Undeflated footballs notwithstanding, New England quar- terback Tom Brady was named the Most Valuable Player of Super Bowl XLIX as the Pats defeated the Seattle Sea- hawks by a score of 28-24 in a wild finish that featured
a goal-line interception and an outbreak of fist fights.

UNDEFLATED FOOTBALLS DON’T DEFLATE
SUPER BOWL XLIX, AS NEW ENGLAND
OUTLASTS SEATTLE SEAHAWKS, 28-24

NETANYAHU SHOULD NOT ADDRESS
JOINT SESSION OF U.S. CONGRESS
 
By David Maril
 
While wondering if controversy and negative head- lines actually increases, instead of reducing, the NFL’s popularity, it’s interesting to note the following:

  I’m not going to sit in judgment of whether Patriots Coach Bill Belichick took air out of his team’s footballs in the AFC Championship victory against the Indianapolis Colts. In Super Bowl XLIX, with game footballs that were scrutinized by NFL officials, the New England Patriots defeated the Seattle Seahawks 28-24.

However, I will say this: I’ve seen high school football coaches who have done far worse than what the Patriots were accused of, going into the Super Bowl, or the 2007 incident called Spygate when the team was disciplined by the league for videotaping Jets’ defensive coaches.

Decades ago, when high school coaches were expanding use of game films, and cable community-access TV stations started to televise games in local communities, I knew of at least one Massachusetts high school coach who regularly violated his league’s rule regarding how many tapes of opponents’ games he could secure.

To get around the limit placed on the number of games he could watch on film, he’d have people in different towns around the league record the locally televised football games and send him VCR tapes.

Another one of his tricks was to often send the wrong film to an opponent, instead of the one they asked for, when they were legally exchanging films the week before a game. By the time the “mistake” was corrected, several days of practice time had passed going into the game. Sometimes, when he did finally send the right film, certain plays were spliced out.
 
Some NFL observers believe Patriots quarterback Tom Brady gained an edge against the Colts with a better grip using footballs that had been deflated.

THE SGT. SCHULTZ DEFENSE:  ‘I KNOW NOTHING!’

They would say the only reasonable answer to how Belichick could insist to the media, with a straight face, that he doesn’t know anything about what was going on with the air-pressure levels of his team’s footballs, is, he’s considering becoming a standup comedian for a post-NFL career.

Like or detest this great all-time football coach, one certainty is, he leaves nothing even remotely connected to his team, to chance. This guy is the ultimate control freak.

Compared to Belichick, Orioles Manager Buck Showalter seems like a laid back, carefree slacker.

Others feel the whole issue has been overblown and it’s more a case that the hard-edged Belichick isn’t well-liked personally around the league.

They remind us that it’s considered smart gamesmanship in baseball when another player can steal signs the third-base coach or manager is flashing. Rumors of major league stadiums equipped with surveillance cameras embedded in scoreboards, to steal signals from catchers, so that hitters will know what pitches they are facing, have circulated for years.
 
Football, however, seems more susceptible to illegal surveillance and technological dirty tricks. As preparation for football games has increased its reliance on films and technology, and game coaching utilizes more and more electronic devices, it’s no surprise that some coaches are enticed to  step over the ethical line in the name of winning.
 
A WEEK’S WORTH OF PREPARATION

Football coaches put a week’s worth of preparation into every game and are under heavy pressure to eliminate surprises, gain every possible edge and leave nothing to chance. Every contest weighs a ton.

In baseball or basketball there are too many games to concentrate so much attention on each opponent. But with football, preparation time is at least six times longer than each game.

You can figure most football games are usually won or lost before the teams even take the field. If the talent is close to being even, the team that has prepared better, analyzing the films for matchups, tendencies, and play calling, will win.
 
This obsession with preparation and stopping at nothing to gain advance knowledge has become the nature of football coaching. Many observers feel quite a few NFL teams are guilty of the sort of unethical filming the Patriots were accused of, and that the Pats simply happened to be the ones who got caught.

