ah you know her involvement with Hard Knocks and what she was asking to do with the executive producer level.
00:17:18
Bret
And then you know what she's doing with the UNC emails. I mean – to To me, i think the biggest problem is really just like her involvement and a guy that usually has control over everything and he's just kind of deferring it to her.
00:17:23
Snooty
Thank
00:17:31
Bret
And that's just so unlike Belichick.
00:17:33
Jerry Thornton
Oh, yeah. and so Sure. Because what has always been his like prime directive, right, to throw out a Star Trek reference, it's always ignore the noise, you know no distractions, focus on the task at hand.
00:17:47
Jerry Thornton
Well, it's kind of a distraction going on here. You know, like the same day we find out about the real estate portfolio. And as a, I will say, as a fellow graduate of Bridgewater State University, I don't mean to lord that over people.
00:18:02
Jerry Thornton
I know it's you know,
00:18:02
Savage Boston
yeah
00:18:03
Jerry Thornton
Sounds so braggy. Like all those all those Ivy Leaguers are going, wow. OK, look at what I'm going to do. But um when I was 24.
00:18:12
Jerry Thornton
I had a degree from Bridgewater. I was living with my mom. I was working in a kitchen and I think I was driving a Plymouth Duster.
00:18:20
Bret
Thank
00:18:20
Jerry Thornton
She's got nine million dollars in real estate that she acquired since they started dating.
00:18:23
Savage Boston
and say,
00:18:26
Jerry Thornton
I think that's pretty, pretty impressive. Um, but yeah, it's, it just goes to show no matter how accomplished you are in this world, no matter how celebrated you are, you could be the best in your profession.
00:18:41
Jerry Thornton
Some attractive woman comes along and says, I'm going to take you to the summit of bone mountain and you'll throw it all away. It's, it's happened time and time and time again.
00:18:51
Bret
Yeah.
00:18:54
Jerry Thornton
And it doesn't take long to set fire to your reputation. How about her mom owning the, uh,
00:18:59
Savage Boston
The sex toy shop.
00:19:00
Jerry Thornton
Sex toy shop and museum in Provincetown.
00:19:02
Savage Boston
That's unbelievable.
00:19:05
Jerry Thornton
Oh, and Savage, I know that you posted the video of her down on the field at North Carolina when she was doing pattern practices.
00:19:12
Savage Boston
I did. Yeah, yeah.
00:19:14
Jerry Thornton
Yeah, that was.
00:19:14
Bret
yeah
00:19:15
Savage Boston
Yeah, people get really fired. i mean, again, people get so fired up, man. like It's like i'm I've kicked their dog in the face. like It's unbelievable how angry people get. like I have the gall of like showing her on the field.
00:19:25
Snooty
Thank
00:19:26
Savage Boston
To me, I was like, why is she marching around the field? like It felt like an obvious juxtaposition, like a weird situation. like Why is she out there?
00:19:34
Jerry Thornton
With the knee-high boots and the the knee-high boots and the long coat, like a like ah duster.
00:19:34
Savage Boston
And everyone's like, this is normal, man.
00:19:38
Savage Boston
yeah
00:19:42
Jerry Thornton
Like she's playing like a, I don't know, a rhinestone-ed up version of one of the guys from Tombstone.
00:19:42
Bret
Thank you.
00:19:48
Jerry Thornton
Like, I don't, okay, i don't I don't get it. But at the end of the day, he's saying, all right, let's let's go back to the pit.
00:19:57
Savage Boston
I just found it hard to believe that like this dude, again, that could be like this godfather figure, like mastermind can quite literally just being like led around by his dick. And it literally like to me, like I just, I just, I'm like, how did he let the, I mean, it's his life, dude. He can do what he wants.
00:20:13
Savage Boston
Honestly, he could do what he wants. It's his life. I don't, you know, i just find the whole thing weird.
00:20:18
Jerry Thornton
every right yeah Every one of us has had that friend who like, you just want to say like, ah dude, like, how do I find a way to say this woman's not right for you?
00:20:18
Savage Boston
That's it.
00:20:18
Snooty
I...
00:20:19
Savage Boston
It's weird.
00:20:30
Jerry Thornton
Like, this is not going to work out.
00:20:30
Savage Boston
Yeah.
