A haters take on balls not inflated to regulation

The readers of this blog (and pretty much the entire sports world) have been begging me to post my opinions on DEFLATEGATE. Because of my extreme dislike of all things Belichickian and Bradian, I have refrained. Trust me, it has nothing to do with the fact I haven’t posted in several months. Regardless, sometimes you have to give the masses what they desire.

They did it. There, I said it. End post. The Patriots cut corners constantly, and Bill Belichick is a very smart man (with a surprisingly hard to spell last name now that I am actually having to write it). Tom Brady is an excellent QB, but one who has struggled throwing the football the past few years. The forecast was calling for rain/wind all week. Is it really that absurd that to think the Patriots may conspire to gain a slight advantage with the balls? The people that are shocked or surprised are just not intelligent or Boston fans. That said, everyone (even Patriots) are innocent until proven guilty.

Wait… no they aren’t! This isn’t a court of law. It’s a professional sports organization with a commissioner (I almost said with a governing body, but then I caught myself and started cackling manically). They have a track record. 11 of 12 balls were underinflated. If I were the NFL, I would simply state this fact and say that the Patriots are guilty, putting the onus on the organization to come up with a story. Of course, I would secretly still be doing my own research. Then, when the Patriots produce their explanation, the NFL will have their own information.

Which leads me into what is probably the most ridiculous part of the story… the gray area that is the footballs, prepping and inflating the footballs, etc. Why is this not defined clearly? I have no problem with allowing the teams to rub them up, inflate them to their liking and pass them over to the officials for inspection. I don’t even have a problem with turning them back over to the team, though it’s not how I would do it if I were writing the rules for a multi-billion dollar league. But, if that is the protocol, how can it not be the Patriots fault? The balls were in spec, returned back to the Patriots, then found to be out of spec. Common sense tells you that something happened, and that the Patriots were to blame.

If you are a manager at a manufacturing plant, and bad product is produced for a shift, do the customers or purchasers really care about the specifics? They are not concerned that a second shift operator was on her period, fought with her boyfriend and just didn’t give a shit that day. So why should it matter what happened to the balls? Do we really think that somebody sabotaged the footballs? Was it a Colts’ spy? Oh, and why we are operating under the theory that a Colts’ spy somehow got into the Pats organization, I’ll also add that it managed to happen to the most paranoid organization in American professional sports. Yes, that is definitely what took place.

Finally, the debate about temperature change accounting for the difference needs to stop. Based on weather conditions that day, temp change would have been around 20 degrees, which is not enough to cause a significant change, unless somehow 90 degree air was put in the balls or they were stored in a very cold place. If the air inside the balls or storage temperature was manipulated, it is the same as deflating them. “Ha, I got you NFL! We didn’t deflate them, we just put 120 degree air in them. Can’t blame us! We’re smart and edgy.” My apologies, that last one was a little over the top.

The Patriots should be held accountable unless the organization can prove without a doubt that they had no involvement at all. This, of course, will not happen. There will be a fall guy, a fine and lost draft picks, then business will resume as usual. The legacy questions will gain even more traction, and the NFL will have something to discuss until the draft. The NFL world turns on, per usual. At the very least, maybe the Shield can find a way to protect their balls going forward.

Moral Coasting

It’s well known that Charles Barkley doesn’t think professional athletes should be role models. Parents need to teach their kids right or wrong, and athletes are meant to entertain. Let them entertain, and allow due process and the legal system deal with punishing. Others suggest that being a professional athlete is just like any other job: if you aren’t incarcerated, you have the right to do your job.

That’s the part where I usually turn off. It’s an argument that should not be spoken again. The public is not asking Adrian Peterson or Ray Rice to raise their kids, but they are requiring they be held to a higher standard than a factory worker in Ohio. We are not trying to deny the athlete the right to his due process; however, a player wearing a jersey is representing a team and a league. Both of those have the right to sideline players in ANY situation, but especially given a pending legal investigation.

The greediness of the league and owners becomes all too apparent here. Louisa Thomas wrote an excellent article on domestic abuse in the NFL. What does it say that I remember the gun charge against Terrell Suggs, but I recalled nothing of the domestic abuse? What does it say about the NFL? Big companies distance themselves from controversy. See Tiger Woods or any baseball player that failed a PED test. Sponsors drop because they fear of being associated with controversy. Why would the NFL or their teams not distance themselves the same way? Too much money is at stake if they don’t allow a star to take the field and arrogantly, they believe they can shift our focus from those crimes. Furthermore, if no punishment is publicly handed down, then no standards are set, and the process can repeat itself. The cases Thomas presented were business risks, pure and simple, and dealt with as such by the NFL.

The backpedaling and double talk through this whole case has been remarkable. Teams are jumping back and forth across the fence depending on the day’s public reaction. This is not a fine for inappropriate language; these are very clear cut issues. I would wager that someone in the Vikings organization advised against activating Adrian Peterson. This person was ignored, but the unhappy sponsors were not. It genuinely speaks to the cynical and greedy nature of NFL management and the culture that has taken over the league. Nobody is without blame.

The next shocking thing is the talking heads defending the NFL, acting as if this is a very difficult thing to police, and a line needs to be established by the league. As if THAT is the core of the problem, not the inaction by teams and the NFL. Well, I will go ahead and establish a line in the sand to give the NFL a start. A player needs to be taken off the field for the following:
1. If there is overwhelming evidence, whether charges were pressed or not. If there is a video, pictures or admission, this should be enough to remove a player from action.
2. If a player is convicted of a crime. I do not care about the state’s legal system and appeals process. If a judge or jury convicts, that person is guilty until proven innocent.
3. If the crime is particularly heinous. Rape, murder, abuse etc. If the person in question is suspected, then that alone is ample reason to keep the player off the field.

