Let me preface this column by admitting that my New England Patriots fandom is perhaps best described as religiously fanatical. Robert Kraft is the Father, Tom Brady is the Son, who came out of nowhere to save the franchise, and Bill Belichick is the mystical, spiritual being that binds the two.
So with that cleared up, we need a villain. Enter Roger Goodell, or, Satan (only in the metaphorical sense, of course).
You see, my anger at Roger Goodell stems from last year’s AFC Championship Game debacle. Maybe you’ve heard of it, DeflateGate?
Well, if you’ve been living under a rock, the NFL leaked to the media that Patriots’ footballs were underinflated. The world stopped turning, people went out of their minds, and a multi-million dollar investigation was launched, led by attorney Ted Wells. Wells, in his report, used some iffy science and circumstancial evidence to conclude that Tom Brady and the Patriots had entered a scheme to knowingly deflate the balls to gain an competitive advantage. The integrity of the game was at stake, Satan…uh, Goodell…said.
Tom Brady was suspended for four games (a suspension that was later overturned, before he posted an MVP-worthy season), and the Patriots were fined $1 million dollars and two draft picks.
Now, just about every reputable scientist, from high school juniors to MIT professors, has come out and said that the science used by the Wells Report is trash.
Fortunately, the NFL is also reputable, so the organization put into place measures to keep track of the PSI numbers in this year’s footballs, to see whether or not they’d back up the science used to crucify Brady (again, metaphorically speaking).
One of the games in question should have been the Vikings’ playoff matchup with the Seattle Seahawks, where the temperature on field hovered around a balmy zero degrees. Weather that should have surely caused a drop in the ball pressure. One that the NFL was so worried about, it changed the balls at half time.
So why haven’t you heard of this? Because, according to Goodell during the Super Bowl 50 media frenzy, the NFL never actually kept the PSI numbers.
That’s right. Multi-million dollar investigation, and the NFL threw away the numbers after each game (even though the new rules in place say that the PSI numbers should be included in the referees’ written game reports). Tom Brady and the Patriots cheated so seriously that the NFL is still chasing this in court, but the numbers that could clear up this incident aren’t important. But why, Yourell?
It could be that the numbers prove that the Wells Report was wrong. It could be that Goodell told the truth and the numbers were tossed. But the truth that no one can really deny, is that Sat…Roger, has less integrity than this biased column.