Better Than You

Is there anyone on this planet not named Roger Goodell who still thinks Tom Brady needed to deflate footballs to gain a competitive advantage?

Oh, you still think he did "something?"

Yeah, he did. He played football better than you.

Okay, I get it. You need an explanation. How do they win the toss at a statistically unsustainable rate? (That one is easy - magnets.) You need a reason why your team always loses to New England. Something to help you sleep at night.

It can't be the Patriots aren't a better football team. (Hello! Parity!) They're cheaters!

It'll be okay. Here's your engraved trophy and your officially notarized certificate of participation, suitable for framing.

Also, please feel free to choose one from the…

Top 10 Ways the Patriots Cheated My Team out of a Win

#10 – They're Still Deflating the Footballs

Hey, this is the Patriots we're talking about. If deflating footballs by 0.3 PSI is the only reason they've been able to win 78% of their games over the past 15 years, you know they've figured out a way to do it, regardless of the new protocols imposed by the league.

Has anyone checked center David Andrews' waistband for a foreign object? You know, like a referee frisking a WWE villain for the Popsicle stick he's been jabbing in our stalwart good guy's neck. Only he hid it in his shoe when he knew you were going to frisk him so he's still got it! Oh, no! There goes another Tom Brady touchdown pass!

#9 – Bill Belichick Has Read the Rule Book

Here in America we have a strong and undeniable anti-intellectual attitude and rightly so. Nobody likes a know-it-all. Even as adults we still want to shove nerds in a locker; the only thing that stops us is the lack of lockers available in the modern workplace. Count yourself lucky if you have a job where a walk-in cooler or a supply closet is close at hand. Not that you'd actually do it, of course. It's just a fun thing to think about. The walk-in cooler scenario is particularly – shall we say – hilarious.

Anyway.

Being smarter than your opponent, winning with smarts, winning with deception just isn't fair and square. It is, by definition, dishonest and it's deceptive and deceiving and cheating, damn it! You know it when you see it. If you see it. Ineligible eligible receivers! The League determined John Harbaugh's sniveling mewling and whining was actually righteous mewling and whining when it banned a formation the objective fan of the game might've thought of as a fun wrinkle for what it really was.

Deceptive, dishonest cheating!

[drops mic]

#8 – Tom Brady is a Cyborg

Despite his protestations that he is, in fact, human, it seems clear Tom Brady has a titanium steel chassis, high definition optical devices in his eyes and a real-time predictive analytics appliance in his frontal lobe.

Expect the Competition Committee to address the use of cybernetic organisms in the off-season. Or try. I'm not sure the players association is going to agree to the invasive regime required for effective cyborg testing so this could take some time to implement.

Brady may be able to retire before he can be tested and banned.

[I expect this rationalization to grow in popularity if Brady plays until he's 48 and wins ten Super Bowls in a row.]

#7 – Julian Edelman Had His Brain Removed so Concussions Can't Slow Him Down

Once again, the Patriots are ahead of that curve that runs just outside the line between the bedrock values of pigskin society and moral gridiron ambiguity. Following his craniectomy, there's no chance Edelman will show any symptoms that would invoke the League's concussion protocols. The Patriots learn from everything. They saw what happened in the Super Bowl on that big hit to Jules. They know what might have been.

No risk of that happening, now.

Edelman's gray matter was replaced with wireless neural receivers mapped to radio frequencies broadcast by Brady's helmet, explaining why Jules and Tom act like entangled sub-atomic particles on the football field.

#6 – Belichick's So-Called "Jedi Mind Tricks" are Real

Don't want to believe this one? (I find your lack of faith disturbing.) Go back and watch the last two minutes of Super Bowl XLIX.

#5 – Tom Brady is Young Odin

Asgardian. Unless that Cyborg thing is real, this is the next best explanation for Tom Brady's career. Seriously, you've seen the "Thor" movies so you know Odin is a total badass and why wouldn't he be? He's Thor's dad!

Is it fair for mere mortals to have to play against a Norse god?

I think we all know the answer to that question.

#4 – PEDs

Does the League test for avocado ice cream?

No?

Isn't it time they started?

#3 – Bill Belichick Has a Time Machine

It was built by Ernie Adams, of course.

Electronic listening devices in the visiting locker room? Please! Belichick routinely travels a week into the future to get a look at his opponent's game plan.

The League demonstrated its complete ignorance of fluid mechanics in Deflategate; are we supposed to believe they know anything at all about temporal physics? And if anyone catches on, Belichick can just travel back in time and kill them.

Wait. What? Did I say Bill Belichick has a time machine? I meant to say Bill Belichick doesn't have a time machine. I mean, come on; that would just be crazy, am I right?

Seriously, Bill Belichick does not have a time machine.

#2 – Rob Gronkowski

See Gronk's face next to the word "unfair" in the dictionary.

#1 – Coca Cola and Frosted Flakes

They're not really poison.

Have you ever wondered why it is that guys who couldn't get off the bench for their old team suddenly become pigskin folk heroes in New England? That's right. Coke and Frosted Flakes at breakfast, lunch and dinner is served in the team cafeteria. Is that cheating? It wasn't. Until Tom Brady tried to convince everyone else they shouldn't drink Coke and eat Frosted Flakes.

That lying, conniving, cheating bastard.

Oh, and Frosted Mini-Wheats and Mountain Dew?

Promotes colon health.

[Special thanks to my son Alex for his help with this list.]