There’s a glimmer of hope that Deflategate may soon stop wasting our time
Sonia Van Meter is a 36-year-old Virginia woman who happens to be one of 100 people who were chosen to be part of a privately-funded one-way mission to Mars in 2026 to create a space colony, sparking the wrath of scientists from across the globe.
Van Meter’s husband, Jason Stanford, recently wrote about how it feels to live on borrowed time with your beloved, knowing that your wife, your children’s mother, is planning on heading to Mars and never coming back.
“This internal inquisition of my wife—the same woman who promised to love me forever, who puts up with my brother’s rude jokes, who puts up with me—is a self-serving exercise,’’ Stanford writes in Texas Monthly magazine. “It allows me to dance away from the real questions that haunt me. Am I prepared to actually say goodbye? Am I prepared to steel my spine and not beg her to stay? Am I prepared for the moment when I will be left standing on Earth with my face pointing up at a rapidly disappearing rocket carrying my partner away from me on a one-way trip to Mars?’’
I bring this up for two reasons.
One, it’s a seven-month journey to travel to Earth’s closest neighbor, about the same time this planet’s inhabitants have debated about the veracity of deflated footballs.
Two, where can I sign up?
Unless you’ve spent the bulk of the calendar year on the third rock from the sun, the NFL’s puerile Deflategate saga has become an inescapable burden, a tug-of-war between a union and the powers that be that has morphed into a power struggle bordering on the boredom of “My Dinner With Andre.’’
There’s so much minutiae involved in this whole charade, so many party lines to adhere to, that the league’s case against New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady has become a national celebration of the absurd.
While the Patriots resumed training camp on Tuesday (Happy, belated, birthday, Mr. Brady, by the way), ESPN finally addressed, sort of, its involvement in the situation when reporter Chris Mortensen acknowledged…well, something.
How neat.
Look, while everybody within their own realm of the sun is trying to excuse his or her own take on the most benign controversy since the debate over wearing white past Labor Day, this situation has gotten out of control. We’re still talking about an equipment violation, seven months after the egregious action, seven months more than any other comparable action has been dealt with by the duplicitous league in question.
How in the hell did we get here?
While there may be no partisan solution, maybe, just maybe, Deflategate is ultimately headed to its endgame thanks to the godsend of the Honorable Judge Richard A. Berman. This is, of course, the judge in charge of the case lesser know as “Stupid v. Stupid’’ that has ransacked the Patriots preseason.
“I request that you all engage in comprehensive, good-faith settlement discussions prior to the conference on August 12, 2015. Magistrate Judge James C. Francis, IV is available to assist you if you wish,’’ the judge wrote in an order.
In other words, “Don’t waste my $@%# time.’’
The banality of Deflategate is of course the sum of all that plagues interest in an audience that craves the next reasoning for greatness. After all, we live in a sports world where performance-enhancing drugs define most of our record books, a scandal that ekes itself into every other story line, for better or worse.
Success equals cheating. Is there an easier excuse than that?
But Deflategate has brought this to a whole other level for sure. What was once a menial matter has turned into a full-scale war between player and commissioner, team and league, destined for television ratings beyond even the comprehension of those marketers drooling over such rewards.
Nobody — nobody — has dressed themselves in a realm to be admired in this. The NFL looks vindictive. The Patriots look petty. Brady looks sheepish and all-too-defensive.
Meanwhile, the NFL is aiming to begin a preseason not marred by the instance of domestic violence, as it was a year ago, but the much-more-benign transgression of letting the air out of footballs. Call that coincidence if you will.
Berman is a sole voice of reason in telling the two parties to shut up and end the rhetoric. The threat of heading to court is something neither side wants, and particularly after the NFLPA released the 457-page transcript Tuesday of Tom Brady’s Deflategate suspension appeal hearing, something the league definitely doesn’t want based on how it makes commissioner Roger Goodell and NFL executive vice president Troy Vincent look like bobos.
And yet, as this whole ordeal leaks itself into the NFL’s preseason and regular season coverage, we will be able to fully translate the league’s agenda. Controversy equals ratings.
NBC is thirsting for that opener against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Brady or not. Who cares?
The NFL wants to prove it can live without the Patriots and Tom Brady. The Patriots kind of know that’s not the case at all.
See you on Mars.
Photos: Timeline of the Deflategate controversy
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