This doesn’t mean the NFL should disregard the legal system. The case should play out, and once it is settled, compensation can be arranged. If the player was innocent, without a doubt that player should receive his full salary. On the flip side, if a player was compensated and is found guilty, a settlement should be reached. Perhaps the contract is voided or the player receives a discounted salary if/when he returns. I would think this would be in the Union’s best interest as well; thugs should not be the most prominent players on any team.

The point is, establishing lines would not be difficult. There would be gray areas, and rules would have to be modified, but that is to be expected. It’s obvious that we cannot count on the National Football League or owners to police themselves honorably, so lines must be drawn. Owners may end up losing money on a player, but isn’t that a risk the owner takes when a contract is signed? The term “high risk player” is used constantly. So, we can’t sign a player like TO because his antics may create too much off the field attention, but we can sign a player with a history of domestic abuse and not be concerned with the same thing?

Chuck is correct. Professional athletes do not have to be role models. I wish more of them would strive to set good examples, but that cannot be controlled and is really beside the point. The organization that gives them their platform does have a responsibility to make being on that stage a privilege. The NFL is represented by the players on Sundays, and I am simply asking the league to do everything in its power to ensure those players deserve to be there. And I ask these decisions be made not thinking about the size of the next check, but rather the millions of kids watching.

The deplorably clueless NFL

“When morality comes up against profit, it is seldom that profit loses.” – Shirley Chisholm

“I think the NFL is 10 years away from an implosion.” – Mark Cuban

Cuban said this in regards specifically to the NFL expanding its TV package, but it also spoke to a bigger issue. The National Football League is terrifyingly arrogant. It’s unclear whether success led to greed that eventually led to this arrogance, or if it has been an inherent quality of the Goodell regime from day one. Regardless, it has led us to a Ray Rice abomination that is the 4th or 5th step (of maybe 10?) in the destruction of the NFL, and most likely football as the sport is known today.

The atrocity of the event and the ”legal” proceedings that followed have been covered by every media outlet imaginable. I would argue this has turned out quite convenient for the NFL. Too convenient. The league received backlash, but instead of taking further action, they simply changed their policy. That’s fine, but then the video was leaked yesterday. That backlash combined with the initial outrage from the too light punishment, and now Ray Rice is out of the league and off the Ravens. Csoincidentally, both of these should have happened immediately after the first video was seen. The sequence of events leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I refuse to believe that nobody from the NFL knew what was on that tape. They did not realize how strongly fans would respond, or maybe league executives were under the impression steps were taken to ensure that the video would not be seen by the public. Either way, this was a situation requiring a complete, “turn over every single stone” type investigation with full transparency. The NFL failed miserably. But the shield didn’t stop there; it also believed that the situation could be manipulated after the fact so they could free themselves from any responsibility.

Sound familiar? It’s not the first time the NFL has taken this route.

The league does not know when to say “Uncle.” Rolling Stone. According to the WSJ, the NFL would like the Super Bowl halftime show to become a bidding war. After that, perhaps Roger Goodell will just take a cut of what the artist makes immediately after the Super Bowl performance, because the NFL undoubtedly needs more money from the game.

That situation, Thursday night games and 18 game schedule proposals leave me with two thoughts about the NFL. None of the brass care about increasing the fan experience if it doesn’t involve more profit, and nobody has the integrity of the game itself as their main concern.

Baseball and golf will live forever because of the long tradition and maniacal concern with the integrity of the game. Basketball and soccer are constantly expanding their footprint and accessibility to key markets. Baseball and basketball work incessantly to improve the fan’s experience. If it can’t be made cheaper, more value can be introduced. The NFL fan’s experience gets more expensive every year.  The experience has gone up over 50% over the last decade, and it wasn’t cheap in 2003. I tried to compare this to NBA and MLB numbers, but the fact that a google search didn’t turn up immediate numbers on either of these leagues told me everything I needed to know. As a friend told me yesterday, “[the NFL doesn’t] try to figure out how to give their customers more, they try to figure out how to extract more”

I get that fewer games create more demand. But the problem is much deeper than that. The NFL carries the torch for football (no way the NCAA is doing that), and nothing on a macro scale has been done to make me think that football is becoming safer. No discussions of major rule changes or shortening the schedule (gasp!). I understand that greed cannot be legislated out of any business, but I constantly get the overwhelming feeling that everybody wants to get rich off of the NFL, and nobody wants to protect its most important assets.

Ashamedly, I will watch this year. I will probably watch next year and the year after that. But in 10 years? I’m not sure. Soccer is becoming a better product, and the NCAA football landscape is ever shifting. More importantly though, will my kids have any reason at all to watch when they are my age? If they grow up not playing the sport, the best athletes drift towards sports with longer careers and fewer long term concerns, and contact has been dialed back? Why would they?

This is obviously a question and responsibility the current commissioner is not prepared to handle. Hopefully, the latest incident will spur the owners into action. Goodell needs to go, and football needs to look for someone that can guide them through the next 5 very crucial years of the sport.

Or there won’t be anything to watch.

 

 

 

Nate Smith contributed to this article.