00:20:32
Jerry Thornton
I've had a... a handful of divorced friends who I was at their wedding and found myself just going, yeah, I don't know that this is such a good idea, but he didn't ask me. And you know what? We're like, you you'll look for the little hints like, oh, you can't call him by his nickname anymore.
00:20:49
Jerry Thornton
You to call him by his real name, you know?
00:20:51
Savage Boston
Yeah.
00:20:52
Jerry Thornton
Oh, sorry guys. No, we're going ah yeah yeah oh to Western mass, you know, for the weekend we're going in T king or something like that. And like, I think if you're close to Belichick, if you're one of his friends, you kind of want to say that, but it's just, it's hard.
00:21:11
Jerry Thornton
It's just really hard. Ernie Adams is probably trying to figure out a way to incorporate pink stripes into a conversation about how you're way too hung up on this chick.
00:21:23
Snooty
and I think the most damning part is like, so basically she's supposed to be his Burj, right? And so that's why like her being on the field, I mean, albeit in the custom UNC jacket, but like her on the field isn't wild to me.
00:21:37
Snooty
It's just the fact that she's even in that position. Like he was so prepared for so long and surrounded himself with, you know, people that were were at least qualified, you Patricia's offense coordinator excluded. and Like the fact that he's gone this far is just so damning. I,
00:21:53
Snooty
I don't think it will ultimately impact his legacy as much as people think, because I think ultimately you're just still going to think of the winning around here. um Unless he you know goes 0-12 or whatever for two seasons in North Carolina.
00:22:05
Jerry Thornton
you.
00:22:06
Snooty
But you know I don't think it's going to impact his legacy as much as we think right now. It's just because we're living in the moment right now.
00:22:14
Jerry Thornton
Yeah, it could be if next year the transfer portal is just like log jammed with people leaving his program. Maybe that's a another thing. I don't know. Like like when he took the job, it seemed weird to me at first. Like, okay, I didn't think this is what he was going to do. But then – You see, okay, he's still, and this is what I've always said about him, he's that guy who just wants to be a football coach, right? He's never been, like, angling to get a job, to sit at the, you know, the desk with grab ass and with, you know, Boomer and JD or whatever. Like, he just wants to be that guy on his knee,
00:22:54
Jerry Thornton
in front of his defensive line in the middle of a game or walking around to practice, swinging a whistle, just working on some little minutiae whatever. And he gets a chance to do that. But then she's running onto the field to stuff his microphone wire into a pocket of his sweatpants.
00:23:10
Savage Boston
Dressed like Ric Flair.
00:23:11
Jerry Thornton
And it's just a, it's just a peculiar ah
00:23:14
Savage Boston
It's
00:23:15
Jerry Thornton
but that oh That's but that's absolutely perfect nature, nature girl.
00:23:17
Savage Boston
like, woo!
00:23:22
Savage Boston
Yeah, they need to go.
00:23:22
Jerry Thornton
um
00:23:23
Jerry Thornton
ah yeah i I can say this, maybe on some level it's helping his book sales because Sunday he got a big write up and of all places, the Times of London.
00:23:36
Jerry Thornton
where that country is so backwards, they think of football as round.
00:23:36
Savage Boston
Jeez.
00:23:40
Jerry Thornton
They don't know that it's a prolate spheroid. They don't understand our game. they The London games barely make a blip on their radar or whatever. And they're doing this huge profile of Bill Belichick. So maybe that's somehow going to...
00:23:54
Savage Boston
Yeah.
00:23:55
Jerry Thornton
help is book sales.
00:23:55
Savage Boston
like
00:23:57
Jerry Thornton
ah You know, there's no such thing as bad publicity, I guess, but I don't, I don't know that I'm gonna, I'm gonna read this thing.
00:24:06
Savage Boston
Yeah.
00:24:06
Jerry Thornton
Yeah.
00:24:07
Savage Boston
He certainly found a way to make, you know, international headlines, maybe for the wrong reason. But I want to, so I want, we touched on this right before we came on. I wanted to ask you like, because you're on EEI for a couple of your years there, like how do you feel about kind of the state of where the Boston media landscape is and far as as far as I guess ah radio coverages, you know, um because we talked about, you Felger and Maz have been King for, i don't know how long now, 10 years, like where they, like they haven't even had competition.
