Ten Weeks On

The NFL has adjudicated Textgate and Noisegate but still no word on Deflategate or Tampergate. Should we expect an answergate any time soongate?

 

At this point, I'm just hoping the Wells Report lets the ruling on the field stand, so to speak. The longer this goes on the more I fear the League will find some way to punish the Patriots. I just spent seven years waiting for the Super Bowl win that would shut up the "They haven't won anything since Spygate" crowd. I'm not sure I'm ready for seven years of "Brady has soft balls!" trolling.

I doubt there's any hard, physical evidence the Patriots deflated their game balls with malice aforethought so the Wells Report will necessarily rely on circumstantial evidence and supposition. We'll get a table showing the actual PSI measurements from halftime. There will be a breakdown of the Ideal Gas Law in the appendices. Recommendations for revised protocols will be enumerated. Not much to see here.

Don't forget, we have that whole "The Commissioner is Robert Kraft's pocket square" narrative to perpetuate.

A finding of no finding resulting in a punishment of no punishment for New England will generate a tsunami of disdain, anger and loathing. (Cut to Mark Brunell weeping openly.) If you're a Patriots fan, bust out the boogie boards and get ready to ride the big wave.

Ultimately, I think that's the point.

The New England Patriots are the best villains the NFL has had since the Oakland Raiders of the '70s.

They have a head coach who seems to revel his role as Darth Hoodie. Bill Belichick doesn't care about you. (Or should I say he doesn't give a fuck about you?) He will beat you with running backs playing tackle. He will beat you with quarterbacks playing wide receivers playing defensive back. He will lose the best cornerback in the NFL to his detested divisional rival in free agency and shrug it off as just another day. (It's strictly business.) Ask him how he feels about something and he will look at you as if he was the Terminator considering his options for answering the landlord's questioning as to whether he might have a dead cat in his room.

They have a quarterback who's married to a super model and not just any super model but the richest super model in the world; the blueprint for every hot-on-the-Kelvin-scale Brazilian model who has followed Gisele Bundchen onto the glossy pages of fashion magazines and the imaginations of teenage boys. Tom Brady is the only American athlete with the profile of international soccer superstars like Messi and Ronaldo. He'll win the Oscar for best actor in his major motion picture debut. He'll play golf with a foursome that includes a research scientist and a casual remark he makes on the tee for the par 4 third will lead to a cure for cancer (and he'll birdie the hole). He's the first man since Dwight Eisenhower (who basically won World War II) who could become President of the United States regardless of which party he choses to run for and once elected (in a landslide) he will negotiate a lasting peace in the Middle East during his first term in office.

And you will hate him for it just like you hate him for winning four of the six Super Bowls he's played. Just like you hate him for besting your beloved, aw shucks, my teammates let me down today QB Peyton Manning, sending him home to sit on the couch with his chicken parm sub to watch the rest of the playoffs year after year. Just like you hate him for making you wonder if Joe Montana would've been that good if Jerry Rice didn't have stickum on his gloves.

The Patriots are universally hated by everyone west of the Connecticut River. Jets fans, Ravens fans, Broncos fans, Colts fans, even Jaguars fans root for their team and Whoever Is Playing The Patriots. Everyone cares when New England plays. If you're not rooting for them, you're rooting against them. They're good for business. They set ratings records in the Super Bowl. The Patriots are money. Cash money.

The next best outcome for the NFL's bottom line would be if the League levied the smallest of penalties allowed in the rule book, a $25,000 fine levied against New England. That's barely walking around money for Colts owner Jim Irsay. The haters would howl about this travesty of justice even as they run with the judgment as further proof the Patriots are cheaters.

Do not start a drinking game using the word "asterisk" if this happens.

There will bound to be plenty of suggestions as to where you can put that asterisk, too.