"Deflategate" Is Absurd
by Sam Hanchett
Listen, the "tuck rule" incident will never stop bothering me. But if the Raiders won that game, I still think Tom Brady would have won some Super Bowls. I've actually hated the Patriots for most of his tenure which has been a golden age for Boston sports in general, which I have had to live around...and I'm from New York. But I'm a rational human being so I've softened a good deal and I enjoy going to Fenway (only time I ever watch baseball anymore) and watching other playoff runs at the local bar with my friends now. My rationality has also produced an annoyance at nit-picking. The media--it's nit picking. "This isn't about deflated balls, it's about CHEATING". It's about deflated balls, and no one would care if this wasn't the best team of the last 14 years.
Sure there are many ways to cheat in sports; and some things are way more egregious than others. For the Patriots we got two "gates" (can't the media come up with something original? How long ago was "Watergate"?) and some dude from the Panthers saying something vague about how he thought something was fishy because they lost. I believe this New England team (Belichick/Brady) has been to 8 AFC title games and now 6 super bowls and the two they probably wanted to win most; they lost, to New York. I bet they tried to spy and deflate the balls like crazy against the Giants, but wait, people still had to make actual tackles and runs and catches and passes and blocks?! What?! And the Pats didn't win?!
For most of the last decade I was the guy who would have most enjoyed seeing The Patriots go down in any sort of manner so you can't argue that I'm a Homer. In every level of sport people do whatever they can to get an edge. I don't agree with cheating but some corners that are cut don't bother me and most go unseen, making us none the wiser.
The Patriots have gotten it done ON THE FIELD more consistently than any other football team for a very long time.
"But they've done it so well that it's too good to be true right? No one can be that good. We gotta take them down a peg. We don't like people or teams that are perfect. Wait what? Someone said something about 11 deflated balls? Yes. YES that's it! That's how they've done it all these years. And we'll call it "deflategate" and talk about it for two whole weeks before that TV event with bad halftime music and overly expensive commercials that aren't even that good. The DRAMA!!!" - Media
"Um what about the Seahawks and discussing the actual football game and strategies. Talking to the players on both teams and learning about their lives and how they worked so hard to get to this moment?" - Me