00:24:34
Savage Boston
Yeah.
00:24:35
Jerry Thornton
Yeah. ah more More money, like longer than that. because
00:24:38
Savage Boston
Yeah, I mean, they have just ran with this, right? Like for years. And like, even though people are obviously tired of like a consistent negative slant, and it it was like endearing when the Patriots just won every year anyway.
00:24:50
Savage Boston
And we'd laugh and like, oh, I guess they were wrong again, right? Because the Patriots would just win every year. And then now that, you know, the Patriots haven't been good and they're negative, it's like people are, I think, tiring on part of the shtick.
00:25:03
Savage Boston
um Whereas, you know, i'm I'm hopeful for, again, front of the friend of the pod, Fitzy, great guy. Like, I'm hopeful for him. And I think they're doing a ah good job there. And I hope they're ah you know they they retain those roles at EEI in the afternoon.
00:25:17
Savage Boston
um You know, like, how how do you feel about the Boston media landscape?
00:25:22
Jerry Thornton
Yeah, one thing that you'll hear from people in the media, and Felger, to his credit, has said this too, is you don't want to be a one newspaper town. You don't want to be a one sports radio town.
00:25:32
Savage Boston
Yeah.
00:25:34
Jerry Thornton
And and I think he's sincere when hes he says this. i I want them to do well. It's good.
00:25:39
Savage Boston
Wants competition, yeah.
00:25:39
Jerry Thornton
It's competition. Yeah, exactly. So my show was on opposite his for two years. So let's you get paid bonuses in radio and quarterly.
00:25:51
Jerry Thornton
And for eight quarters I was there, I got a second place bonus every time. it was It was great. There were times we got close to them but just could never crack through because they're they're the death star and all of the radio is Alderaan.
00:26:04
Jerry Thornton
And for the longest time, like EEI just laid down and made bad decisions and stuff.
00:26:04
Savage Boston
Yeah.
00:26:09
Jerry Thornton
And I'm i'm thrilled. Fitzy is not just a guy that I like to work with, do comedy with. He's a great friend. And I'm happy that that show has reversed the trend because you guys who are on the Twittersphere know as well as I do.
00:26:22
Savage Boston
yeah
00:26:23
Jerry Thornton
One of the most popular topics on Boston Twitter is WEI's ratings. When they will come out and it's not good, there's celebrations all across the place. that that's It's hard to reverse ratings.
00:26:37
Jerry Thornton
your brand when that's what the
Boston Sports Media Dynamics
00:26:40
Jerry Thornton
public thinks about it, you know, like kind of, I mean, Bud Light was able to do it, you know, after like the Dylan Mulvaney thing, but it's, it's really hard to reverse.
00:26:43
Savage Boston
Yeah.
00:26:50
Jerry Thornton
And, you know, I, I think they're, they're doing a good show. i think Nick is the most talented guy in Boston radio, but to, to the Philgren mass thing,
00:27:02
Jerry Thornton
I saw Jim Murray at the a White House years ago ah for the Patriot celebration. I said, look, you guys are geniuses like because I listened to you one day.
00:27:15
Jerry Thornton
It was a Monday after a Pats game. You said, they're not good. The defense is suspect. It's a down year for the league. The only reason they're winning is because Brady hides all their flaws. I said, Jim, it was the day after they beat the Falcons in the Super Bowl.
00:27:31
Jerry Thornton
That's how you open the show. I go, it's amazing.
00:27:32
Savage Boston
and
00:27:33
Jerry Thornton
And I'm still talking about it. And he just kind of went palms up like, you know, shrugged shoulders. It's just what we do, you know. And I think Maz is a genius too. He just, you know, he just ah agrees and trashes. And it's not how I am. Again, I grew up in the barstool world. We're all about authenticity. But I think we all understand that they...
00:27:57
Jerry Thornton
say, let's be against the thing that the listeners like, and let's just figure out a way to justify it.
00:28:02
Savage Boston
yeah
00:28:04
Jerry Thornton
You know what Like they, they shoot an arrow and then paint a bullseye around it and it and it works. People are obsessed with it. I get more people talking about, Oh, I can't believe what they just said.
00:28:17
Jerry Thornton
Okay. Okay. Well, you're
00:28:18
Savage Boston
I've been doing it for a long time saying that stuff. Yeah.
