SemiConscious Dot Org

The Editors patiently attempt to explain it one last time to all you jealous dumbasses:

So, to review: in the real world, videotaping a pre-game practice – as was alleged, and alleged and alleged, could be evidence of cheating in a game. (Here, I wait patiently for Gregg Easterbrook to explain how the NFL has destroyed evidence of a second cameraman, perched on a nearby grassy knoll). But there is no such videotape. In a Dimension of Sight and Sound and Acapulco Gold and Shitty Local Football Teams, evidence of shit we already established happened constantly is evidence that you won the last fifty Super Bowls. Putting forth such half-baked theories in this universe, however, appears to be strongly correlated with having Tom Brady whip your team like they were his illegitimate model-spawn. It may be that football is too sophisticated, intellectually and emotionally, for certain fans. Other amusements might be more appropriate.

In a sane universe, this would be the end of it. However, we all know that this is not a sane universe.

Superbowl Sunday, at last. And man, I can’t wait for this thing to be over with.

One would think that watching one’s team go undefeated and clobber opponents week after week would be fun and relaxing. Not for me, anyway. As the winning streak goes on and the pressure mounts, each game becomes less enjoyable to watch than the one preceding it. I’ve felt relief after some wins, and a smug, malicious sense of vindictive spite towards defeated opponents and their fans after certain other wins (ie. Indy, San Diego, Baltimore, both Miami games, both Jets games) but no real pleasure.

Certainly, the controversy surrounding this season is responsible for much of its tiresome character. Ever since the Spygate scandal broke in September, I’ve defended my team in increasingly vitriolic language. I felt personally offended by people who suggested that, because the Patriots videotaped their opponents’ signals, their dynasty was somehow “tainted.”

Now, however, on the very eve of their elevation into the pantheon of Greatest teams Ever, a new allegation has surfaced: that the Patriots videotaped the St. Louis Rams’ last practice prior to Superbowl XXXVI.

This allegation, if true, is far more serious than what they’ve already been punished for doing. There’s a world of difference between videotaping hand signals your opponent is making out in the open during the course of a game, and sneaking into their closed practice before the game. One is a relatively minor infraction, akin to stealing signals during a baseball game. Everybody does it. The other is far less ethical, and indefensible. They might as well be planting bugs in the opposing coach’s office a la Tricky Dick.

Of course, I’ll need far more convincing before I actually believe the new charges are true. The character of the main source, Matt Walsh, seems questionable at best. His whole “I have information, but I have no motivation to reveal it” schtick is going to get old very fast.

Regardless of whether Walsh’s insinuations are actually true, or just the sour grapes of a disgruntled fired employee angling for his 15 minutes of fame, this season and its attendant scandals have caused me some to rethink a lot of things. I’m seriously considering whether I’ve invested too much emotional energy in this team – and, indeed, in professional sports in general. The whole “tribal” facet of fandom has seemingly overtaken all others. Attending a game in person is becoming markedly less pleasant, more an opportunity for liquored-up groups of opposing fans to yell insults at and pick fights with one another, than to actually enjoy their teams’ accomplishments.

So after today’s game is over, win or lose, it’s time for a self-imposed sports hiatus. Time to read more books, listen to more music, think more about issues that actually have some impact on the quality of people’s everyday lives, and less about the exploits of ‘roided-out behemoths being paid millions of dollars per year to play a children’s game.

Oh yeah: Patriots 37, Giants 27.

UPDATE: Well, that sucked. I don’t know, though, I’m having a hard time getting particularly upset about it. They were completely outplayed on both sides of the ball for 60 minutes. Manning’s unbelievable escape from a sack and 33 yard heave to Tyree during the final drive was the play of the game, but the call of the game was Belichick’s inexplicable decision to forgo a makable field goal and go for it on 4th and 13. If I live 100 years, I’ll never understand that call. And sure enough, a field goal ended up being the final margin.

Don’t these fuckers have anything better to do?

WASHINGTON—With the Super Bowl fast approaching, a senior Republican senator says he wants the NFL to explain why it destroyed evidence of the New England Patriots cheating scandal.

“I am very concerned about the underlying facts on the taping, the reasons for the judgment on the limited penalties and, most of all, on the inexplicable destruction of the tapes,” said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., in a Thursday letter to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.

The story was first reported by the New York Times.

Specter, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the matter could put the league’s antitrust exemption at risk. In a phone interview with the Times on Thursday, he said the committee at some point will call on Goodell to address the antitrust exemption as well as the destruction of the tapes.

“Their antitrust exemption has been on my mind for a long time,” he said in a Capitol Hill news conference Friday.

