The NFL Has Bigger Problems Than A Boring Super Bowl

Ah, what an exciting Super Bowl it might have been! It’s fun to imagine a high-scoring shootout between the resurgent New Orleans Saints and the Kansas City Chiefs, led by nice-guy coach Andy Reid and rookie quarterback sensations and NFL MVP, Patrick Mahomes. What an amazing contest that might have been!

But it was not to be. Instead, we were forced to sit through a low-scoring stalemate between the Los Angeles Rams, who looked unprepared and outclassed, and a team that has made nine trips to the Super Bowl, the New England Patriots. Yes, the Tuck Rule Patriots. The Spygate Patriots. The Deflategate Patriots. Back again.

How this thoroughly unsatisfying matchup came about is indicative of the NFL’s current state of operational dysfunction. The AFC Championship game was a close contest. The Patriots benefitted from a late fourth quarter “roughing the passer” call against a Chiefs player who, upon review, did not even touch Tom Brady. Despite this setback, the Chiefs had a chance to seal the win when they intercepted Brady, only to have the interception nullified by a neutral zone infraction for which they have only themselves to blame.

What happened to the Saints was ludicrous. As a Saints receiver approached the end zone, a Rams defender interfered with him in a blatant and brutal way. Everybody knew that it was pass interference, there was no question about it. But because the foul wasn’t called on the field in real time, it didn’t matter. NFL officiating rules dictate that pass interference can’t be called based on what the referees see on replay. Replay can only be used to overturn calls that were called on the field. This egregious foul, where the receiver was lucky to come away with his head attached, was not called on the field. Maybe the referees were too busy trying to figure out what counts as a catch in today’s league to pay attention to actual plays.

And so, the world was left to watch the Rams and the Patriots give a clinic on unentertaining football. One opinion writer called it the worst Super Bowl ever. He was being kind.

If these comments come across as annoyance over the fact that the Patriots have dominated the league in recent years, let me say that their success is well deserved. Tom Brady is untouchable as a quarterback, literally and figuratively. The Patriots’ offensive line is so solid, so impenetrable, year after year, that Brady is rarely knocked down, let alone sacked. Other teams have had plenty of time to study their tactics, but the best defenses in the league have been powerless to stop the man who is unquestionably the greatest passer of all time. Even the Patriots’ most passionate critics have to face that fact.

But the six-time champion Patriots have a dark side, as well, and that, too, has to be acknowledged. The team has a long history of scandals and legal action. An assistant equipment manager faced criminal charges for lying to investigators during the Deflategate scandal.

Consider the Patriots’ head coach, an undeniably brilliant football tactician whose win-at-all-costs philosophy once earned him an unprecedented one million dollar fine for cheating. That wasn’t the team’s fine; the organization paid a half a million bucks for their role in the Spygate scandal. The big fine was levied against the coach, himself, a man so unconcerned with doing the right thing that he once publicly accepted the head coaching job at one team only to quit the next day and sign on with the team that he really wanted to work for. The Patriots are champions - they have the rings and the records to prove it - but it would be difficult to argue that they exemplify good sportsmanship.

The NFL is in a sad state. The league is plagued with public relations issues, from domestic abuse to substance abuse to on-field protests and care for ex-players with CTE. Athletes put their health and well-being on the line, week after week, in contests that are too often spoiled by laughably inept officiating complicated by increasingly inscrutable rules changes. In this chaotic environment, over the past seventeen seasons, over a third of the championships have gone to one of the most unethical teams ever to step on a gridiron. (The Oakland Raiders of the 1970’s might give them a run for their money.)

It shouldn’t be like this, but it is, and I’m getting tired of watching it.