Ponderous thoughts I was pondering ...

North Main Street in Mansfield, looking north to the apocalypse on Saturday.

Ponderous thoughts I was pondering while scanning the back yard for hints that green grass may be growing again:

** Well, if you picked this week for your vacation, my sympathies to you. As I look out over Fulton Pond (a/k/a, Mansfield's answer to Disney World), I see thick clouds and the concentric-circle patterns of raindrops hitting the water, accompanied by the sound of rolling thunder in the distance. And the forecast has plenty more of this through at least Wednesday.

Saturday afternoon, as I was driving through the center of town, I saw a thoroughly eerie sight -- direct sunlight illuminating the storefronts of North Main Street, but the view ahead was nothing but dark, foreboding black clouds giving the appearance of the middle of the night just a mile or two away. The photo can be seen above.

We haven't had apocalyptic thunderstorms here in Mansfield -- some lightning, some ominous rolls of thunder -- but we have had some good, steady rain. It's been much needed, as a lot of yards prematurely turned into crunchy brown carpets with the consistency of shredded wheat, something you don't expect around here until the dog days of August.

Still, as I mentioned in the opening, I think I see a few green sprigs popping back up again after almost two full days of rain. That's a good sign. Not so good is what happened in nearby Norwood, where they had more than 5 inches of rain in a short time. The basement of sprawling Norwood Hospital is flooded, forcing the evacuation of patients and the cessation of emergency services for the time being.

Thankful for small favors, but we are indeed fortunate that the COVID-19 curve in Massachusetts is pretty flat right now, the result of Bay Staters having enough common sense to wear facemasks and not bitch about their fundamental rights as Americans being violated. If we were having a surge like Texas, Arizona or Florida, and a major suburban hospital had to close in the midst of it, it would be chaos to the Nth degree.

Another reason why 2020 has been the year voted by the yearbook staff as "least likely to succeed."

** What a news dump there was on Sunday night for fans of the New England Patriots.

First, the NFL's penalties were announced in the case of the videotaping of the sidelines by a Kraft Sports Productions crew during a Cincinnati-Cleveland game last fall -- and they were pretty steep.

And second, the team signed former NFL MVP Cam Newton to a one-year contract, which would presumably put him in line to start at quarterback over Jarrett Stidham this season.

Then this morning, the news came that Patriots' owner Robert Kraft isn't totally out of the woods yet where his arrest for solicitation of prostitutes in Jupiter, Fla., is concerned. More on that later.

Cam Newton comes to Foxboro as a starter, not as a backup.

First, let's address the Newton signing.

I've got to admit, I was one of those individuals that said the Patriots would never sign Newton when the Carolina Panthers cut him loose months ago. I thought that Bill Belichick was willing to commit to Stidham as the successor to Tom Brady, and especially because the Patriots had very little room under the salary cap at the time.

But things change.

For one thing, Newton signed a one-year contract for the veteran's minimum of roughly $1.04 million, with lots of incentives added on. The cap value is almost negligible because almost all of the incentive-based aspects of the contact won't hit the cap until after he has achieved them.

At that point, Newton was exactly the sort of signing the Patriots love to make -- low risk, potentially high reward. As stated before, he's a former MVP and played in a Super Bowl. He's a multi-tool threat, although he's been saddled with injuries the past two years and will have a lot to prove once he steps back onto the field. His former Carolina teammates have nothing at all that's bad to say about him. And if he is healthy and able to use many of the tools in his repertoire, it will certainly allow Belichick and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels to throw a lot of new looks at opposing teams.

And let's accept one basic premise -- Cam Newton is here to win or lose the starting position. He is NOT here to be a backup quarterback. If he doesn't win the job in the NFL preseason (and we're still not fully aware of what form that will take), I believe that Belichick will thank Newton for his efforts and release him so he may have the opportunity to catch on someplace else. That's a courtesy he has extended to other veterans in the past, and I see no reason for Cam Newton's circumstance to be treated any differently.

And yes, Belichick will do that. Just ask Bernie Kosar, Tom Brady, Lawyer Milloy or any number of other athletes who were cut or told that the team was moving on.

One thing that bothers me, however, has been the tone of some of the negative reactions to Newton's signings. I'd have to suggest that racism is behind some of the vitriol, which should come as no surprise. And a lot of people seem to be put off by Newton's unique post-game attire, which includes outlandish hats. "Belichick will break him of that," they suggest.

Well, no, Belichick probably won't. If Newton is attentive and committed in meetings and productive on the field, Belichick will likely be fine with Newton being Newton as long as it isn't some sort of distraction between the white lines. After all, he let Rob Gronkowski be a goofball as long as it didn't interfere with his football.

