Tag Archives: New England Patriots

Sports news

Conspiracy theory at Super Bowl? Aw, come on!

It’s official: Conspiracy theories can exist in any context, any endeavor, any environment.

This might be my favorite conspiracy theory of all time.

Seattle Seahawks head football coach Pete Carroll called a pass play at the end of the Super Bowl to enable quarterback Russell Wilson a chance to win the game’s most valuable player award instead of handing the ball to Marshawn “Beast Mode” Lynch, who could lay claim to the MVP honor if he scored the winning touchdown.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/seahawks-discussed-conspiracy-theory-about-end-of-super-bowl-xlix/ar-BBhOCFx

Do you follow me?

Wilson is a fine young man,Ā a good guy in the locker room, a great teammate, a role model for youngsters all across the nation.

Lynch? Umm, he’s … uh … shall we say, few of those things. He’s a bit of a dramatist. He gets fined for not talking to the media. He’s known as somethingĀ — gosh, I hate to say this, but I will anyway — of a thug.

As most sports fans anywhere know, the Super Bowl didn’t end the way Carroll and his team wanted it to end. Wilson’s pass at the goal line was intercepted by New England Patriots defensive back Malcolm Butler. The game ended with the Patriots winning 28-24.

The recriminations have been furious.

Carroll took ownership of the goal-line call. So did Wilson.

As for the conspiracy theory, we’ll never know.

My prediction: This one will grow arms and legs like all the myriad other conspiracy theories out there.

As MSN.com.sports noted: “Who in their right mind would ever fess up to this?”

national news

Williams's story — and reputation — are unraveling

Think of the Brian Williams story in terms of a sports referee.

A journalist shouldn’t ever become the story any more than, say, a football referee should determine the outcome of an athletic event. The Super Bowl played in Glendale, Ariz., the game won by the New England Patriots? Does anyone remember the officials in that game? No. They weren’t part of the story.

Williams, though, has become a story onto himself in light of the “Choppergate” controversy. He has told a tall tale for a dozen years about being shot down in Iraq in 2003. Then it came out he wasn’t shot down. Now we’re learning that his apology might not even add up.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/02/brian-williams-is-in-serious-trouble-202226.html?hp=l1_3_b2

The latest now is that the NBC Nightly News anchor is stepping aside “for a few days” to sort things out.

The media being what they are and with public curiosity crystallizing by the hour over this matter, it is appearing increasingly unlikely that the one-time solid broadcast journalist is going to regain his footing.

I consider myself a serious consumer of news. I get it from several places — online, print, broadcast TV and cable TV. I receive lots of punditry, commentary, editorializing throughout the political and philosophical universe.

I’m trying right at this moment to imagine ever listening to Brian Williams tell me what’s happening in the world without wondering: Is he giving it to me straight?

These men and women trade almost exclusively on the trust they build with their viewers. That trust is constructed with a commodity that isĀ rock solid, but only if it doesn’t suffer damage. Then it becomes highly fragile.

That commodity isĀ the truth, the slightest fudging of which rendersĀ the message being delivered meaningless. It appears to me that Brian Williams has doneĀ more than “misremember” a wartime event.

He has become The Story.

 

Sports news

Coach Carroll stands tall

The 49th Super Bowl played Sunday night no doubt will go down in the books as arguably the most memorable ever.

Great game. Two great teams. Great finish.

And it ended in controversy. Not because of a blown official’s call. It ended because one of the teams, the Seattle Seahawks, tried to execute a play that many football brainiacs have questioned. Some have called it the “worst play call in the history of the National Football League.”

The Seahawks lost 28-24 to the New England Patriots after Patriots’ defensive back Malcolm Butler intercepted a pass at the goal line with less than 30 seconds to play. The Seahawks had three chances to score a go-ahead touchdown from the 1-yard line; sitting in their backfield was a running back nicknamed “Beast Mode,” Marshawn Lynch, who earned that descriptive nickname for the obvious reason. Seattle went for the pass. It failed.

What happened after the game is worth noting.

Head coach Pete Carroll manned up. He took full responsibility. It was his call all the way. He said he is responsible for making the call that, as it turned out, cost the Seahawks the chance to repeat as NFL champs.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/seattle-coach-pete-carroll-stands-by-decision-to-pass/ar-AA8UkPK

You have got to admire the coach for that. He could have passed the buck. He could have put the monkey on the back of his offensive coordinator. He could have said the players talked him into making the call. He could have said he was distracted by all the crowd noise. For crying out loud, CarrollĀ could have said he was suffering from a splitting headache and wasn’t thinking clearly.

Carroll said none of that. Instead, he said: “We easily could have gone otherwise, but when they sent their goal-line guys in, I know that we have the advantage on the matchups in the passing game so let’s throw it. It’s OK. One of those downs we were likely to throw the ball — maybe two of those downs we would have thrown the ball depending on how we had to save the clock. We had to get all of our plays.”

There you have it.

A man taking the sting of defeat like, well, a man.

