Unable or unwilling to let their heroes fall, many Patriot fans are going to great lengths to stand by their cheating team; what does this inability to see what you don’t want to see say about us?
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Earlier this week, the scandal that gave NY Post headline writers that warm fuzzy feeling (“League Has Brady By The Balls!!“) reentered the public consciousness.
Yup. We’re back to DeflateGate, BallGhazi, and <insert ball joke/meme here>.
The result of the independent investigation into The DeflateGate Scandal, the 200+ page Wells Report (AKA “The Investigative Report Concerning Footballs Used During The AFC Championship Game on January 18, 2015“) found that the team secretly deflated the footballs used by the Patriots below the allowable limit, which gave them an in-game advantage by making it easier to grip and throw them.
The Report implicated Patriots Golden Boy QB, Tom Brady, as part of the operation, concluding that he most likely knew and ordered two employees, Jim “The Deflator” McNally and John Jastremski, to purposely deflate footballs to a level below the permissible threshold.
Yesterday the NFL meted out its punishment:
- Tom Brady, one of the greatest QBs of all time, the face of the Patriots franchise, husband of Giselle, all-around wonder-boy, and also the guy who refused to produce his text messages to the NFL’s investigators, has been suspended without pay for the first four games of the 2015 season.
- The Patriots, recidivist cheaters (remember “Spygate“?), have been fined $1M (the largest fine ever levied against a single team) and lose 2 draft picks, a first round pick in 2016 and a fourth round pick in 2017.
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So Tom Brady and the Patriots cheated, and now they are being punished for it.
It’s worth paying attention to what is on display here: humans resisting changing their views, even when confronted with facts that objectively should cause one to question the morality of their position.
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Some Patriots fans – but a seeming minority – are accepting of this reality.
But, as can be seen unfolding in strident conversations all over Facebook and Twitter, the vast majority of Patriots Nation seem to be in a state of massive denial, preferring instead to proclaim their favorite team’s and favorite player’s innocence.
As reported by The New York Times:
When Tom Brady, the quarterback of the New England Patriots, was accused of conspiring with two Patriots employees to deflate footballs in the A.F.C. championship game, most of the football nation quickly nodded in agreement. To them, the evidence laid out in the investigative report by Theodore V. Wells Jr. was compelling.
But Boston is fiercely protective of its own. As much as any part of the nation, it can be a place apart. Massachusetts was the only state that did not vote for Richard Nixon in the 1972 presidential election. Boston is the hub of a six-state region with distinct accents that outsiders can never master, and it prides itself on its roots and traditions, from Thanksgiving and the Tea Party to the local “packy,” where they buy beer, take it to their triple-decker and stick it in the fridge “down cellah.”
Naturally, the consensus in Boston about what happened — or did not happen — with the footballs in the game between the Patriots and Indianapolis Colts on Jan. 18 is different from that in the rest of the union.
The quote from one Pats fan, 22 year old Jake Provenzano, is representative of much of the fan base:
“The whole thing is ridiculous. I believe he did nothing wrong. This is a vendetta against the Pats because they keep winning Super Bowls.”
Among the favorite arguments that Patriots Nation is making on social media are:
(i) pointing out the amount of times the Well Report used the word “probably” or “likely” as contrasted to the number of times it used the word “definitely.”
Ummm . . . the “more likely than not” or “more probable than not” standards are legal standards for a preponderance of evidence, which is used in courts for civil offenses. Just so you know guys.
(ii) pointing out the lack of “hard evidence” and the that much of the evidence, including the damning text messages, are “merely” circumstantial evidence.
Right. So actually, in court rooms across the country, fact-finders – juries and judges – weigh evidence, more often than not circumstantial evidence, and make factual determinations about wrongdoing. Rare is the case where there is direct “smoking gun” evidence).
(iii) criticizing Roger Goodell or comparing the suspension to the original Ray Rice suspension of two games (which was later, after public pressure, revised to an indefinite suspension and him being kicked out of the league.
