Please Change Disks to Continue...: Dr. Deflatelove: Or How I Learned Deflategate Was Stupid

Meet Roger Goodell. Wait, what am I saying, you already know him, unless you live under a rock or someplace far, far away from the United States of America. Otherwise, it's impossible for you to not know the name of the National Fuck You Football League's commissioner, a man considered by many to be the most powerful man in sports. How unfortunate for the rest of us? Since taking over the NFL's iron throne back in 2006, Goodell has overseen the league becoming the most popular sport in America, raking in higher ratings year after year and making him and the 32 NFL owners richer beyond their wildest dreams . Goodell, reportedly, makes around $44 million a year for his commissioner duties. His players don't make close to that; hell, Leonardo DiCaprio has to make two films a year in order to get that kind of money.

Goodell laughs at fairness

Yes, Roger Goodell has proven that leading the most corrupt...excuse me, I mean powerful sports organization in the States does have its perks. He's also proven to be the most incompetent ruler since Sacha Baron Cohen's character in The Dictator. Goodell has at times suspended players who hadn't, and were never, charged with a crime. He has treated issues such as domestic violence in the league with the same seriousness children have for getting their daily vegetables. He was about two years late pretending to care about a concussion issue that he definitely still doesn't care about. He suspended several New Orleans Saints for a bounty scandal, only for us to then find out that his evidence was as strong Rick Moranis in Spaceballs. Some leader. I'm sure Goodell, the son of former United States Senator Charles Goodell, likes to think of himself as similar to his father or other great leaders over the years (Goodell is sometimes rumored to have political aspirations himself). With that resume though, the only leader Goodell seems to emulate is the incompetent wimp Peter Sellers portrayed in Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove. Which actually makes Goodell's newest scandal even more fitting, seeing as strangely resembles the glorious insanity of Kubrick's comic masterpiece.

You probably have already heard enough about this Deflategate/Ballghazi episode that's been going around these past few days, but here's a refresher to the foreign audience who thankfully may not know. Back in January, the New England Patriots were caught playing with deflated footballs in the AFC Championship Game against the Indianapolis Colts. Basically, the accusation was the Pats (as their fans call them) knowingly deflated their footballs below the appropriate air mark in order to give quarterback Tom Brady a competitive advantage over their opponents. Sure, the lack of air in the football was barely noticeable and the Patriots wound up dominating the game once the balls were properly inflated, but that didn't stop the NFL from investigating. The investigation was launched, demands for apologies were issued, and through all the controversy the Patriots managed to win the Super Bowl, in a game where I assume balls of all shapes and sizes weren't tampered with. After that, there was radio silence, until last week when the NFL's investigator Ted Wells released the report as the 200 + page novel on deflated balls you never wanted to read. The NFL quickly took action and suspended Brady four games, docked the Patriots a first and a fourth round draft pick and fined the team a record setting one million dollars. The findings of Wells that caused such a steep punishment; that it seemed more probable than not that Brady and two staff workers on the Patriots doctored the balls to his own preference.

Before we tackle that last statement however, let's get two key points out of the way before each fan base in America starts whining like the eight year old who had to see Pitch Perfect 2 instead of The Avengers. They are as follows;

1) The two Patriot workers, James McNally and John Jastremski, took air out of those footballs. As flimsy as some of the evidence in the Wells report is, it seems pretty clear cut and dry that something was going on there involving the balls. A man isn't referring to himself as "The Deflator" in text messages for nothing, even if the Patriots would somehow like you to believe otherwise. Sorry Patriots fans, they did tamper with the balls and should face some punishment for it.

2) The punishment everyone received was stupid, ludicrous and downright insane. Yes, the Patriots broke a rule, but it's one of the dumbest rules in the history of rules. Taking air out of a football is a major crime? I must've missed when that sort of thing became just as important a sticking PED's up your ass. Last I checked, the Patriots didn't win games because of the air in the football and Tom Brady didn't become an MVP caliber player because of air in a football. Both entities succeeded because they were good, better than the other teams. For them to be punished so severely for such a misdemeanor act, an act where the evidence is weaker than the OJ case mind you, is hysterical. So what if the balls were down a few PSI's? What the hell is a PSI anyway? Is it an NFL division that's short for "Pretty Standard Idiots"?

That last point strikes at the heart of the problem here. Goodell and his merry men of storm troopers, who couldn't be bothered to do a quick, thorough investigation when Ray Rice hit his then fiance last February, had no problem quickly investigating and then cracking down hard on doctored footballs, a low level infraction that generally draws a $20K fine only. Whether it was because he wanted to prove he could punish a team run by his close friend (Patriots owner Robert Kraft) or he and his lieutenants are just plain dumb (ding ding ding!), Goodell clearly over reached here. His defenders will surely say he's trying to protect the shield and the integrity of the game, because apparently the integrity of the game isn't affected when a player hit's his wife, throws his girlfriend onto a pile of guns after beating her or uses PED's to gain an actual competitive edge. That the Patriots were fined more money for deflated football than the Baltimore Ravens were for semi-covering up a domestic violence scandal and that Brady got more games that Rice initially got is dumbfounding. The only thing more dumbfounding is how the Patriots brought this on themselves, and I don't mean by their supposed "cheating." For all the great things Robert Kraft has done as Patriots owner and all the protective stances he's taken with his team and his franchise QB these past few months, he wouldn't be in this position if he hadn't foolishly supported Goodell as he was making boneheaded decision after boneheaded decision. Instead he did, and now has realized far too late that the power he and his fellow owners have given Goodell has led to the mockery known as the NFL.

As you can probably tell, I don't exactly feel bad for anyone in this situation, outside of Brady (whose reputation didn't deserve to be destroyed by this of all things), and the two Patriots workers who will likely now lose their jobs for at worst nothing and at best following orders. I have no sympathy for Robert Kraft; the only reason he's in this position is because of his constant enabling of Goodell over the years, something he could've prevented if he, like the rest of the owners, wasn't so preoccupied with cash flow. I certainly don't feel bad for most Patriots fans outside of my mother, who have gotten a rightful kick in the gut known as reality following a decade of thinking they were better than everyone and anything. Most of all though, I have no sympathy for Goodell, the NFL and the rest of the so called "fans" of the NFL. Goodell likes to say that ignorance isn't an excuse; guess what buddy, stupidity isn't either, and punishing a team for a little less air in a football like they just robbed the local 711 is stupid. Granted, it's not as stupid as celebrating a hated team getting caught for something only because you're a jealous, insecure fan base who would gladly take the Patriots' struggles in a heartbeat (every other NFL fan base alive), but it's stupid none the less.

In the end, the only conclusion I can make is that each side really just deserves each other and their misery, that this Deflategate scandal is indeed the football equivalent of Dr. Strangelove. I can just picture it now; Roger Goodell as the wimpy president, incompetent British officer, paranoid general obsessed with the bodily fluids and mad Nazi scientist (he's like the Peter Sellers of suck), Bill Belicheck as the Soviet ambassador, Kraft as the unseen and confused Premier Kissoff, every other NFL owner as General Turgidson, every non Patriots fan as Slim Pickens and the NFL as the nuclear warhead they ride into the earth. Shit, I guess that makes me the earth in this situation.