I’d been trying to avoid
writing another
article about the Patriots,
but I need to get my two cents in on the latest brouhaha involving New
England. After the Ravens’ loss on Monday night, Ravens CB Samari
Rolle accused the referees of favoritism, and the NFL of wanting the
Patriots to have an undefeated season. Being a Steeler fan, I
found
myself in the strange position of rooting for the Ravens Monday
night.
It felt weird thinking of Ray Lewis and his defensive cohorts as heroic
that night, but that’s basically what they were. For the most
part, I
thought the game was called fairly. The only really questionable
call
was the defensive holding penalty which gave New England a first down
after the Ravens had stopped them on fourth down during their final
game winning drive. I didn’t think there was a holding penalty,
but
I’m not an NFL referee. My only argument would be that the
contact I
saw happens all the time, and the players from both teams get away with
it, so why was it called in such a critical situation. Like the
tuck
rule, this call saved the game for New England. In my opinion,
the
referee should have just let the players play, and not make that call
unless it was a flagrant foul, but you can’t really say the referee was
wrong in making that call. The other call that the Ravens were
complaining about was the eventual touchdown pass to Jabar Gaffney
which he appeared to be juggling as he went out of bounds. Under
super
slow motion, it did appear as if Gaffney did not have complete control
of the ball as he stepped out of bounds, but as I’ve stated in the
past, that is simply an artifact of instant replay. In real time,
he
had control with both feet inbounds, so I think this was a good call.
Samari Rolle
also accused this same referee of calling him “boy.” I’m
not a black man, but I would assume that being called boy is tantamount
be being called n----r. Since I’m not black, I can’t say that
word,
but Chris Rock, who is black routinely makes it part of his act, so I
assume that it’s OK for a black man to use that word. The referee
who
called Rolle, “boy,” is also black, so I don’t see how he could have
been trying to insult Rolle in this way. Rolle actually insulted
him
first by stating that this particular referee had never played in the
NFL, when in actuality, he was an NFL offensive lineman for 6
years.
Obviously, Rolle’s claim makes no sense.
The bigger question is “Does the NFL want New England to go
undefeated?” I don’t believe for a second that the NFL would
direct
its referees to make calls that favor the Patriots. In fact, I
think
an undefeated team could potentially harm the NFL. |
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In the bad old days of the cold war between the US and Russia, the
peace was maintained by a concept aptly named MAD which stands for
Mutual Assured Destruction. The idea was that both countries were
so evenly matched that any attack on the other would guarantee an
equally devastating attack on itself. While this is not a particularly
comforting concept, it kept the peace for 40 years and prevented the
Armageddon prophecy by Nostradamus. This is why there was so much
debate in our own country about deployment of a missile defense
shield. Even a partially effective shield would shift the
balance of power to the USA, thus tempting us to believe we could get
away with a preemptive strike on Russia.
The addition of Randy Moss to what was already the best team in the NFL
has shifted the balance of power to the Patriots. The danger to
the NFL, their Armageddon, is loss of interest and of viewership.
At a time when the NFL is desperate enough to send two of its
historically marquee teams to London in order to generate interest
overseas, the Patriots are making a mockery of the rest of the
league. The NFL is in danger of going the way of major league
baseball. Besides the fact that watching MLB is only slightly
more interesting to me than watching grass grow, I think the main
problem with baseball is the fact that there is no salary cap or
revenue sharing. Every year, the Yankees and Red Sox buy up the
best available talent, leaving the small market teams to struggle.
Luckily, in baseball, talent is very inconsistent and unpredictable, so
buying a team does not always work, but in general, the teams that have
the most money, win. In all their wisdom, the founders of the NFL
instituted revenue sharing early on, so there is not such a wide gap in
revenue and thus talent among teams. Some teams like the Cowboys
and Redskins certainly do make more money than others like the Bills,
but there is a rigid salary cap in place to prevent these teams from
hoarding the talent. In addition, the NFL structured its draft so
that the worst teams could acquire the better players. This was
all done in order to maintain parity. The reason the NFL enjoys
such universal popularity is the parity generated by revenue sharing,
the salary cap, and the draft. Without parity, the NFL could become the
joke that major league baseball has become. If the Patriots, who
have been great for the majority of this decade, continue to demolish
opponents and go undefeated, NFL fans may begin to believe that their
team has no chance to win and may start to lose interest.
In addition, the chase for an undefeated season, and thus NFL
immortality makes for a good story. Remember all the hoopla when
the 2004 Red Sox won the World Series? That was because they
finally broke the curse of the Bambino. They won it again this
year, and no one outside of Boston cared. If the Patriots
actually go undefeated, NFL announcers won’t be able to talk about how
the 1972 Dolphins get together every year to drink champagne when the
last undefeated team gets beaten.
This Sunday, the Patriots confront their toughest roadblock left in
their quest for immortality. The Steelers will throw the number
one defense in the NFL against the number one offense. The
Steeler offense also has enough firepower to score against the newly
suspect New England defense. This should be a great battle, but
in a close game, I would not be surprised if Pittsburgh won on a
questionable call.
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