Let me see if I’ve got this straight: the United States of America is nine trillion dollars in debt, about to enter Year Five of a bloody, pointless clusterfuck of a war that to date has claimed 4,000 American and 80,000+ Iraqi lives and cost half a trillion dollars, our economy is collapsing like a house of cards, oil is pushing $100 per barrel... and this fucking cornpone buffoon wants to hold Senate hearings on football???!?!?

Let’s not forget that all this righteous moral indignance about a football team spying on its opponents (a crime for which it has already been punished, mind you) is coming from a guy who once called DubYa’s illegal, warrantless wiretapping of American citizens a “festering sore on our body politic” – and then turned around and introduced a bill making said spying legal retroactively.

I like football as much as the next guy. Hell, I love it. But as much entertainment as I derive from it, it’s a fucking game. It’s not real life. Nothing is at stake in the Superbowl, other than bragging rights for one group of fans over another. And the fact that our elected representatives are wasting taxpayer money on this shit, with so many real problems causing real human suffering in America and the entire world, drives me to drink. (ok, drink more.)

Tell you what, Arlen: balance the budget, get our troops the hell out of that meat grinder, find a new economic engine to replace the housing boom that was the only thing propping up the American economy for the past six years, fix Social Security and health care… and then you can investigate pro football to your shriveled little heart’s content. Deal?

Until then, Shut. The. Fuck. Up.

(And lest anyone accuse me of being angry just because I’m a Patriots fan, I find the Senate hearings on steroids in baseball to be an equally ridiculous waste of time and taxpayer money.)

Kids, let’s take a journey, way back through the misty veils of time, to the year 2003. It was a strange and unusual era: our President was a stupid, morally bankrupt thug; the Democrats were a bunch of spineless appeasers who rubber-stamped his every evil whim; we were involved in ugly, brutal wars on the other side of the planet for absolutely no reason whatsoever; and the White Stripes and Radiohead released the year’s best albums.

Ok, so maybe things really weren’t very different back then.

In 2003, the world of football was dominated by the New England Patriots, a hard-nosed bunch that won a series of close, ugly, low-scoring games punctuated by ball control offense and molar-rattling defense. Here at last, one might assume they’ve detected a historical difference: for this year’s edition of the same team is powered by a record-setting scoring machine which throws the ball constantly. Some in the national sporting press have even gone so far as to hang the dreaded “finesse team” label on them because of that.

Well, they can all shut the hell up now, because what happened in yesterday’s AFC championship game against the San Diego Chargers was nothing less than a reversion to Pats Of The Stone Age. Faced with a big, physical team that was supposedly going to push them all over the field, they grounded the aerial assault, lined up in a three tight end formation, and ran the ball right down their fucking throats.

During that final, spirit-crushing nine minute drive to run out the clock, I kept hoping that the camera would pan over to Philip Rivers on the sideline. I wanted to see if he was preoccupied with jawing at the fans while his team had its heart ripped out and its season ended. Alas, it was not to be, as the camera never alighted on his face again, and we’ll sadly never know. Bye bye, douchebag.

As if the Patriots kicking the obnoxious Chargers to the curb wasn’t satisfying enough, the New York Giants beat the Green Bay Packers for the NFC title, a fantastic event which simultaneously

a) Removes the only NFC team that made me even slightly nervous
b) Ensures that I won’t have to listen to the national media fellate Brett Favre for two straight weeks
c) Means that another Boston team will win a title at the expense of another New York team
d) Fulfills my wish for the Patriots to beat a Manning in the postseason this year.

Everything’s coming up Milhouse!

Oh, Jesus H. Pencil-Necked Christ.

Hey, he lasted longer than I ever thought he would. I thought that trade would be the death of the franchise, that he would do to the Patriots what he did to the Vikings and the – ok, he didn’t really destroy the Raiders. They were a rotting corpse long before he got there. He merely hastened the decomposition…for which I am profoundly grateful, truth be told. Fuck the Raiders right in the ear.

But he made it through an entire season without reverting to Randy Being Randy, and that season just happened to be the greatest season any wide receiver has ever had in the history of the NFL. That’s a pretty good return on the investment of a fourth round draft pick.

Unfortunately the old demons have returned with a vengeance. And even assuming he isn’t guilty of the charges (which, given his history, is at best iffy), his contract is up, and he’ll probably require the richest contract any receiver has ever signed in order to stay. Considering the rapidly aging linebacker corps who will shortly need to be replaced and the Pro Bowl cornerback who will need to be paid, tying all that cash up in a troubled receiver isn’t the best idea.

So Randy, enjoy your last two games in a Patriot uniform. Get us another ring, and look back fondly on your short time playing for The Team Of The Decade. Next year, the Titans or Jaguars or Buccaneers will be paying you a lot of money.