NFL Executive VP Troy Vincent
imposed the penalties.

** OK, that's my Newton take. Now let's take a serious look at the penalties for Whatevergate (no one seems to have come up with a legitimate " -gate" nickname for the latest videotaping incident), as imposed by NFL Executive VP Troy Vincent.

The Patriots were docked a third-round draft pick in 2021 and fined $1.1 million for the filming of the 2019 Bengals-Browns game (including field and sideline shots) that was allegedly done for the Patriots.com online series of video vignettes called "Do Your Job." The video crew, not affiliated with the football operation, was supposedly filming footage for use in a story about the team's advance scouts, and had credentials from the Browns to be in the press box, but the Bengals (a later opponent of the Patriots) objected to the filming of the sidelines.

In addition, the Patriots are barred from sending video crews to film any game action in 2020, and their video producer (who has since been fired) is banned from any and all NFL events.

Not unexpectedly, fans are crying foul over the supposed harshness of the penalties. This is the third time their team has been caught with their hands in the cookie jar over potential cheating, and it surprises them that the league would come down hard? And how hard was it, actually? Bill Belichick was not suspended, nor was the owner. The league seemed to acknowledge that the video crew in question was not affiliated with the football operation, but it's pretty hard to trust the Patriots when they keep getting involved in situations of this sort.

My advice? Take the penalties and just shut up. There's probably still more to come.

Bob Kraft is still being rubbed
the wrong way in Florida.

** And that brings us to Robert K. Kraft and his dalliances at the Orchids of Asia massage parlor in Jupiter, Fla.

According to an Associated Press story that hit the wires this morning, the prosecutors charging Kraft with twice buying sex from massage parlor prostitutes will attempt to save their case later this week by arguing to an appeals court that his rights weren't violated when police secretly video-recorded him in the act.

The story said that prosecutors will tell the Florida Fourth District Court of Appeal during an online hearing Tuesday that a county judge erred when he invalidated the January 2019 search warrant allowing police to install secret cameras at Orchids of Asia spa as part of an alleged sex trafficking investigation.

It's really a pretty pathetic tale.  Kraft, 79, pleaded not guilty but issued a public apology. The AP story said he faces a possible one-year jail sentence if convicted, but would likely receive a fine, community service and other sanctions.

Forbes Magazine ranks Kraft as the 82nd richest American with a worth of almost $7 billion, and not surprisingly, he is employing several high-priced attorneys to fight the charges.

What bothers me and many other people is that Kraft has painted himself and his organization as paragons of virtue. He elevated his late wife, Myra, into a symbol of his team's culture of community activism and commitment to charitable endeavors after her death from ovarian cancer, yet somehow, he failed to recognize how reckless and potentially damaging it might be to that image when he engaged in the pursuit of "happy endings" at a strip-mall brothel masquerading as a massage parlor.

I mean, the guy is worth $7 billion! He can easily afford having Asian hookers brought by the truckload to his Chestnut Hill compound and no one would be the wiser. But instead, he absolutely had to have his crank yanked at a massage parlor before jetting to the 2018-season AFC Championship Game in Kansas City the same day? Wow.

(As an aside, I understand there might be some haters out there who would suggest that I'm being holier-than-thou by criticizing Kraft, and might even suggest in retaliation that I've done similar things, without having any possible way of knowing if that's true or not. I'm no saint, but in this instance, I can truly say that those without sin can cast the first stone. I've never paid for it, nor would I ever. Especially at a "massage parlor." Ew.)

Kraft had better hope that his lawyers are successful in quashing this last-ditch effort to keep his case alive. I don't think the NFL is in a mood to endure another Patriots-related scandal without really bringing down the hammer this time.

** By the way, I will be working on a "re-mix" of three past episodes of "The Owner's Box" to address the MIAA's recent decision to scrap the plan (for at least this year) to let national clearinghouse MaxPreps create power rankings for the seeding of this state's high school tournaments.

After that appears as Episode 26, I'm also thinking that it might be time to end "Season 1" and start Season 2 -- after all, 26 episodes would represent one every two weeks in a full calendar year. Also, Apple Podcasts seems to like it that way.

Yes, I've got some plans for future episodes. The painful knee issues are still present and that interrupts the creative process a little, and July is basically a vacation month, so I'll keep you posted as soon as I make some decisions. Rest assured, "The Owner's Box" is here to stay.

** That's all for this post. Keep washing your hands and please keep wearing the masks. I'm sticking with latex gloves for a while longer, too. Let's make the commonwealth the model for the entire country in knocking COVID-19 on its ass.

Stay safe, folks!