00:28:21
Jerry Thornton
Bingo. Let's take last year's Celtics as an example. The whole season, box to wire, the best team in the NBA. And they said repeatedly, like, and don't think they're that good. I don't think they were overrated. They're not built for the playoffs, whatever.
00:28:33
Jerry Thornton
So they lose three games in four series and win the title. And the whole thing is Jason Tatum resents Jalen Brown winning the MVP.
00:28:39
Savage Boston
Yeah.
00:28:43
Savage Boston
yeah
00:28:43
Jerry Thornton
You could tell. You look at his body language and stuff. Okay, they, excuse me, they just won the championship. but they don't celebrate that. They just find the next negative thing. And I just, I stand in awe of it because they hold an audience's attention in a way that nobody else can. There's not another show like it in probably the entire country that can pull the numbers that they do.
00:29:08
Jerry Thornton
it Do you think people just like the negativity? They're drawn to it. Like what is, what is your theory on that?
00:29:13
Savage Boston
um um
00:29:14
Jerry Thornton
Cause I,
00:29:14
Savage Boston
well quick and that ah Well, just to respond quick, and I'll let Snoopy ask a question. But I basically, you know, i so I can tell from Twitter, obviously, right? So, like, my Twitter page, you can see by far the difference between an engagement between something negative and positive, right?
00:29:22
Jerry Thornton
Yeah.
00:29:29
Jerry Thornton
yeah
00:29:29
Savage Boston
um You know, you can come up with it. Like, I am genuinely, like, Patriots fan. That's my number one team, everything. Like, I have season tickets now. Like, I'm a huge Pats homer. And so most everything I tweet is going to be in support of the Patriots.
00:29:41
Savage Boston
If I ever go against the grain of the constant of the common talk, um people go crazy. I mean, the engagement against – I've millions of and of hits on tweets for like um you know me going against the common the common thread. So just like they do, except they just maximize it, especially financially. Like I'm making pennies compared to what they're they're getting and you know from the radio station. But – um But yeah, people you know ah negativity sells, outrage sells.
00:30:10
Savage Boston
um it's just I don't want to do it all the time. I really don't. like Just like you, like I actually like the team.
00:30:13
Jerry Thornton
Right.
00:30:15
Savage Boston
I want to support the team. I want to cover slash watch the team. like This is all fun for me. like Even talking on the pod, this is this is fun for me to do. um So it's just i just I don't want to have the negative slant all the time. i mean, you can even feel it. I'll say something negative about like Javon Baker.
00:30:32
Savage Boston
who had one catch last year.
00:30:32
Jerry Thornton
right
00:30:33
Savage Boston
And I could even feel the negativity, like, o he's going to be good, man. I'm like, hey, whoa. Like, whoa. He had one catch. One catch. Chill the fuck out.
00:30:41
Jerry Thornton
Yeah. it And it was in week 18 where we didn't want him to have any
00:30:43
Savage Boston
Yeah.
00:30:46
Savage Boston
it's And so that's you can feel it.
00:30:46
Snooty
Thank you.
00:30:48
Savage Boston
like When real fandom has a problem, like this is and good for them. They had a lot of success um really harnessing that negativity.
00:30:59
Savage Boston
ah And um you know maybe people will tire of it. I don't know. It doesn't seem like they are. so
00:31:05
Jerry Thornton
Yeah, I like when you get called, and yeah I'm sure you've experienced this you get called like a shameless homer in one comment, and the next one says, oh, you're like pissing your pants, you're so like negative, you're so afraid, you hate everything. Like, okay, so I'm both.
00:31:22
Jerry Thornton
I'm both like... way too optimistic and way too pessimistic.
00:31:23
Savage Boston
Yeah.
00:31:27
Jerry Thornton
I especially like the, the, the pessimistic ones because that way, cause that's so like in the opposite direction of what I've always been told I am by like the, the other media guys or or whatever.
00:31:39
Jerry Thornton
and, that That's how you know you're doing something right. I just come from it honestly. Like when they win, I'm happy. When they lose, it bugs the shit out of me. when they When they find like some gem in the late in the draft or a free agent, I celebrate.
