In a day filled with constant Delfate-Gate news and commentary, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft decided to throw whatever hat that’s big enough to fit his watermelon-sized head into the mix.
Kraft released a statement Monday night, saying, “If the Wells investigation is not able to definitely determine that our organization tampered with the air pressure in the footballs, I would expect and hope the league would apologize to our entire team and in particular coach (Bill) Belichick and Tom Brady for what they have had to endure in the last week. I am disappointed in the way the entire matter has been handled and reported upon.”
Well, boo hoo, Bobby.
There’s a great story that takes place in Greece in 346 B.C. Philip II of Macedon was in the middle of an epic conquest, racking up victories all over the the Greek peninsula, building an empire that reached as far east as present-day Turkey and as far north as Romania. Philip was a bad dude and actually sired an even badder dude, Alexander the Great. You’ve probably heard of him.
Anyway, Philip just a year before had conquered Hebrus and was feeling pretty good. Athens was making overtures for peace after a few battles, so Philip set his eyes on Sparta. Where the Spartans live.
I know you’ve heard of those guys. Obviously, the Spartans still have a pretty badass reputation today and that stuff that happened in the movie 300, the Battle of Thermopylae, took place about 140 years before. So, by this time, in the vernacular of your annoying nephew who wears Beats by Dre headphones around his neck at all times, the Spartans were swole.
Instead of just attacking Sparta, Philip decides to send them a letter to warn them he was coming so they might as well go ahead and surrender. It said, “You are advised to submit without further delay, for if I bring my army on your land, I will destroy your farms, slay your people and raze your city.”
The Spartans wasted no time in replying. Their answer was a single word: “If.”
Philip never invaded Sparta.
The dictionary defines the word “hubris” as “excessive pride or self-confidence; arrogance.” I’d like to think that Kraft put this statement together before news broke the NFL had picked out a suspect or that Wilson Sporting Goods let it be known, in no uncertain terms, that their footballs do not deflate in game conditions and any insinuation that they do, to use their words, “is BS.” That he wrote this before it was suggested that the NFL had set up a sting operation to catch the Patriots cheating with deflated footballs in the AFC title game.
Surely knowing all that Kraft wouldn’t have released that statement. But he probably did. The man is a symbol of his team. Hubris, you see. Not a single word fits the New England Patriots organization better.
“If the Wells investigation is not able to definitely determine that our organization tampered with the air pressure in the footballs…” Kraft says.
“If.”
