What the hell is Mark Farinella's problem?

Greetings Pats fans.  I'm kleph from the SB Nation blog covering all things Alabama Crimson Tide Roll Bama Roll. We are busting with pride that one of the key members of our 2009 National Championship squad - Brandon Deaderick - was drafted by your fine franchise and are hoping he goes on to a long and storied career with you guys.

Since it's common for us college football fans to lose track of our favorite players after they enter the pro ranks I went to work cobbling together a roundup on how our boys are doing at the rookie mini camps. Ian Rapoport of the Boston Herald used to be the beat writer covering the Crimson Tide for the Birmingham paper so he's been keeping us on top of the main stuff involving Brandon.

But I also stumbled  upon the deranged ramblings of Mark Farinella who somehow has a gig writing for some paper called The Sun Chronicle. Normally I'd let this kinda stuff pass but his jabs at Brandon are not just misguided, they are patently offensive.

Right before the 2009 season, Brandon was returning with his girlfriend to his apartment which is located several miles from the University of Alabama campus when a guy tried to mug them. The incident happened at about 10 p.m. at night and Brandon had just pulled into the parking lot when the assalant approached the driver's side window of the car. 

"I pulled (in) and I saw him come up from the side. I tried to get the car pulled over," he said. "By the time I realized it was for real, the only thing I could do was go for the gun. Nothing goes through your mind. You react. That's what you do."

The result was Brandon got shot, with the bullet going down through his arm and into his leg near his hip. Thankfully the injury was minor but its not hard to envision this incident ending a massive tragedy.

What stuns me is that this Farinella clown uses this incident as a pretense to question Brandon's character claiming that "Belichick is going to have the NFL Security goons watching this kid day and night." A young man is attacked going to his apartment and injured, luckily not severely, then some hack of a columnist finds it necessary to cast aspersions on the victim? 

(Oh, and lets not forget, Brandon was back on the field just two days after being shot and actually played in the Virginia Tech game. And, if all that weren't enough, his grandmother died the week leading up to the game and he missed practice to travel home for her funeral.)

That's just Farinella's way of introducing this player to his readers. He follows it up by relating an incident from 2007 when Brandon and two other players were involved in a fight in front of a bar in downtown Tuscaloosa and subsequently arrested for  criminal mischief, resisting arrest and giving police a false name. It was a massive lack of judgement and Coach Saban made it clear he wasn't going to put up with it.

The result has been that for the last two years there have been no incidents of any note involving Brandon or any other Alabama player - a period of notable on-field  success from the football team. But Farinella sees fit to dredge up this arrest and then suggest that it is in some way connected to the shooting last year.

That odious reasoning isn't as egregious as Colin Cowherd's comments in the wake of Sean Taylor's death, but they only differ in terms of degree. Using past events to paint nefarious meanings on completely unrelated incidents is reprehensible for anyone, much less a figure considered an authority on the subject in question.

Part of the reason I feel compelled to write this is to address the reckless character assassination on this writer's part in some little way. If I can let my fellow SB Nation denizens in on what the actual story is here, I'm hoping that will make some difference.

For the most part we Alabama fans understand that this hack's opinion isn't necessarily the view of New England fans as a whole. It's alarming that any sports writer would see fit to cast such accusations at a young player with threadbare reasoning to back it up.

Brandon made a huge contribution to the squad that rolled up two undefeated regular seasons and claimed the championship title in January. We are proud to have him as part of the long and storied Crimson Tide tradition and feel lucky he's gone on to an NFL team noted for similar gridiron excellence. He should be able to provide a valuable contribution to your squad and we're hoping he finds a way into the starting lineup at some point. 

Please feel free to drop by over at RBR and keep us posted on Brandon's progress up there in Foxboro.