Posted on 01/24/2015 4:38:38 PM PST by servo1969
Can we be honest for a minute about the latest liberal crusade gripping the country like a deflated football?
If you are sincerely concerned about fair play in sports and waiting patiently for the NFL to conclude its investigation of “Deflategate,” this column is not directed at you. Maybe you’re a New England Patriots fan or just a neutral observer. Maybe you don’t care about football at all.
But for the rest of you, the mob salivating over the prospect of finding something to diminish the Patriots’ 2014 achievements, let’s face it.
You hated Tom Brady before the national media lost its collective mind over the air pressure in footballs.
You hated Tom Brady before Spygate.
Your hatred of Brady goes back much further than that. You despised him in high school, when you wanted to sit with the jocks in the cafeteria. You detested him when he was dating the cheerleaders.
You loathed Brady when he upset your team in the Super Bowl. You screamed with rage when he dissected your team’s secondary like a surgeon and exposed the Swiss cheese-like holes in your coverages. You were outraged when he didn’t come out of the game after throwing at least four touchdown passes.
Then when he married a supermodel? Game over.
You don’t hate him because he cheats. You hate him because he wins. If he’s exposed in the current NFL probe, that’s something you’ll love.
I get it now, but for a long time I didn’t. I could understand why people disliked Bill Belichick, even if I didn’t agree. But Brady wasn’t much of a trash-talker, at least off the field. He was no Richard Sherman. He usually says the right thing in public. His teammates seem to enjoy playing with him and for him, even if he occasionally yells at receivers who run the wrong routes or referees who make unfavorable calls.
Few professional athletes have the character of Mother Teresa. If they’re even as decent as Tim Tebow, they’ll soon be out of a job. But if I had to compile a list of the biggest jerks in the NFL, Brady would not rank very high.
Tom Brady is a winner. He has won 76.5 percent of the games he has started. He has been to the AFC Championship the majority of seasons he has played. He has three Super Bowl rings. He is about to make his sixth appearance in the big game.
A certain amount of jealousy is human nature. But the contempt for Brady’s sustained success goes beyond that. It’s a larger liberal war against success, based on the sentiments expressed by the senior senator in the Pats’ home state, Elizabeth Warren, and then later repeated more pithily by Barack Obama.
All those records? Tom Brady didn’t build that.
Success cannot be earned, the game must be rigged.
You don’t care that he has three rings, because Spygate. You don’t care that when throwing fully inflated footballs he completed 82 percent of his passes against the Indianapolis Colts just this year, because cheating.
I can already hear you saying, “Wait a minute, Antle. I’m no liberal. I’m a true-blue red-state American and I just don’t like the cut of Brady’s cheating-assed jib.”
The liberals have gotten to you anyway. They know you don’t like Boston, the city closest to where Brady plays, or California, where the quarterback is from. You might not even like Michigan, where Brady went to college.
The same politics of envy that liberals exploit to make some people crave tax increases on the wealthy has turned you against the winningest quarterback of our time, a hero to the blue-collar and culturally conservative parts of the Bay State, a true Patriot.
If the rules were broken, they were broken and someone needs to be held accountable. Personal responsibility is a conservative value. As Belichick is fond of saying, “It is what it is.”
What I’m talking about is the pure joy some people feel at the possibility a new anti-Brady talking point exists, the unadulterated glee that accompanies each Patriots loss.
Drew Bledsoe, the man who lost his job to Tom Brady, doesn’t feel this way. Neither apparently does Rich Gannon, who lost the “tuck rule” game to him.
Brady has been battered by some elite NFL pass rushes. Does he have the pocket agility to evade the rush to judgement?
If Brady loses the upcoming Super Bowl, there will be only one consolation. All the people who hate winners will transfer their bile to the Seattle Seahawks instead.
I wanted the Colts to win but New England was dominate.
Where was the Colts defense? Sputtering.
That is a declarative statement, where is your proof.
Liberals make opinion statements and call them facts.
Did you attend the bob beckel school of facts/opinion all the same?
The Pats are an incredibly effective team and Brady is a superior quarterback - conceded. They also have a history of "bending the rules" to create an unfair advantage - if the were golfers they would be kicked out of the PGA.