Well done, coach.

 

Sports news

It all came down to one great football game

The hype didn’t matter. The controversy was reduced to a bit player. The TV commercials were amusing, more or less.

What actually mattered to real football fans Sunday night was that two very good professional teams played their guts out and produced a game worthy of the name — Super Bowl.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/new-england-patriots-at-seattle-seahawks/game-center/sp-id-10401000001421883

The New England Patriots emerged victorious over the defending National Football League champion Seattle Seahawks. The game’s outstanding player, Patriot quarterback Tom Brady, simply cemented his place — as if it needed cementing — in pro football’s Hall of Fame, whenever he becomes eligible.

The so-called “Deflate-gate” kerfuffle that erupted after the Patriots won the AFC championship still hangs out there, somewhere. The NFL is going to investigate it. Perhaps the league will determine who took the air out of those footballs to make them more catchable for Brady’s receivers and running backs. It didn’t matter for this game. The principal Patriots — starting with head coach Bill Belichick and QB Tom Brady — say they didn’t tamper with the footballs. They’ve said so categorically and unequivocally. End of story? Not quite.

The better team on Sunday won the Big Game.

It’s a good thing it wasn’t a blowout, or that it ended with a questionable officiating call on the field. A blowout would have reduced the TV announcers to blathering on and about the deflated football matter. A questionable call would have detracted from the game being played.

Instead, we got a great football game to end a wild and topsy-turvy season.

That’s how it’s supposed to go.

medical news, Sports news

Brain injuries deserve attention, too

It’s fascinating to me to watch the media get all exercised and worked up over deflated footballs and whether one of the Super Bowl teams cheated its way into the big game.

Meantime, another actual crisis is festering and no one talks publicly about with the same fervor we’ve heard in recent days about “Deflate-gate.”

I’m talking about traumatic brain injuries. Concussions. Football-induced dementia.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/league-of-denial/?elq=2d2f5832acd34b95926649e0515f918c&elqCampaignId=1137

I want to mention it because Frontline, the acclaimed PBS documentary series, recently rebroadcast its special on this matter. It has gotten next to zero attention, as sports media — and even mainstream news talk shows — have fixated on whether the New England Patriots purposely deflated footballs in their AFC championship rout over the Indianapolis Colts.

“League of Denial” chronicles what some have said has been the National Football League’s complicity in some of the brain injuries players have suffered. Indeed, some current and former NFL stars — former quarterback Brett Favre comes to mind — have declared they won’t let their sons play football for as long as they can control their sons’ activities. Why? The sport is too dangerous, they say.

The Frontline special can be watched online. It’s worth seeing over and over.

Perhaps it will awaken us to a real scandal about the health and welfare of professional athletes who take a beating that no human body can withstand.

Deflated footballs? I couldn’t possibly care less.

 

Sports news

Let's change the subject; enough 'Deflate-gate'

Will someone out there please put a cork on this football inflating matter?

Please, pretty please?

New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick held a press conference today. A young friend of mine here in Amarillo — a dedicated Pats fan — said he thinks the coach “put an end to it today” with his presser.

Man, I hope so.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/bill-belichick-is-angry-he-spent-a-week-studying-balls/ar-AA8xVva

Belichick says the Patriots followed “every rule” with regard to the footballs, which have become the subject of ongoing controversy and commentary — yes, including here. Someone ratted out the Patriots after they smashed the Indy Colts in the AFC championship game, saying the balls were under-inflated, which reportedly made them easier to catch in the cold, rainy weather in Foxboro, Mass.

Whatever.

The story is growing more legs than a centipede. I’m waiting now for the conspiracy theories to start hatching. Bet on it, once they do and they start getting lives of their own, this story will never die. Ever.

My solution is a simple one. The National Football League should take responsibility for inflating the balls. Inflate them identically. Pay no attention whatever the quarterback wants. Tell eachĀ QB, “Here’s the ball, buster. Take it or leave it.” Give each team their allotment of footballs as they are taking the field for their pre-game drills. And do not let anyone other than the players — and officials, of course — touch ’em before, during or after the game.

Now, let’s get ready to play the Super Bowl.

 

Sports news

Media love "Deflate-gate"

Howard Kurtz, savvy media critique that he is, has posited the theory that the media are hyping up the “scandal” involving deflated footballs and whether the New England Patriots cheated their way into the Super Bowl because, well, it’s good for ratings.

Writing on FoxNews.com, Kurtz wonders precisely why the media have become fixated with this story. The Patriots, after all, clobbered the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC championship game this past weekend. The notion that they purposely deflated footballs to make them more catchable had zero bearing on the outcome of the game, according to Kurtz.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/01/23/deflate-gate-why-media-are-overinflating-football-flap/?cmpid=cmty_twitter_fn

The media might start concocting conspiracy theories any moment now and might start ascribing all kinds of evil intent on the Patriots.

