Just Another Sunday For Patriots' Fans

For about a day it was just about football. Okay, not just football. After all, Antonio Brown brought more baggage to Foxborough than the boys on The Darjeeling Limited. Still, I was looking forward to Tom Brady, Brown, Julian Edelman, Josh Gordon, James White, Sony Michel, and Phillip Dorsett doing amazing pigskin things. We were going to need a word that went on beyond explosive. 

And then, an explosion of a completely different, yet somehow unsurprising, kind occurred.

The civil suit accusing Brown of assault and rape seemed too easy to believe, given the obvious. Antonio Brown ain't no good guy. He's selfish. He quit on the Steelers, the team that made him a star. He threw a tantrum over his helmet, then held his breath and stomped his feet until his new team, the Raiders, released him. To nobody's surprise, he landed in New England, joining a team many pigskin pundits and bobbleheads had already ticketed for the Super Bowl. When the allegations became public, who wasn't ready to accept them at face value? The general antipathy toward the Patriots from football fans west of the Connecticut River only added to the schadenfreude. The Patriots were getting exactly what they deserved.

For me, it wasn't about football any more. Not that it ever is, really. The narratives surrounding the Patriots make Game of Thrones look like a Saturday morning cartoon for toddlers. Is there another team in the league where a player and owner could commiserate over accusations of sexual misconduct? 

Okay, there are probably others. We're talking about unspeakably wealthy old white guys and highly compensated young men in their sexual primes with the ability to make it rain like a hurricane. I'm pretty sure these men are having a lot of sex and not always with their wives/significant others.

It's been said before of NFL players; they're not all choirboys. Even before the civil suit became public, there were questions about how Antonio Brown's rather mercurial personality would fit in the Patriots locker room. You know. The Patriots Way. Me first vs. team first. We were reminded that Brian Cox, Corey Dillon, and Randy Moss all arrived in New England with significant questions about their character and commitment to football. We considered Brown'a need to rehabilitate his reputation, as well as the culture at 1 Patriots Place, not to mention the gravitas of Belichick and Brady. If any team could enable Brown's generational talent while managing his planet-sized ego, it was the New England Patriots.

And then, the other shoe dropped.

I've spent a fair amount of time rationalizing this week; in denial, in what can best be described as wishful thinking: It's a civil case, not a criminal case. The statement from Brown's lawyers cast it as a cash grab and threatened a counter suit. Maybe they have the goods. After all, many civil cases result in a payoff before they become public. Brown and his lawyers had a chance to cut a check and make this go away but chose not to pay off his accuser, Britney Taylor, knowing what that would mean. They have to believe they're going to win, whatever winning actually means in this context. 

So, here we are. 

I've spent the week checking to see if the NFL would allow Brown to play in Miami, listening to the pundits on sports radio debate marketing and image vs. presumed innocence. By Friday, it seemed Brown would play for the Patriots in Miami. How will I feel if Brown catches the game-winning TD Sunday? 

Brown may win his case in court and maybe his lawyers can spin this story with Brown cast as the hero; a man who stood up to false accusations and won not just for himself, but for all young men with more money than brains. Based on the little that I've learned so far, I can think of Brown as not guilty, but it's certainly hard to think of him as innocent. 

I assume Brown will receive a suspension at some point for staining the shield, regardless of how the civil case plays out. He may be placed on the Commissioner's exempt list next week. There will be an appeal, of course, because there always is, only serving to keep this story at the top of sports blogs and SportsCenter. 

It hasn't been just about football for a long time and maybe it never was for the Patriots of Belichick and Brady. It's been about controversial trades, spies on the sidelines, thermodynamics, little known subparagraphs in the NFL rule book, and occasionally, football; sublime, situational, complementary, all three phases of the game football. Why should this week be any different?

Just another Sunday for Patriots' fans.