In our time, to overshadow the Super Bowl is all but impossible. Stealing headlines from the twenty-four hour cycle of stories that plague the game’s lead up has rarely been done, if even attempted. Super Bowl XLIX, however, had a different air about it. Who knows if years from now this will be known as the “Deflategate Super Bowl” or if the all-consuming story will peter out and die in some forsaken land of forgotten scandals. No matter what happens in the memories of next generations, this year’s game currently takes second priority to conspiracy theories and questionable assumptions, and that is a shame.
L.A. Times Columnist Bill Plaschke compares this case to one from 2003 in which Sammy Sosa, a baseball player, put cork in his bat and was suspended for eight games. He writes that “if a similar punishment were assessed in football,” Bill Belichick and Tom Brady would be suspended for the Super Bowl. The only problem, though, is that the NFL does not have a similar punishment, and so obviously does not deem using a deflated football a comparable offense.
Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman said on Dallas radio that punishment for the Patriots should be “more severe than what the punishment was for the Saints,” referring to a 2012 bounty scandal that led to a year-long suspension for New Orleans head coach Sean Payton. The list of witch-hunters goes on.
Yet in the grand scheme of NFL rules, letting air out of footballs is not overwhelmingly heinous. The league states that any team using footballs not within the 12.5-13.5 psi range is subject to a $25,000 fine—the same fine, for perspective, given to Wide Receiver Chad Johnson in 2010 for wearing gold cleats during a game. In the eyes of the NFL, tampering with a game ball is just as bad as making an unapproved fashion statement. In the eyes of any rational person there is a clear difference, but it shows that using a deflated football warrants a slap on the wrist, if $25,000 would even feel like a slap to an NFL team. So if this is really old hat to the NFL, why has the story become overinflated into one nearing national crisis?
What makes this exciting is Bill Belichick’s involvement. Over time, New England’s coach has gained a reputation (fair or not) of stretching the limits of the rules. He also has a reputation of winning, which has left more than a few resentful people in his wake. With the hullabaloo created by this recent story, a greater flood of easily-believed accusations have come out.
Apparently some opposing coaches feel the need to put locks on their doors when they visit the Patriots so none of Belichick’s minions walk in and steal the playbook. Others accuse the team of erecting a huge television screen outside the stadium in such a way that New England’s sideline can see the game’s broadcast while the opposing sideline has no view. Actual photographs say otherwise.
In their game against the Ravens in the Divisional round of the playoffs, the Patriots were accused of running an illegal play. Even after the league concurred with Belichick that the play was in fact legal, Sports Illustrated’s Mike Rosenberg blamed the coach for this “circumvention of the rules.” But when Belichick is involved, people always expect the worst and blow things out of proportion.
Very few people may remember that over two years ago, the University of Southern California’s football team dealt with a similar situation when a ball boy admitted to deflating game balls “after they had been tested and approved by officials prior to the game.” Why do so few people remember? Because when the NCAA fined the school and the football team fired the ball boy, there was nothing left to say. The act of using a deflated football itself did not warrant special attention.
Earlier this NFL season, during a November game between the Packers and the Patriots, broadcaster Phil Simms related that Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers sometimes inflates the football “over what they allow you to do and see if the officials take air out of it.”
If using a football outside the stated psi range were so heinous, why would Aaron Rodgers openly admit to doing it without fear of retribution? Why would Phil Simms nonchalantly bring it up during a broadcast, as if he were simply explaining a part of Rodgers’ regular routine? Simms obviously had no qualms about it—he only expressed surprise that Rodgers goes over the limit instead of under, because “Everyone wants [the football] smaller and soft.”
Aaron Rodgers, as well-known a quarterback as there is in the game, admitted to doing just what New England is accused of doing, and no one cared. There was no investigation. There were no stories about it on ESPN or Nightly News. Troy Aikman never called for Rodgers’ year long suspension. Rodgers was not even fined the requisite $25,000.
This goes beyond the act of using a deflated football. This story has become a big deal because of people’s imaginations, because people believe that in some dim back room of Gillette Stadium, Belichick is always scheming.
Belichick adamantly stated that weather conditions, not team manipulation, led to the footballs’ under inflation. I cannot say for certain whether this is the truth because I was not there. What I can say is that more than once, if I have left a basketball outside on a cold night, the next morning it will not bounce. Whether or not the footballs were purposefully deflated is beside the point. If the Patriots did indeed take more air out of the ball than is allowed, they deserve a fine from the league for cheating. According to history, however, this should be a non-story. The Patriots’ last minute victory in Super Bowl XLIX on Sunday eclipses this petty argument and only enhances Belichick’s reputation for winning.•