Kurtz has one idea on what might be driving this media interest. He writes: “Much of the sports media canā€™t stand Bill Belichick, the Patriots coach. He openly treats reporters with disdain. Heā€™s become a symbol, fairly or unfairly, of sports arrogance and immorality.”

What’s more, as Kurtz says: “At his presser yesterday, Belichick looked nervous, defensive, ticked off to be there, as if he were undergoing a root canal. When he got done with a halting monologue denying any knowledge of ball tampering, he gave one-sentence answers to a few questions and cut it off.

“Every good scandal story needs a villain, and Belichick is it — especially because he was fined $500,000 in the 2007 Spygate incident, where the Pats secretly videotaped the Jetsā€™ defensive coachesā€™ signals.”

In the grand scheme of serious public policy issues, this one ranks — oh, I don’t know — perhaps nowhere.

But it does involve entertainment celebrities, aka known as highly compensated professional football players.

It’s all too bad. My fear now is that with the Super Bowl now barely more than a week away and with all the pregame hyped planned prior to the game, the media are going to overlook what could be an exciting sporting event between two talented football teams.

Instead, they’ll seek to solve the mystery of, “Who in the hell deflated those footballs?”

 

Sports news

'Deflate-gate' turns into media monster

How is it that some stories that seem relatively inconsequential at the beginning turn into major headline events and the top subject of every cable news-talk show in America?

Welcome to the era of “Deflate-gate.” Good bleeping grief!

http://espn.go.com/boston/nfl/story/_/id/12212777/tom-brady-new-england-patriots-says-alter-footballs

New England Patriots head football coach Bill Belichik has issued a oh-so-precise denial of any wrongdoing. He says he did not know of the dozen footballs assigned for his team’s use being tampered with, or know who might have deflated the balls to make them more catchable.

OK. What about the quarterback, Tom Brady? What did he know and when did he know it? Brady says he knows nothing about any funny business prior to — or during — the Patriots’ 45-7 rout of the Indianapolis Colts to win the AFC championship and a trip to the Super Bowl to play the NFC champion Seattle Seahawks. It’s been kind of fun listening to the sports talking heads come up with different analogies to describe how badly the Patriots beat the Colts. “They could have beaten them throwing … ” oh, beach balls, water balloons, Frisbees, whatever.

All these denials, buck-passing and admissions of ignorance are simply fueling speculation that someone — the coach, the QB, the equipment manager, the center, the officiating crew — knows something that they aren’t revealing.

Brady said something Thursday about how much air pressure he prefers to have in the football he throws. No word, yet, aboutĀ the PSI preferences of Russell Wilson, the Seattle quarterback.

Here’ a thought. Why not simplyĀ require the National Football League to inflate every football to precisely the same air pressure, give each team their allotted number of game balls — just before they take the field for their pre-game drills — and tell the players, “All right fellas, here are the balls. Go out there,Ā play your guts out and may be theĀ better team win”?

Do not leave this matterĀ in the hands of the principals who will play the game.

I’m beginning to sense a conspiracy theory in the making, one that willĀ become a monster thatĀ will neverĀ die. Not ever.

Sports news

Let's call it 'Deflate-gate'

 

You’ve heard it said that “Where there’s smoke there’s fire.”

The New England Patriots won the American Football Conference championship in a rout over the Indianapolis Colts. Now it turns out they might have, um, cheated just a bit.

How? It’s those footballs they used. Eleven of the 12 balls the Patriots used were deflated by 2 pounds of pressure, making the balls a little easier to catch in the rainy and cold weather conditions that plagued the game in Foxboro, Mass.

http://espn.go.com/blog/boston/new-england-patriots/post/_/id/4776756/patriots-should-be-held-accountable

This isn’t the first time the Pats have been caught and/or accused of cheating. Remember “Spy-gate,” when the Patriots reportedly spied on the New York Jets’ practice sessions prior to a game?

What should the NFL do?

Well, you can’t replay the game.

But the team ought to pay a price monetarily. Fine the coach, or whoever was responsible for the deflating the balls. Perhaps you can force theĀ Patriots to surrender a significant portion of their earnings from the sale of “AFC Champs” gear or the proceeds from whatever they earn if they win the Super Bowl.

***

This all kind of reminds meĀ of the controversy that ensued after Muhammad Ali knocked out George Foreman in October 1974 to regain the heavyweight boxing championship. The “rope-a-dope” tactic, in which Ali leaned against the ropes and allowed Foreman to wail away while Ali covered up, worked to perfection partly — it was alleged — because someone loosened the ropes, forcing Big George to lunge a little farther to throw his haymakers. The late Angelo Dundee, Ali’s trainer, denied messing with the ropes.

I mentioned that to my wife this morning. Her answer? “George is a big, tough guy. He should have just stepped in a little closer to throw his punches.” Holy crap! I never thought of that. Good call, honey.

***

AFC loyalist that I am, I plan to root for the Patriots against the Seattle Seahawks in the Super Bowl. However, you won’t hear me hoot and holler if they win. It’s hard to cheer out loud for cheaters.