Still, it’s hard to picture legendary football coaches like Vince Lombardi, Tom Landry, Don Shula, Bud Grant and Joe Gibbs being associated with these types of questionable tactics. If the game has passed them by, there’s a lot wrong with football.

  The big mystery to me in the controversy over the Patriots’ deflated footballs, is why the NFL, a billion-dollar industry, is so cheap when it comes to officiating and supervising game conditions. For years, the league has refrained from making all of its game officials full-time league employees.

WHY AREN’T THE FOOTBALLS PUT INTO PLAY BY OFFICIALS?

And why in the world aren’t the footballs used in games put into play by officials instead of players or team personnel?

  Lost in all the controversy surrounding the air pressure in the Patriots’ footballs was the interesting story-line clash in style between the two opposing coaches in this year’s Super Bowl.

While Belichick is rarely quotable and keeps everything close to the vest, Seattle Coach Pete Carroll is a charismatic type of free-spirited “people person.”

  By dropping out of the 2016 presidential race, Mitt Romney avoided becoming another Harold Stassen, the perennial Republican candidate who wanted to be president, running for the GOP nomination 10 times between 1940 and 1992.

Maybe Romney realized how hard it is sometimes, on a national level, to take the Republican Party seriously when you have retread political lightweights like Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, Rick Perry and Rick Santorum — to name a few — testing the presidential campaign waters.

Where is Congresswoman Michele Bachmann hiding?

  Don’t be quick to dismiss Martin O’Malley from returning to winning political campaigns. The former Maryland Governor would be tough to defeat if he ever decides to run for the U.S. Senate when either Barbara Mikulski or Ben Cardin decides they have had enough.

CONTRADICTORY TO BE SO PROTECTIVE

  Isn’t it a bit contradictory for President Barack Obama to be so protective of the Arctic wilderness, vehemently against the Keystone Oil Pipeline but open-minded to drilling off the Eastern Seaboard coast?

  No matter what you think of Obama, Speaker of the House John Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, it is an inexcusable and unacceptable breach of protocol for the Prime Minister of Israel to be invited and accept an invitation to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress without first clearing the appearance with the White House.

  If Rob Manfred, Major League Baseball’s new commissioner, is serious about shorter games, all he has to do is cut down on all the time wasted between innings for television and radio to cram in an unmerciful number of commercials.

However that of course translates into extra revenue and is not going to happen.

Instead, the owners’ new stooge is tossing out ridiculous ideas like limiting the defensive shifts teams can employ in the field. But what might actually make sense would be to study and determine why National League contests are played at a brisk pace and the DH-laden American League sometimes takes forever to complete games.

  Why is CBS attempting to bring back a modernized version of the classic series “The Odd Couple,” which ran from 1970-75?

THE ODDS STACKED AGAINST THEM

Matthew Perry (Oscar) and Thomas Lennon (Felix) have the odds stacked against them trying to match Jack Klugman and Tony Randall of the original series. CBS must be getting pretty sure of itself, having gambled and won with a 2010 remake of “Hawaii Five-0.”

  Reports from 2014 indicate that 37 guns were taken from passengers preparing to fly out of BWI, Reagan and Dulles, the Baltimore-Washington region’s three major airports.

Fourteen guns were seized at BWI alone. What in the world are people thinking?

And this doesn’t even include knives and other items confiscated that could be used as weapons.

  Baltimore’s WBFF Fox-45-TV should benefit from the poised and professional presence of Kai Jackson, formerly of WJZ, recently added to its local prime-time anchor team.

With extensive experience covering the Maryland scene, Jackson brings added credibility to the station’s broadcasts as a co-anchor on the 4, 5, 10 and 11 p.m. newscasts.
 
davidmaril@voiceofbaltimore.org
 
“Inside Pitch” is a weekly opinion column written for Voice of Baltimore by David Maril.
 
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