BSJ Daily Briefing 03.20.18: Patriots and free agency, Donato does it, Sox trades?

Good morning!

A couple of rand... seriously?!!! Officially ridiculous.

Heading out...no big changes. I'm sure I will tighten a range or move a line 5-10 miles and encourage the wrath of all tomorrow. G'nite! pic.twitter.com/HnLvvrLRmb

— Eric Fisher (@ericfisher) March 20, 2018

• Posted a column last night about the Patriots' offseason to this point. Despite what you've heard elsewhere (ahem, Felger, Mazz and Murray), the Patriots' offseason has been just fine to this point — if they get left tackle figured out. You just have to dig inside the numbers to see whey they're doing what they're doing.


• Bill Belichick is out making college visits — he was at NC State on Monday, which happens to have a Top 100 tight end (Jaylen Samuels), offensive tackle (Will Richardson), defensive linemen (Bradley Chubb - Top 5, B.J. Hill, Justin Jones, Kentavius Street), and running backs (Jaylen Samuels and Nyheim Hines.


• Who's running the office pool on which safety gets overdrafted in the second round? Winner gets the Tavon Richards Award.


• The Bruins may have lost in overtime to the Blue Jackets but, man, what a game that was. End to end, hits, great goals, enough soft goals given up by Tuukka Rask to make people uneasy and for them to keep giving JoeyMac crap in the comments (I may or may not encourage this).


• Yeah, the Bruins probably should have had a penalty shot or two in overtime but I totally agree with Joe: anyone else besides 63 gets those calls. When you have a well-earned, checkered background like Brad Marchand, this is what you get. If that was Sidney Crosby (no saint himself but whatever), they would have stopped the game and allowed CSI to start the league on-ice investigation.


• Ryan Donato registered a goal and two assists in his Bruins debut after one practice ... ho hum. Suddenly the Bruins have too many of everything. Tough problem to have. Good luck to Butch when everyone's healthy.


• In honor of No. 4's 70th birthday, here are Joe's exclusive comments from him last week (Free Preview):

• So the Celtics have no one playing because of injuries, the other teams don't care at this point because they're either tanking or waiting for the postseason to start ... does anyone care about the NBA until the postseason?


• Sean McAdam reports the Sox are trying to trade two of the players but aren't finding any takers. Not a surprise.

Bill Belichick, master of the pigskin, coached up Bradley Chubb (@ASTROCHUBB) at his Pro Day and even left him with a joke ? pic.twitter.com/pVwQO77Q6o

— The Checkdown (@thecheckdown) March 19, 2018

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— Mandy Johnson Gilman (@MandyGilman) January 23, 2018