Invariably, the week before the Super Bowl is an exercise in nonsense. There is little or no real news, so the media, bless their hearts, does its best to manufacture some kind of controversy. Every statement by every coach and player, no matter how inane, is analyzed to a fare-thee-well. Little things are blown so far out of proportion that a bit of deflation – you knew that was coming, right? – is welcome.
The needle on the Super Silly-o-Meter usually begins low and grows as the week moves along until, by Sunday, everybody is so sick of speculation, analysis, opinion and just plain baloney that kickoff brings blessed relief. But this year it’s different. This week, as the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks gather in Arizona, the needle on the Super Silly-O-Meter already is wavering at maximum and threatening to blow a gasket.
As surely everybody within earshot of a TV knows, the Patriots’ 45-7 blowout of the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC championship game was, ah, tainted by the discovery, before halftime, that 11 of the 12 footballs used by the Patriots were slightly under-inflated. The theory is that skullduggery was afoot. Since underinflated balls apparently are easier to grip, especially in cold weather, the Patriots were accused of trying to seek an illegal competitive advantage.
The usual suspects were rounded up and presented for interrogation by the media, which had worked itself into frenzy over what was labeled “Deflategate.” Under intense grilling, coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady pleaded “not guilty.” But that didn’t satisfy the jury, which labeled them as unconvincing, at best, and outright liars, at worst.
Hollywood could not come up with a more perfect villain than Bilichick. When he pulls back the hood on the sweatshirt he fancies, he reveals a glowering visage that would make mothers want to hide the children. Besides that, he has a rap sheet, although the court has yet to rule if his past cheating – he got caught spying on opponents a few years ago – is relevant to these proceedings.
It’s tougher to put the black hat on Brady. One of the NFL’s greatest quarterbacks, a certain first-ballot Hall-of-Famer, he still has the face and demeanor of a choir boy. But you wonder if he’s not like the teacher’s pet you remember from grade school. The guy who would instigate some nefarious scheme, let others carry it out, and then, under questioning, say, “Who, me?”
For more than a week, the issue has been debated ad nauseum in every form of the modern media. The 24-hour cable news channels all jumped in, even though it was hardly a slow news week. Proving again that America is a nation with far too much time on its hands, the news pundits devoted as much time to the alleged deflated footballs as they did to, oh, the President’s State of the Union address. At times it was difficult to tell whether you were watching ESPN or CNN.
Ordinarily, this grossly inflated controversy would qualify for Sport’s Illustrated weekly feature, “Sign That the Apocalypse Is Upon Us.” Last week, however, the magazine only had to look within its own walls to find the winner of that dubious honor. Sports Illustrated, home to the world’s greatest sports photography for five decades, laid off its last six staff photographers.
How can a magazine with “Illustrated” in its name not have any photographers? Well, actually, readers will not notice any appreciable difference. The magazine will simply buy the best photographs available from free-lancers. The only difference is that they will no longer have to pay medical and other benefits to photographers who work exclusively for them.
The way I see it, Sports Illustrated’s purge was infinitely more important than deflated footballs because it’s the latest step in the decline of a pillar of superior journalism – one, I must confess, for which I worked for 29 years. SI did not reach its pinnacle because of salesmen, bean counters, or even the Swimsuit Issue. It got there because it employed the best editors, writers and photographers available. Now you have to wonder: With the photographers gone, can the editors and writers be far behind? Would anybody notice if SI just outsourced everything?
Both the furor over “Deflategate” and the blood-letting at SI are symbolic of how the media has changed. The rise of social media has blurred all the lines, making it sometimes difficult to distinguish the trivial from the important. Old-fashioned reporting has been replaced by rumor-mongering. Everybody who owns a smart phone is a photographer, editor, and columnist. Standards and ethics have been trounced as soundly as, well, New England crushed Indianapolis.
Please understand that I take a back seat to nobody when it comes to standing up for fair play and good sportsmanship. I have spent much of my career fighting those who seek unfair competitive advantage. I despise college coaches who condone recruiting violations and academic fraud. I hate the steroid-users in any sport. The foundation of sport is built on the level playing field.
Having said that, however, I would like to stick a needle into all the pumped-up media egos. The only thing more outlandish that deflated footballs is the tsunami hot air the “scandal” created. And it has created more confusion that it has resolved. Heck, nobody has yet to explain why each team has 12 footballs at its disposal. Shouldn’t one ball be enough for both teams? Has anybody ever heard of a football getting worn out during a game?
As I understand it, the balls were properly inflated at halftime. In the second half, the Patriots outscored the Colts 28-0. The Patriots did not need deflated footballs to win this game. It could have been played with beach balls, hockey pucks, or marbles – and the Patriots still were going to win. By a lot.
In a court of law, the judge would throw out the case before it could get to a jury due to lack of evidence. We now see NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who already was not having a very good year, in the role of Inspector Clousseau, investigating a “crime” that has no clues, much less a smoking gun. All it did was sent the Super Silly-O-Meter soaring to new heights.
Now for the really bad news. The deflated balls will continue to be the main topic of discussion this week, mainly because the media doesn’t have much else to get itself worked up about. One thing we have learned from the Super Bowl over the years is that it’s always asking for trouble when you put that many media people in that small a space with nothing worthwhile to report. In a vacuum, imaginations can run amok.
Where is Johnny Football when we really need him?
Billy Reed, a KyForward columnist, is a member of the U.S. Basketball Writers Hall of Fame, the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame, the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame and the Transylvania University Hall of Fame. He has been named Kentucky Sports Writer of the Year eight times and has won the Eclipse Award twice. Reed has written about a multitude of sports events for over four decades, but he is perhaps one of media’s most knowledgeable writers on the Kentucky Derby.