Deflating importance of big game
Published 11:02 am Wednesday, January 21, 2015
Gather ’round people, this is serious.
Really, do you care if the Seattle Seahawks repeat as Super Bowl champions?
But it’s not all about you. Verily, can the fine American people as a whole get behind this quest?
Me, I’d halfway forgotten they won it last year.
So let’s check the other coast, where the New England Patriots are primed for yet another trip, which I doubt excites anybody outside of, well, New England and perhaps a few ex-patriots elsewhere.
There’s Tom Brady, the far-too-good-looking-for-anybody’s-good quarterback, and his chance at a fourth title.
Seems like a nice enough guy.
But come on, he’s already got three rings, more money than he’ll ever spend, a winning smile, and he’s married to a super model with three perfectly behaved offspring.
Not exactly a Cinderella Story to excite the masses.
Or maybe you can get the warm fuzzies hoping the coach, Bill “The On to Cincinnati Kid” Belichick gets that fourth Super Bowl.
He’s, uh, he’s …
Didn’t think so. Forget I ever mentioned it, although I know how much the civilian population loves watching the media get dissed over from time to time.
No, I’m just not feeling the obvious story lines, even as the world pauses for the two-week break before Super Bowl XLIX, which maybe should be sponsored by a laxative.
Personally, I’m far more intrigued with Tuesday’s news, somewhat buried as it was, that an LPGA golfer named — really, honest to Pete, this is her name —Brooke Pancake has landed an endorsement deal with Waffle House (the one just off I-10 near Crowley, I think).
“This will be the first time that the Waffle Nation will be cheering for a Pancake,” said Walt Ehmer, who is Waffle House’s president and chief executive officer, in a quote I absolutely did not make up.
But that may be a niche´ rooting interest at best, and it would be far better for Waffle House’s best offering if she’d change her name to something like Haley Hashbrowns.
And, I know-I know, we’re getting off track here.
Sorry.
But listen up.
It is your sworn duty as an American to care about the Super Bowl.
Anything less is flirting with Communism, perhaps consorting with suspected vegetarians at Waffle House.
It just doesn’t cut it to wait until the end of the quarters and hope the score lines jive with the square you bought on the office Super Bowl board.
No, this is a two-week obligation. Some years there’s an easy two weeks worth of anxiety, anguish and bickery chit-chat for the affair.
Just because this isn’t one of those years doesn’t relieve you of your duty.
Two long weeks — what used to be known (for no apparent reason) as a “fortnight.”
So we have got to hope and pray that this DeflateGate thing has two-week legs.
It doesn’t seem like much, but it’s going to have to do. It’s going to have to be, for our sake, the scandal that dominates the Super Bowl right up through the pregame show.
Surely you heard about it.
The NFL is investigating whether or not the Patriots perhaps gained an unfair advantage in their 45-7 AFC championship victory over the Colts because the footballs were under-inflated, which scientific studies have shown makes them easier to catch.
America’s outrage, which was instant, went something like this:
“What difference does it make? Wouldn’t they be easier for the Colts to catch, too?”
Well, silly you, of course not.
It turns out, once we get a glimpse behind the scenes at the NFL’s underbelly, that both teams have their own balls on their own sideline (this precaution dates back to football’s sandlot days when sometimes a kid would get mad, or his mom would call him in, and he’d take his ball and go home, which put a damper on miracle comebacks).
The NFL leaves nothing to chance, however. If nothing else, now we know that precisely two hours, 15 minutes before kickoff, the referees personally check each football for weight (14-15 ounces) and air pressure (12.5-13.5 pounds per square inch).
They’re persnickety about it.
The NFL game manual states that “Once the balls have left the locker room, no one, including players, equipment managers, ball boys, and coaches, is allowed to alter the footballs in any way.”
Although it would seem to be easy enough to do it on the sly.
And, it turns out, the referees keep a personal watch over the separate balls used exclusively for kicking (old-timers know it affectionately as the “Son of Flubber” rule).
It’s the kind of thing that, in the regular season, might be passed off but — we can only hope — could come to dominate headlines for a Super Bowl.
Really, it has the ring of one of those delicious NASCAR scandals. You know, when it turns out that Jimmy-Jack’s carbohyrdomodulator was ratcheted up 1.2 degrees beyond legal.
The good old boys laugh it off, and the winner at Talladega or somewhere gets fined $5.27 (before heading off to Waffle House).
It is worth noting that if anybody in the NFL lives by the NASCAR Code — “If You Ain’t Cheating, You Ain’t Trying” —Belichick might be your man.
He got nailed and fined for SpyGate, when he was secretly taping another team’s signals, and has thus far danced around direct questions on this pressing matter —“We’re on to Cincinnati.”
He’s always looking for any little edge, any little detail.
So stay tuned.
Whether or not any of this, if true, was 38 points worth of cheating in a 45-7 game is not really a key element here.
The important thing is to keep the dialogue and the investigation going until Super Bowl Sunday.
We don’t have much else.
(MGNonline)