A Two-Week Football Drought

For real football fans the two-week wait between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl is simply dreadful.

Bad enough the season is about to come to an end but for two weeks you are besieged with over-the-top Super Bowl hype. Of course if you can’t wait two weeks for a game you can watch this weekend’s Pro Bowl which is the poorest excuse for an All-Star game ever created. I can’t even find the words to describe it so I will simply move on.

However this year a controversy is getting all the headlines in the first few days of the off week before the teams head to Arizona for the big game on February 1st. It’s being dubbed “Deflate-Gate." Who would have thought deflated footballs would get more attention than Richard Sherman, Marshawn Lynch, Tom Brady and “Gronk?”

By now you have likely heard that the NFL is investigating the New England Patriots use of under inflated footballs in their rout of the Colts last Sunday. Reports indicate that 11 of the 12 Patriots footballs were found to be under-inflated during a halftime inspection by game officials.

The way it works is that each team has 12 footballs to use in the game and about 2 hours before they are inspected by the officials to make sure they are inflated properly. For those conspiracy theorists it would appear that once the balls were given back to New England they were then deflated to make them easier to grip in the rain and cold. The Pats led 17-7 at the half when the problem was discovered by the officiating crew who re-inflated the balls for the second half. Ironically with the legal footballs the Patriots pulled away and went on to an easy 45-7 victory.

The NFL is expected to complete their investigation into the matter in a couple of days and league rules say the minimum fine for tampering with a football is $25,000. What irks so many is the Patriots have gained a reputation as cheaters and the feeling is that this is just the latest incident and a strong message needs to be sent.

My guess is that some poor ball boy will take the rap and say he did it on his own to help the team who will be fined a lot of money and maybe even lose a draft pick. One thing is for sure: if you’re not already you will be tired of hearing about deflated balls by Super Bowl Sunday.