00:31:55
Jerry Thornton
When you get a Javon Baker or, you know, Jalen Polk, who I actually haven't given up on hope yet on, but he had 88 yards.
00:32:02
Savage Boston
and
00:32:03
Jerry Thornton
Like the the guy whose pick they traded to get him, um had more yards against the Patriots than Polk had on the year.
00:32:13
Savage Boston
and
00:32:16
Jerry Thornton
I don't know how you spin that into a positive. All you can do is just be honest in the moment. Ladd McConkie had more yards against New England than Polk had on the season.
00:32:29
Jerry Thornton
i I have to express that that bothers me. And I know sometimes it it kind of rubs people in the organization the wrong way. I've heard from them like, like okay, now Thornton's going dark on us.
00:32:40
Jerry Thornton
I'm like, just I have an obligation to just be honest. And honest means yeah truthful um and emotionally.
00:32:45
Savage Boston
Truthful.
00:32:47
Snooty
Reality.
00:32:49
Jerry Thornton
like i'm um I can't be objective. I can't disengage. i'm I love it when good things happen. It kills me when bad things happen and, and no one's ever sat there and can honestly say I'm making it up, you know, and that's, that's all I can do.
00:33:04
Snooty
But I think and in the background of all of this is like, there's been changing, there's there's changing experiences of the
Boston's Transformation and Expectations
00:33:11
Snooty
fans, right? Like, I'm old enough, I remember when EEI was, you you know, on AM and it was the only real big sports talk radio in town, right?
00:33:18
Jerry Thornton
Yeah.
00:33:19
Snooty
And negativity sold because every team sucked and they were bad, right, for a long time, right?
00:33:22
Jerry Thornton
Yep.
00:33:25
Snooty
I mean, the Bruins here and there, Pat said, know, a little blip, but, like, they were bad. The Red Sox were a joke and everything like that. Then, like you said earlier, you know, the early 2000s happened and all of a sudden, like,
00:33:36
Snooty
Hey, we don't suck actually. You know, now it's just like, you know, we're the city of champions, that type of thing. So now the negativity, it's almost like the reason there's such a harsh, like blowback against that is because there's an entire generation of fans that grew up with nothing but like winning.
00:33:52
Snooty
Right.
00:33:52
Jerry Thornton
Mm-hmm.
00:33:53
Snooty
Whereas before it was like, we were like the lovable losers or like, you know, everybody sucked. And like, you just kind of, you leaned into that. Cause that's how you got through it. It's like, ah, we suck. You know, but of course we suck. Like they always suck. Like this is what happens.
00:34:05
Snooty
So it's, you know, what do you think the level of impact there is from that?
00:34:11
Jerry Thornton
Yeah, there's there's a certain like you you get spoiled, like clearly. And I think part of the reason I am the way I am is because I grew up when the patriots were were awful. And I wrote a book about this from darkness to dynasty, which, by the way, Father's Day is coming up. It's available at Brian Bookstores.
00:34:31
Jerry Thornton
And ah on, yes, and and on, ah you know, the Internet, wherever books are sold, um partly because all right when I was 22, I saw the Patriots win the first playoff game of my life.
00:34:31
Savage Boston
black Good plug. Good plug. Thank
00:34:43
Jerry Thornton
it was a wild card game a at the Jets. When my older son was 22, he had seen them win six Super Bowls and go to nine of them. you know So i said, like I get it.
00:34:53
Savage Boston
are you.
00:34:55
Jerry Thornton
And ah I appreciate this so much because I'm kind of like that guy who grew up during the Depression. And even though like I've made it in this world, I'm still like reusing tinfoil because you never know.
00:35:06
Jerry Thornton
We had a shortage back when I was a kid. We used to play with a hoop and a stick, and that was good enough for us.
00:35:10
Snooty
Thank you.
00:35:11
Savage Boston
you
00:35:11
Jerry Thornton
you know And so I just want to say, don't I it's something Thomas Paine wrote in, uh, in the American crisis. It was, I can't quote it exactly, but it's like, which we obtained too easily. We value too little.
00:35:25
Jerry Thornton
And so watching them break through in 2001 and then turn this into a dynasty and stuff is really precious to me. And maybe if you were, don't know, they won their first Superbowl when you were eight years old, you're kind of, eh, This is how it goes. Oh, wow. ah The Red Sox have won four. OK, yeah, cool. That's great.