Roger Goodell certainly merits much criticism and he badly botched the Ray Rice situation. But here, this argument is a red herring. We have to let it go with the comparison of every suspension that’s handed down from now till eternity to the original 2-game Rice suspension. Clearly and obviously the 2 games was a joke and a colossal tone deaf screw up by The League. But do we have to go back to this well every time they hand down a legit suspension? 8 game suspension? “Oh, so this is 4 times worse than domestic violence.” Enough already. The question is whether 4 games for Brady for not cooperating with the investigation and being found complicit with cheating, and heavy financial penalty plus loss of draft picks for cheating is a reasonable penalty. Hint: It is.
(iv) they cheated, but it doesn’t really matter: “Don’t you have better things to worry about then the amount of air in a football. Jeez.”
This is an argument that is only used by people who are caught cheating. Cheating matters. It’s a serious matter. It corrupts the game. Also, much of cheating is boring. Apparent technicalities can have a huge substantive impact. Ask anyone who has been caught on tax evasion charges. You are not allowed to deflate the balls for a reason: because it gives you an advantage. The Patriots deflated the balls for a reason. To obtain an illegal advantage.
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The most fascinating part of all this is the New England Patriots fans blind substitution of their own viewpoint and desire to keep their beloved Patriots clean and their beloved Brady a pure hero for the actual evidence that they cheated:
THIS IS ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS!!! SMH ? #PATSNATION STAND UP!!!!!
— LeGarrette Blount (@LG_Blount) May 11, 2015
Still my dog, and still champs #TB12#GoPatspic.twitter.com/pCTf4LgG9m
— Jody Breeze (@Blafell1) May 11, 2015
It’s as if these fans are reading a different Report. Or they are willfully ignoring or unable to see what is plain to see. The level of denial – apparently not just a long river in Egypt – is staggering, borderline pathological.
There is a phenomenon of hitching yourself so tightly to the fortunes of a team or a player, or any individual or position, that it becomes part of your identity, can make you so deeply entrenched in support of that team, player, individual, or position.
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This is not a Boston thing.
It’s a rabid fan thing.
It’s worth paying attention to what is on display here: humans resisting changing their views, even when confronted with facts that objectively should cause one to question the morality of their position. How the phenomenon of hitching yourself so tightly to the fortunes of a team or a player, or any individual or position, that it becomes part of your identity, can make you so deeply entrenched in support of that team, player, individual, or position.
It’s a phenomenon that isn’t only happening with sports fans. It’s a window into the dynamics of deep polarization.
While one may think that the natural emotion that would arise when confronted with this situation would be embarrassment or shame or a begrudging shift in viewpoint, it seems that instead the emotion that it bubbling to the top for many is an indignant us-against-them pridefulness.
Perhaps when you have invested so much in winning, in your own side, shame is not an option. And the only option is to double down and dig in.
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Photo Credit: Associated Press/Manual Valdes
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Paul – The Curse of Granfalloons: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granfalloon
Love it. Oddly enough, just read Cat’s Cradle last year for the first time. Vonnegut was one great and weird author.
I’m a big fan. You may enjoy this Vonnegut mashup: https://goodmenproject.com/bits-and-pieces/mkdn-reconstructed-advice-from-kurt-vonnegut-a-literary-mashup/
Disclaimer: Boston resident, but only a casual Pats fan. Based on most of the conversations I’ve had in the past 24 hours – and this topic has dominated conversation – most Patriots fans believe that Brady knowingly broke the rules, and feel that he deserves punishment for it. What they disagree with, however, is whether the punishment fits the crime, particularly given the lack of conclusive evidence and the uncertainty of the Wells report. It is so much more severe than what anyone was expecting (and not just Pats fans) that it has created suspicions of ulterior motives, where previously… Read more »
Paul – Thanks for your comment. That bigger picture is EXACTLY what I was driving at!
StevenS – Thanks for the comment. I get that. But I will say that I wasn’t overly surprised with the fact that the punishment included losing draft picks.
Truly said. Confessing ahead of time: I’m a Colts fan. Also, although they cheated us, we didn’t play well enough to win the game anyway, so… still, the Patriots suck. Not because they are a bad team, that’s the thing that makes it ridiculous: They are perfectly capable of winning on merit; but, you know, so are the Colts, so, if in another game, the score is much closer, and the game comes down to a play or two that was “enhanced” by a not-so-legal factor, then…and that’s happened before with them. Let’s not forget that only a few years… Read more »