Time Out for Sports Talk: Feeling Deflated
Todd: I know this week’s headline lacks in any originality, but the sports story of the week unfortunately can’t be ignored.
I had planned on writing about the Patriots’ takedown of the Colts in the AFC Championship, setting them up to make their eighth Super Bowl appearance, tying them with the Steelers and Cowboys for most all-time.
I also planned to write a little about the Seahawks’ incredibly improbable comeback in the NFC Championship, a game that Packers fans will remember for a long time the way we New Englanders remember Game 6 against the Mets in the ‘86, Game 7 against the Yankees in ’03 and SBs XLII and XLVI against the Giants.
But the elephant in the room cannot be ignored. Neither can that pile of deflated balls, apparently.
Running a little late to work the other morning, I forgot to put on my seat belt and drove through a light at the very instant it turned red. I was not pulled over for either offense, but I could have been. I’m also pretty sure I wasn’t the only one on the road guilty of these transgressions.
Was I a law breaker? Yes. Are the Pats guilty for being found to have under-inflated footballs? Yes.
This week’s discussion of how many PSIs should be in a regulation NFL football is more than I ever wanted to know on the topic. It was followed by many stories from other quarterbacks across the league talking about how they like their footballs to be inflated.
I found this line of discussion eerily similar to one seven years ago, when many current and former NFL coaches came to the defense of the Pats during Spygate and said they too had videotaped defensive signals from opposing sidelines.
The bottom line in both instances is that despite the relative innocuousness of either offense, the Patriots are being called cheaters. The extremists of this latest media witch hunt are calling for everything from suspending Bill Belichick from the Super Bowl to the entire team vacating their spot in Glendale.
Sadly, I have accepted that the ramifications of Spygate, combined now with Deflategate (BTW whenever a ‘gate’ scandal occurs, I always wonder how society would have changed if the DNC’s offices had been in a different building), have turned the Patriots organization one of the most polarizing in football, if not all of sports. Fans not originally from New England or who do not currently live here view the Pats as despicable and want the league to throw the book at them.
While I’ve been a lifelong Pats fan, I’m not naïve either. The team likely did something wrong last Sunday night. But who knew about the footballs and who is to blame? Sounds to me like the quarterbacks have most of the input with regards to the footballs they use. Unfortunately Tom Brady did not come across as totally innocent during his press conference yesterday. Maybe it’s because of that non-stop smile he always has on his face when answering any type of question, which did not serve him well in this instance.
What about the actual effect of the lower-inflated footballs? There hasn’t been much mention that after the Pats’ balls were re-inflated at the start of the second half, Brady completed his next nine passes and the Pats broke open a close game.
Here is what we know for certain. Tom Brady is about to start his NFL-record sixth Super Bowl and holds nearly every postseason passing record. He is uber-competitive, a trait he shares with his head coach Bill Belichick. Both of these guys will study film and come up with whatever outside-the-box thinking is possible to win a football game. Their 162 wins together is plenty proof of that.
But for all of their success over the last fourteen years, the Pats will always have their haters, much like the San Francisco 49ers had during their dynastic run of a similar length.
Not only I am mad that Deflategate has been the dominant news story of the week, but I’m already angered by what verdict will be handed down to the Pats from the NFL Commissioner’s office.
I’ve previously typed my displeasure and distrust in this space for Roger Goodell, not only for how poorly he handled Spygate as one of his very first judgments, but also for how he’s handled much more serious events during this current season. I also realize it’s unfair to compare breaking league rules to acts of domestic violence. But while many football fans don’t trust the Patriots to do the right thing, I don’t trust the NFL Commissioner to do the right thing, either.
No matter how this all ends, the topic of properly inflated footballs is going to cast a giant shadow over next week’s big game. Which is a shame, because the matchup is shaping up to be one of the best.
Mike: Oh. My. God. I. Am. So. Bored. With. This. Story.
I really don't care about what happens any more.. This story is just a feeding frenzy for Patriot haters everywhere.
First, let me establish that even though I have followed the team since the not-so-good-old-days of the 1970s, and am a life-long fan, there is not one ounce of me that doesn't believe that someone in Foxborough let the air out of those balls.
But, that being said, explain to me how it matters what the ball was inflated to in the first half when the balls were changed at halftime and the Pats destroyed the Colts in the second half of that game with legal balls.
I'll be over here tuning it out....I just don't care anymore.
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