Thirty years ago! I don’t remember who they were playing but I remember the event.
ping
The Dolphins.
If deflated footballs is a really big deal to the NFL then they need to do a better job policing the rule. The fact that they don’t is telling.
I also have 3 air pressure gauges in my garage that measure different from each other albeit within 3 psi. Compare the gauges with each other if they still exist. :-)
They were tested and 11 of 12 were found to be deflated below the league minimum psi. Thus, they were illegally deflated.
Not even close to the facts.
11 of 12 balls had air pressure lower than 12.5 psi but there is no proof that they were illegally deflated.
Your second sentence is much like you, thus full of crap.
Is that you beckel?
Methinks someone has a crush...
They were deflated somehow to an illegal weight. Now, how that happened is still being investigated — and for once, Richard Sherman may be right — but that they were deflated and that the weight to which thy were deflated was illegal (whatever the cause) is a simple statement of fact. You know that, but you are apparently in denial.
Belichick claims that the deflation was caused by the cold weather or some other external factor, but the league now seems to have video of a Patriots’ ball girl deflating them. Now, do you really think that would have happened without Belichick and/or Brady knowing about it? Really?
Even they admit that it happened, though.
Won’t work on me. I haven’t watched a super bowl game in years. Football bores me.
Nope -- my team beat him -- TWICE!!!
Over 70 replies and not ONE pic of his wife? You people have screwed up. Big time.
Belichick claims that the deflation was caused by the cold weather or some other external factor, but the league now seems to have video of a Patriots’ ball girl deflating them. Now, do you really think that would have happened without Belichick and/or Brady knowing about it? Really?
Even they admit that it happened, though.
I'm not in denial, the pressure, {psi, pounds per square inch} was lower than 12.5 psi, the weight of the football, did not change.
You are really too ignorant to argue with, but it has been amusing
The league DOES NOT HAVE a video of a ball girl deflating any balls, footballs, brady's balls, spitballs or basketballs.
Your last sentence is the most ridiculous of all because NO ONE admits that the weight of the ball changed only that the air pressure was lowered.
How much do you think that a pound of air pressure weighs? Do you even know what a (psi) pound of air pressure means?
The video’s existence was reported on the news. They supposedly hvae it. Your flat-out denial is simply ignorance wrapped in denial. The report obviously could be erroneous — that happens — but it was reported.
Again, the balls were below the legal weight — 11 of 12 of them. Nobody denies that except you. It’s a fact. To deny a fact is either ignorant or simply being in denial.
Belichick claims cold weather or some other external factor was responsible for teh below-weight balls. He doesn’t deny it, as you do. Neither does Brady. They just claim that they were not responsible.
Now, if they didn’t know anything about it, then whoever was responsible acted with no authority. I don’t think it was Mother Nature; do you? Now, the nice explanation, given that we have Brady on video in ‘06 saying he prefers (slightly) deflated balls (one hopes that he means towards the low end of the legal weight, but he did say that he prefers them deflated), would be that the ballboys/ballgirls inflated them to something close to the minimum weight, then they naturally deflated below it. Possible, but in my judgment, not likely.
And do you think that the ballboys/ballgirls chose the weight to which to inflate the balls without either Brady or Belichick (or both) having input on the matter? (This what they would have us believe.) I find that difficult to believe.
The Patriots have been caught cheating before. Look up Spygate. Were this some other team, this story might be over by now. But given the Patriots prior record, there is a strong presumption that they are up to something not quite above board.
Your absolute denial that it’s even possible that the Pats could have cheated calls into question everything you have to say.
Weight is measured on a scale, like your brain pictured below:
Air pressure is measured with a pressure gauge, and has NOTHING TO DO WITH WEIGHT.
Eleven of the Patriots’ twelve footballs were below the legal PSI. The league tested them. It’s not my problem that you can’t seem to get this. It’s not disputed. The league tested them.
I know you don’t want to admit that.
Now, do you really think this just happened by accident or that some rogue employee did it without either Brady or Belichick knowing about it?
The Patriots do have a record of cheating.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.