In what could prompt a celebration in Massachusetts nearly as intense as each of the parties following any of the team’s three Super Bowl wins, the Boston Herald has hired a new Patriots reporter.
Ian Rapoport of the Birmingham News will become the new lead Pats beat writer for the Boston Herald.
For Rapoport, he’ll be trading the extroverted Nick Saban for the always-sunny Bill Belichick.
For Pats fans, their 18-month wish might finally be coming true: the locally reviled John Tomase could be getting the shoe.
As Bruce Allen of Boston Sports Media Watch points out, it’s not yet known whether Tomase is out. He and Karen Guregian previously had been working the beat, and it’s possible that Tomase will still have a role.
Tomase, by the way, is the guy who reported the day before Super Bowl XLII that the Patriots had secretly recorded the Rams’ walk-through practice prior to Super Bowl XXXVI, creating a major disruption for the organization as it prepared to close out the first 19-0 season in NFL history. (The Herald later retracted the story and issued a full apology to the Patriots.)
If the Giants hadn’t found a way to win the game, Tomase might have been forgiven. As it now stands, his report will never be forgotten by New England fans.