If you haven't been following the early Super Bowl hype, investigations have revealed that the New England Patriots used curiously under-inflated footballs during the AFC Championship. That made them easier to grip in the game's very wet conditions.
Once again, we find ourselves marvelling at the odd creature that is the National Football League. It's a multi-billion dollar business with massive power over American media and culture, yet little amateur characteristics keep leaking out. They bring in amateur replacement referees when they can't nickel-and-dime the union, they can't research their players' crimes.
I guess it could be the relatively young age of the modern NFL. Is hard to believe given its current strength, but it's within living memory for most of their execs that pro football was a niche sport that was barely in the national consciousness. It seems like there are leftover structures from that era still in place now.
It also caps off an annus horribilis for the NFL in which everything went wrong. And it's a point that's been made many times, but let's sum it up one last time: it turns out Michael Sam was the least distracting thing in the NFL this season.
On a completely different note, I’m disappointed that people are calling this “ballgate.” Aren’t we all sick of the “-gate” suffix on scandals? There are so many great scandals in the past that we could make clever puns with. So I’m happy that some people are referring to this incident as “ballghazi.” Sure, that’s a little more politically raw, but at least they’re trying.
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