Charles Pierce: "DEFLATRIOTs" Brady, Belichick, and Great Balls of Fire

[kpete]

......because we are a nation of infantilized yahoos, this is where we are. Watching the Great Media Hippo doing a moral ballet.

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JANUARY 23, 2015
by CHARLES P. PIERCE


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There are a lot of people claiming to have a gun here. Nobody yet has produced one. Nevertheless, because of New England’s history, especially the whole Spygate business that hangs around the franchise’s neck like a dead raccoon, anything is assumed to be possible. (Here, from the same SI piece, is a remarkable sentence, purporting to explain Belichick’s gimmicky formations that so befuddled the Ravens: “Technically, what Belichick suggested was legal.” Oh.) But disqualify the Patriots from the Super Bowl? Blow up a game between the two best teams in the league for the purpose of having Kam Chancellor devour Andrew Luck on national TV? Bill Belichick is unlikely to be fired. Tom Brady is unlikely to be suspended, at least not until next year. Anyone telling you that any of these things is likely, quite frankly, are either trolling, or they are insane. There is no third alternative.

But part of Brady’s softened, perplexed demeanor had to be attributed to the fact that, earlier on Thursday, his head coach had tied him to the cowcatcher of a runaway train. “I think we all know that quarterbacks, kickers, specialists have certain preferences on footballs,” Belichick had said. “They know a lot more about it than I do. They’re a lot more sensitive to it than I am. I hear them comment on it from time to time, but I can tell you and they will tell you that there is never any sympathy whatsoever from me on that subject. Zero. Tom’s personal preferences on his footballs is something he can talk about in much better detail and information than I can possibly provide. I can tell you that in my entire coaching career, I have never talked to any player, staff member about football air pressure. That is not a subject that I have ever brought up. To me, the footballs are approved by the league and officials pregame, and we play with what’s out there. That’s the only way that I have ever thought about that.”

Over the side, Tom. Watch that first step. And Belichick now goes on two-year probation, during which time anything he says regarding the importance of being a team must be taken with a salt lick the size of Utah.

Truth be told, this whole hootenanny could have been avoided if not for one of those quirky features through which the National Football League, which makes approximately a quadrillion dollars a year, decides to behave like a third-rate dirt track in Fort Smith, Arkansas. This is a league that fines Marshawn Lynch 100 grand for refusing to talk to mooks like me. It won’t let him wear gold cleats. But the most basic element of the game, the ball, gets treated like something that gets shot out of a cannon at halftime as a souvenir. In every game, the balls the kickers use are under league supervision every moment. This could easily be done with all the game balls. But, instead, each team is allowed to use footballs of its own choosing on offense. No other sport does anything remotely like this. (In one of history’s king ironies, this ridiculous system is the result of a petition circulated in 2006 by a number of NFL quarterbacks, chief among them Peyton Manning and Tom Brady.) This obviously leaves a loophole for chicanery through which Vince Wilfork could run with daylight on either side of him. Further, would it really put a dent in the NFL’s budget to hire actual ball-security experts who get paid by the league, instead of enlisting the defensive backfield of whatever high school football team is closest to the stadium?

The whole thing is flatly hilarious. The way you can be sure of this is that the ladies of The View pronounced themselves outraged by the perfidious Patriots on Thursday morning. Rosie O’Donnell wanted them booted from the Super Bowl. (Trolling or insane? Our lines are open.) Moreover, because of the miracle of Twitter, and the fact that we are a nation of infantilized yahoos, everybody in the bunker at Gillette Stadium became aware of what the ladies of The View felt, and many of the assembled press felt compelled to get various New England players’ reactions to Rosie O’Donnell’s commentary. Me? This is what I think: Once a scandal starts being discussed on The View, it stops being a scandal and becomes a sitcom. I think this should be a rule.

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/brady-belichick-and-great-balls-of-fire-a-front-row-seat-for-the-foxborough-farce/
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2015/01/a-nation-of-infantilized-yahoos.html

[grasswire]

1. tidbit from the story

But, instead, each team is allowed to use footballs of its own choosing on offense. No other sport does anything remotely like this. (In one of history’s king ironies, this ridiculous system is the result of a petition circulated in 2006 by a number of NFL quarterbacks, chief among them Peyton Manning and Tom Brady.)

[trumad]

2. yep...

The NFL could so easily fix this.

[KamaAina]

3. "Anyone telling you that any of these things is likely, quite frankly, are either trolling,

or they are insane."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026126375

[Johonny]

4. The last two Patriot superbowls the Pat's owner sat watching it in his box with Rush Limbaugh

So if you can choke that down, then you can root for the Pats I guess. I always wonder what Columbia-Harvard man Kraft has to say to drop out Rush that would make him want to be around him. Do you think Rush goes into one of his patented Ivy league liberal elite rants when sucking on this man's balls for the price of a Super Bowl box seat. Me thinks, not. But you never know some people like the rough stuff.