For lo these many years, the dark days of January would be brightened by a ritual as predictable and unchanging as the tides or the sunrise: The Indianapolis Colts choking in the playoffs. Year in, year out, they never wavered, blowing games in spectacularly incompetent fashion, providing a comforting psychic anchor in times of stress. You could set your watch by The Manning Face.

But then, last year, the universe turned upside down, black became white, up was down, dogs walked people, and the Colts were suddenly clutch. The team that always blows it… didn’t??!?!?? Strong men wept, as the very foundations of the universe itself seemed to be dissolving.

Thankfully, one year later, the natural order has been restored, and things that should always happen do, once again, happen.

(Above: their tears are the sweetest ambrosia.)

You were saying, Fuck-o?

But on to the bigger question: will the Patriots’ 19-0 record and coronation as The Best Team Of All Time somehow mean less because they didn’t get to experience the pleasure of Payback against the Colts along the way?

Oh, right.

And finally: kudos to Colts fans for booing the 14 year old girl who won the halftime Punt, Pass and Kick competition, because she happened to be wearing a Patriots jersey. For a bunch of rubes from Flyover Land, you sure managed to do a convincing impression of New Yorkers.

Stay classy, Naptown.

Granted, from an objective standpoint, the road wins over previously undefeated Indianapolis and Dallas may have been bigger...but no win this season was more smugly satisfying than this one.

You would think that, after having two potential Superbowl trips derailed by the Patriots in this decade alone, the Pittsburgh Steelers would be smart enough not to shoot their mouths off before heading into Foxboro to take on the undefeated Brady/Belichick colossus. Thankfully, the Steelers are not very bright.

Earlier this season, they gave the Patriots all the bulletin board material they could ever need. But apparently that wasn’t enough, because this week, one of their players had to go and guarantee a win in Foxboro. At this point, a wise man would shut his mouth, but noooo: the defensive back who made the foolish guarantee then publicly dared the Patriots to throw the ball at him!

And so they did. Thanks for the suggestion, dumbfuck!

Granted, this was far from a perfect game. The defense got pounded on the ground for the second consecutive week, the offense isn’t even trying to run the ball anymore, and Randy Moss dropped an wide-open touchdown pass late in the game, thus denying Brady his second career 400 yard game and leaving him four TD passes short of Peyton Manning’s single season record.

However, with the Payback Bowl on tap next week against the Jets, the record might fall before the end of the first quarter.

Ah, now there’s the Randy Moss I remember from Minnesota (and especially Oakland.) Five catches, 43 yards, no scores, several drops, a pushoff that negated a touchdown, and a complete invisibility during the pivotal fourth quarter. When it was obvious that Philly was leaving Welker and Stallworth open in order to double and triple Moss, Brady stopped throwing to him…and Randy, as he’s always done when he isn’t the sole focus of the offense, began to pout.

He’s the Manny Ramirez of football, only without the endearing personality.

Thank Jeebus the Pats didn’t sign him to a new deal before the season started. If Good Randy reappears after tonight’s debacle, they can ride him to a Superbowl title, then talk contract. But if Bad Randy’s return becomes a trend, they cut him loose after the season, and let him be someone else’s problem.

Just a pathetic effort tonight. Moss and Stallworth both dropped passes in the first quarter, and many of Stephen Gostkowski’s nine kickoffs were short, allowing Buffalo favorable field position once or twice.

Hopefully, Belichick makes the whole team run extra drills this week, to atone for their mediocre performance. It’s just unacceptable.

At long last, Good and Evil squared off in the squalid environs of Naptown, Indiana, in a prenaturally important battle to decide the fate of the Free World… and Evil won. Ha ha!

(Above: Um, Peyton, when they said “dig deep for victory,” that’s not what they meant.)

Awwwww. Gregg Easterbrook and the staff at Fox are probably weeping like little schoolgirls as we speak. Which, of course, just makes the victory that much sweeter.

Yeah, I’m really liking this whole Evil thing. I love the fact that every football fan in the entire country outside New England loathes the Patriots, and was desperately hoping for them to get their comeuppance. I love that Belichick has made a conscious decision to go all Suge Knight on the rest of the league in the wake of the ridiculous “spying” “scandal.”

And sure, I would’ve like to see the Patriots beat the mortal shit out of Indy like they’ve done to everyone else, but somehow, this was better. They went on the road against an undefeated defending Superbowl champion, played just as badly as they could possibly play, had their heads handed them for the game’s first fifty minutes… and still won. That’s bad news for the entire rest of the NFL.

Just give them the Lombardi trophy now, already. This delay is only making them madder.