00:35:46
Jerry Thornton
um But I'll never value the losing over the the winning. You know, like and so in 2002, I gave an interview to HBO for a documentary they were doing that was called from i've called um The Curse of the Bambino.
00:36:03
Jerry Thornton
And this was just about the Red Sox and all the losing and all the weird ways that they lost. And they asked, like, you think if they ever won that you'd lose interest in them?
00:36:14
Jerry Thornton
I said, try me. like yeah
00:36:16
Savage Boston
Yeah. Yeah.
00:36:17
Jerry Thornton
ah I would love to have that be my problem.
00:36:19
Savage Boston
yeah
00:36:20
Jerry Thornton
And there were people who genuinely thought, no, it's better to to be a loser because you love a team. Yeah, no, you can love a team that's winning all the time, too, especially when it's the Pats, because the winning was denounced by the world as they're cheating. It's unfair. They got a break. Like they're, they're bad people and and stuff, which only made it better for fans in new England to go, okay, we're not just gonna sit here and not fire back. And it gave us something to push it back. It was certainly good for business at Barstool.
00:36:56
Jerry Thornton
I mean, guys got arrested for Tom Brady.
00:36:58
Savage Boston
That was great.
00:37:00
Jerry Thornton
I know.
00:37:00
Savage Boston
I mean, certainly in that era, with that Patriots era, man, was just and obviously nothing like that will ever happen again. But it's like you're just searching for the magic again somehow. Even like, you know, in this recent team, like it's almost like our fans couldn't believe that Brady left and then they just just sucked for the last five years.
00:37:19
Savage Boston
like It's it's like almost hard to believe it just happened.
00:37:19
Jerry Thornton
Oh, yeah.
00:37:21
Savage Boston
And meanwhile, the last two years, they really sucked and made multiple coaching decision failures and Drodd Mayo became coach somehow.
00:37:30
Jerry Thornton
Right.
00:37:30
Savage Boston
And then for no reason, because of an Israel trip, it's like, well, that's not how you hire football coaches. you know and like It's been a mind-blowing experience, you know humbling for us as fans. um But obviously we're all pretty eager to get back to some form of glory days.
00:37:47
Savage Boston
And and I think you know a lot of people back when we were debating the coaches there all wanted like Ben Johnson over Mike Vrabel. But I think Vrabel is a great decision.
00:37:54
Jerry Thornton
Mm-hmm.
00:37:56
Savage Boston
I think Vrabel is a real football coach. And I do think he'll make the team at and at at a floor of respectable players. Um, and, and I'm really excited. And I think Drake may is, uh, hopefully going to develop into a really good player. So, uh, before we head out, cause I won't keep you all night. Um, give me your thoughts on just this season. and what do you expect from, uh, from this, this Patriots team?
Future of the Patriots
00:38:18
Jerry Thornton
Yeah, I agree with ah everything you just said. And did you realize that 2021 was just an illusion? Like in the stock market, they call it the dead cat bounce because I bought in.
00:38:28
Savage Boston
Yeah. Yeah.
00:38:31
Jerry Thornton
I was all on board with Mac Jones.
00:38:32
Savage Boston
Mac Jones.
00:38:34
Jerry Thornton
I said, this is just what they need. His best attribute is between his ears. He can process information and stuff. I just didn't realize how fragile he was.
00:38:44
Jerry Thornton
Yeah.
00:38:45
Savage Boston
Yeah.
00:38:45
Jerry Thornton
Yeah, so I bought that. With this, though, um I'm trying to be cautiously optimistic, but it's hard because everything that I wanted them to do since that awful decision by Mayo to finally win a game and cost us the number one pick, yeah, yeah has been one right after the other just what I wanted.
00:39:02
Savage Boston
Horrible.
00:39:05
Jerry Thornton
I wanted Vrabel.
00:39:07
Savage Boston
Mm-hmm.
00:39:07
Jerry Thornton
I wasn't buying into the Ben Johnson hype. He might be great, but I didn't want yet another guy who's who's only been coordinator, who doesn't know what it's like to go from two interviews a month to 10 day and and all that stuff.
