Four days into the New England Patriots’ Deflategate scandal, reaction among NFL fans and insiders has included trash talk, calls for the team’s punishment and — of course — a parody song.
On Wednesday, Seattle sports talk radio station KJR debuted Tom’s Big Balls, an AC/DC-styled parody song designed for maximum sophomoric appeal and Tom Brady antipathy.
With subtle lyrics such as “Tom’s balls were soft and squishy when they should’ve been round and full,” KJR radio succinctly tells the story of how the NFL found the Patriots had used underinflated footballs during their 45-7 victory over the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday. Then, with lines like “Gronk’s got flat balls but Tom’s got the flattest balls of them all,” KJR rallied Seattle fans and fifth-grade boys nationwide around the cause of mocking the Patriots and their quarterback.
The NFL has kept mum about its continuing investigation into whether the Patriots deliberately tampered with footballs so that Brady and his receivers would have an easier time gripping the balls, but neither official silence nor the many unanswered questions have prevented prominent figures around the league from passing judgment. Compounding the controversy for the Patriots is that in 2007 coach Bill Belichick and his team were caught illegally videotaping a rival’s defensive signals, and then disciplined by the league for cheating.
Even partisan outlets like the Boston Globe have accepted punishment as virtually inescapable, anticipating lost draft picks and a fine — while also rationalizing that “not all cheating is created equal.”
“Using a deflated football is breaking the rules, but it’s not nearly as heinous as game-fixing, or even the Spygate fiasco, which cost the Patriots $500,000 and a first-round draft pick in 2008. No, Belichick shouldn’t be fired. Yes, he should coach in the Super Bowl.”
The Globe and others have pointed out that most teams tweak footballs to their quarterback’s preferences: Aaron Rogers prefers his over-inflated, the Minnesota Vikings heated theirs up during a 12F game (and were fined for it) and Peyton Manning has lobbied the league to allow teams more leeway with game balls.
Colts players also shrugged off the controversy, with tight end Dwayne Allen saying, “They could have played with soap for balls and beat us. Simply the better team.”
But not all were so forgiving. Hall of Fame receiver Jerry Rice, for instance, who chimed in: “11 of 12 balls under-inflated can anyone spell cheating!” An Indianapolis sports columnist called for Belichick’s immediate dismissal and veteran Boston sports writer Jackie MacMullan declared the coach and team’s legacy “stained.”
Former Miami Dolphins coach Don Shula, who led that team to the NFL’s only ever perfect season, dubbed the New England coach “Belicheat.”
The Internet commentariat, as is their wont, saw fit to express similar sentiments with more profanity and testicular puns.
The Seahawks for their part have kept the trash talk more traditional. Cornerback Richard Sherman said the issue won’t have any effect on the game and quickly moved on to deriding Tom Brady for what he thought was arrogance during Seattle’s 24-23 victory back in 2012. “I think people somehow get a skewed view of Tom Brady,” Sherman said. “That he’s just a clean-cut guy that does everything right and never says a bad word to anyone. We know him to be otherwise.”
Sherman said Brady’s unfiltered expletives at opponents and the referees are when he shows his true colors: “In that moment of him being himself, he said some things and we returned the favor.”
Brady said he had been oblivious to Sherman’s trashtalk and laughed off Deflategate on Monday, calling it “ridiculous.”
As for the football mastermind Belichick — a man who confounded the Baltimore Ravens by declaring players eligible and ineligible as receivers seemingly at random — on Thursday he delivered a long statement denying any culpability or knowledge of underinflated footballs.
Belichick said has never had “any sympathy whatsoever” for how quarterbacks and kickers like their footballs, and “Tom’s personal preferences on his footballs are something that he can talk about in much better detail and information than I could possibly provide.”
“I can tell you that in my entire coaching career I have never talked to any player, staff member about football air pressure,” he said.
