Sometime around Wednesday afternoon it became impossible to read or watch any mainstream Super Bowl coverage. After news broke that the NFL had picked out a suspect in DeflateGate and Robert Kraft stupidly demanded an apology from the NFL, the pause button was pushed. The NFL made it clear it wouldn’t make a ruling (i.e. punish the Patriots) until after the Super Bowl. So there was nothing left to talk about.
In response to this, most of the media went back to treating this like they would a normal Super Bowl. They’re looking at coaching strategies, player matchups, strategies to attack Seattle’s defense and strategies to slow down Rob Gronkowski. DelfateGate still lingers in the background, on pause, but it’s being treated like a distraction that the Patriots will have to overcome to win the Super Bowl. Something they’re going to have to overcome in order to compete on the level they want to.
The thing is, I can’t play that game. I can’t look at the match-ups, strategies and undeniably all-time great NFL players in this game without being stepped on by the elephant in the room. And, I’m not checking, but I’m positive that elephant has something suspiciously wrong with the air pressure in its balls.
At this point, it’s ridiculous to assume that the Patriots didn’t cheat their way to this Super Bowl, but it’s also ridiculous to assume they didn’t cheat their way to the last two they made since SpyGate.
Bill Belichick came out last Saturday and showed he had the same basic grasp of atmospheric science as a member of Insane Clown Posse.
It doesn’t surprise me that Belichick came out as a Juggalo a week before the Super Bowl, and what also wouldn’t surprise me is if the Patriots were doing other nefarious rule-bending outside of de-inflating the footballs. At this point, I would believe anything.
As a St. Louis Rams fan, I made peace with the Patriots after the loss in Super Bowl XXXVI. None of us had any concept of the crap they were pulling then, taping signals at best and clandestinely recording their opposing team’s pre-game practices and walkthroughs at worst. We had no reason to believe that game wasn’t played straight up and that the Patriots won it fairly.
While I didn’t like the Patriots, I respected them. What they were accomplishing was something that, post free agency, post salary cap, should have been close to impossible. They had built a dynasty. Yes, I actively rooted against them in their next two Super Bowls, but that was it. That was all the power I had.
Then SpyGate broke and everything changed. Now the Patriots weren’t just a team I didn’t like, they were the most vile organization on the planet. When Roger Goodell willingly destroyed evidence to cover up the extent of SpyGate, he went on the enemies list too. The satisfaction I got from watching the Patriots lose the following Super Bowl to the New York Giants is a feeling I’ve matched only once since, when the Giants beat them again four years later.
It was an enjoyable refrain, the knowledge that the Patriots couldn’t win the Super Bowl without cheating. You couldn’t deny the talent or greatness of those teams. Making the Super Bowl is an accomplishment all in itself and New England’s 18-0 run in 2007 was nothing short of spectacular. But now, you can deny all that. Because they were still breaking the rules to give themselves a competitive advantage the entire time.
So I can’t talk about Tom Brady playing his sixth Super Bowl. I can’t write about Brady’s possible achievement of tying Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw with four Super Bowl titles because those guys didn’t cheat their way to the game.
I can’t discuss the strategic match-up between Pete Carroll and Bill Belichick because Carroll uses the NFL rule book to craft his gameplans. Belichick uses it for toilet paper.
Justice, as a concept, does not exist in nature. It is solely the invention of the human consciousness and has become the very bedrock of our civilization. And justice, it seems, has finally come for the New England Patriots. They should not be in this game, but here they are and, facing the increased scrutiny of the NFL and the entire world, they can not cheat. They have to play by the rules.
This game will not be close. Seahawks 38, Patriots 17