00:39:23
Jerry Thornton
um Strong personality and variable, someone who's respectable, someone who knows what it takes, who's been around and has a big focus. contacts list on his phone. So he could, for instance, you know, um you know, they signed Stefan Diggs and there's some people that have questions about whether or not he's like the right guy because he's volatile or whatever.
00:39:44
Jerry Thornton
Yeah. His last offensive coordinator was Josh McDaniel's brother. So i I think we can trust that he's like a guy that you want to work with.
00:39:52
Bret
I think we'll.
00:39:54
Savage Boston
Yep.
00:39:54
Jerry Thornton
you know, and the, and that's one right after the other from the signings that they made in free agency. I mean, like Robert Spillane, I think is going to be a potential folk hero around here and who knows anything about him.
00:40:07
Jerry Thornton
Well, McDaniels was his head coach, you know, um, you know, look the, the, the,
00:40:10
Savage Boston
yeah
00:40:14
Jerry Thornton
the draft picks that they've made the, the um you know, from one right after the other was whether you like the pick or not, you understood why they made it. Right. There was never a point where they did that reach thing. Like, I don't know if you guys remember two, 2012, I was with two dozen Patriots fans at a bar for round two.
00:40:36
Jerry Thornton
And their first pick was Tavon Wilson.
00:40:39
Snooty
Mm-hmm.
00:40:40
Bret
Oh yeah.
00:40:40
Jerry Thornton
There wasn't a person with me who had ever heard of him.
00:40:40
Savage Boston
Yeah. Yeah.
00:40:44
Jerry Thornton
The people who had magazines couldn't find him in the magazines. No one could find him online. And he turned out to be at nothing. Like when they, Cole Strange, they got laughed at for drafting Cole Strange by Sean McVay, of all people, who bent the knee to Belichick.
00:40:55
Savage Boston
Yeah. some
00:41:00
Jerry Thornton
And you remember the kicker, Rohrwasser, that they they drafted there?
00:41:03
Savage Boston
yeah He had like the Nazi tattoo or something.
00:41:06
Jerry Thornton
yeah Something like that. Yeah. He was the first guy.
00:41:08
Savage Boston
Or like a military tattoo something.
00:41:11
Jerry Thornton
He was the first guy in the draft that ESPN didn't have a highlight reel for. And like Rabel to his undying credit, whether it works out it or not, I don't know. You never do know, but at least he didn't go off the rails with some crazy picking like Belichick became guilty of and got too cute for his own good. So Yeah.
00:41:31
Jerry Thornton
And the undrafted free agents look good. I'm ecstatic about the idea of Lan Larison, who.
00:41:37
Bret
about
00:41:40
Savage Boston
Can't wait for camp for that guy, him and Chisholm or whatever.
00:41:44
Snooty
The sheer wrestler?
00:41:44
Jerry Thornton
Yeah.
00:41:45
Savage Boston
oh my God. It's going white dude face off. It's going to be hilarious.
00:41:49
Jerry Thornton
National.
00:41:49
Savage Boston
You know how much people are going to be. You talk about folk heroes, man. Wait for Lan Lariston and F. F. D. Chisholm and their battle in camp.
00:41:56
Jerry Thornton
i know I think Leon Larrison is actually a Taylor Sheridan character, right? Didn't he have a story arc in Yellowstone or whatever?
00:42:01
Bret
but
00:42:05
Jerry Thornton
like at this This can't be real. at it i like to look for the guys who, when school goes back in session after the Christmas break, who's going to be like ah the the biggest selling jersey that kids had under their Christmas tree?
00:42:20
Jerry Thornton
Might be Lane Larrison, but I think it might be Robert Splane. But yeah, there's going to be a lot of lot of Caucasians fighting for that title.
00:42:24
Savage Boston
Yeah.
00:42:27
Savage Boston
Yeah.
00:42:30
Savage Boston
right, man. Well, good stuff. I want to end it so we don't go too long. I appreciate the time, Jerry. Thanks for coming on. Great conversation. um And ah don't leave too soon because I got to wait for the audio to upload.
00:42:42
Jerry Thornton
Absolutely.
00:42:42
Savage Boston
All right.
00:42:43
Jerry Thornton
Fellas, thank you very much. It was the first time we've done this. I hope it won't be the last. Thanks very much.
00:42:47
Savage Boston
Definitely, man. Thank you.