New England Patriots: The Curse of DeflateGate is Complete
The teams who piled on the New England Patriots for DeflateGate paid for it this season.
First things first – the Madden Curse is completely, absolutely, irrefutably, 100% real.
This is pretty much common knowledge by now, but if you’re too cool to play video games, here’s a refresher of what has happened to just a few of the players on the Madden cover over the years.
-Dante Culpepper made the cover in 2002. The season after that, the Vikings went 5-11 and Culpepper threw 23 interceptions and tied the NFL record for most fumbles in a single season.
–Michael Vick was the 2004 Madden cover, and he broke his fibula in a preseason game. The Falcons went 5-11 afterwards and Vick eventually went to jail, for, well, a lot of really awful things.
-In 2008, Vince Young was the face of Madden, and after famously saying he didn’t believe in the curse (poked the bear, SMH), he promptly got injured in 2008, and 2010, and then was released by the Titans in 2011.
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-More recently, Madden 2015 featured the Seahawks Legion of Boom on the cover. Of course, Seattle went on to lose the Super Bowl to New England after leading by 10 points at the end of the third quarter, and after the game, it came out that Richard Sherman, Earl Thomas, Kam Chancellor, and Byron Maxwell had all been injured during the playoffs.
Also, Peyton Hillis. Yeah, that guy.
Now that we’ve established a baseline of silly and ultimately meaningless coincidences, here’s another fun one: every team that was involved in 2015’s DeflateGate schmuckery and either started the thing, weighed in against the Patriots, or sided with the league publicly has been cursed this season. And not just a little cursed – like the Red Sox after trading the Bambino cursed. It’s glorious.
And even when stuff started going sour for a lot of the franchises that wanted to see the Patriots burn over half a PSI, it actually got way worse for a lot of them as the NFL season drew to a close. Like, the kind of things where you’re standing outside after getting yelled at by your boss, going “HOW can this day get any worse?!?”, and then you find out the guy at Subway put mayo on your sub after you specifically told them “No mayo”.
Let’s start with the Indianapolis Colts. Buckle up, it’s going to be a bumpy ride. Actually, scratch that, it’s more like a mine shaft straight to hell.
Of course, the Colts were the first ones to whine to the NFL about New England’s *alleged* football air pressure Black Ops unit, when Indianapolis GM Ryan Grigson emailed the league and said he was worried about the Patriots getting an “illegal advantage”.
After the bold choice to draft a wide receiver in the first round of the 2015 draft instead of fortifying the Colts’ defense that had been gashed for 45 points in the AFC Championship game, the Colts were Super Bowl favorites with an offense that was supposed to light the league on fire and bring the crown back to Indianapolis.
And then…
Andrew Luck was an absolute disaster in the season opener against the Buffalo Bills, going 26 for 49 and throwing 2 interceptions, and the Colts lost 14-27. Indianapolis went on to New England a few weeks later for the “Snitches Get Stitches Bowl” and tried to execute a hilariously bad fake punt trick play that was FUBAR before the ball was even snapped.
Before that, Andrew Luck had hurt his shoulder, and then the news came out that Luck had a torn ab muscle and a lacerated kidney, which kept him out for most of the rest of the season. The Colts finished 8-8 after three straight winning seasons and missed the playoffs, despite playing in the dumpster-fire AFC South.
But wait, there’s more!
Reports started leaking throughout the year that either head coach Chuck Pagano, GM Ryan Grigson, or both of them would be told to pack up their stuff and not let the door hit them on the way out after the season was over. Instead, they both got new contracts this week. That’s good, right? Everyone’s happy! Yay!
Well, not exactly. Right after the Colts re-signed Pagano and Grigson, Pro Football Talk reported that Indianapolis was also negotiating with Saints coach Sean Payton, but contract talks broke down before they could reach a deal. Hence, re-signing P & G. Awwwwwwwwwwwwkward.
Meanwhile, the Baltimore Ravens, of course, were the ones that tipped off the Colts about the Patriots’ alleged air pressure skullduggery. Coach John Harbaugh also was super salty about the Patriots running their now-infamous unbalanced offensive line plays, whining that “Nobody’s ever seen that before”, even though college football coaches have been using the tactic for years.
This year, the Ravens…whoo boy. Where to begin?
Superstar team captains Joe Flacco and Terrell Suggs both had their seasons ended early with brutal injuries – Flacco tore his ACL and MCL, and Suggs tore his Achilles tendon in the first game of the season. First-round draft pick Breshard Perriman hurt his knee before the season even started, then went through a bizarre stretch where the Ravens said he was coming back, then he wasn’t, and that repeated at nauseum all freaking season.
Justin Forsett, the running back who was one of the best feel-good stories in the NFL last year, broke his arm after getting crushed by Rams tackle Aaron Donald and missed the rest of the season. Steve Smith tore his Achilles in what was supposed to be an epic retirement party of a season for him, and the Ravens ended the year with an unreal 26 players on injured reserve, which is far and away the most in the NFL.
The Ravens also lost a game to the Jacksonville Jaguars, 22-20, and then the NFL admitted after the game that multiple incorrect calls in the final minutes of the game literally cost the Ravens the game.
Oh, and Baltimore finished the season 5-11 and got to watch the Steelers and Bengals head to the playoffs.
The Cowboys contribution to the curse was pretty innocuous by comparison, but the curse don’t care, and unleashed hell on the Cowboys in what should have been a season where Dallas could’ve finally returned to the Super Bowl. After the Ginger Hammer upheld Tom Brady’s four-game suspension, Jerry Jones supported Goodell almost as much as he would eventually support Greg Hardy:
“He’s got obviously a very tough job,” Jones said. “Now I see some people doing that, that’s that old violin that’s not feeling too sorry for him because that’s why you pay the big bucks is to deal with the big problems. But he’s doing an outstanding job. I can tell you firsthand that in his spot you have to with people who you are counting on to help build and to help excel as far as the National Football League, I’m talking about the owners, you have to know that you’re going to make some decisions that are very unpopular with that particular group. This is the case.”
Jones stopped short of calling Goodell a “man of great integrity”, but not by much.
The Cowboys were fresh off a season where they boasted the best run game in the NFL and barely lost to the Green Bay Packers in the divisional playoffs after a heartbreaking catch reversal call on Dez Bryant that literally any person who’s ever played backyard football would call a catch, but turned out to be, well, not a catch.
After bagging a couple of draft-day steals like lineman La’el Collins and Randy Gregory on the cheap, Dallas was primed to beat the tar out of a lousy division consisting of them, two franchises with famously dysfunctional management and coaching, and the Giants.
The nightmare alternate universe that this season turned into for America’s team went all across the board – injuries, bad losses, and all-around jackassery. Stud receiver Dez Bryant broke his foot during the first game of the year, came back in November, then hurt his knee and ankle and limped through a few games before landing on injured reserve.
Tony Romo, who was finally looking like he wasn’t the worst clutch quarterback on the planet, broke his collarbone in Week 2 against the Eagles, came back in November, and then broke the same collarbone again in seven different places.
It gets worse! Aside from the Cowboys gimping to a 4-12 record and a top-5 draft pick, Jerry Jones and head coach Jason Garrett spent most of the season sticking up in the press for his girlfriend-beating defensive end Greg Hardy, after photos of the damage Hardy inflicted on Nicole Holder were revealed.
Also, after Greg Hardy tried to be funny about Tom Brady’s wife, and after Hardy made a rap video full of chicks and guns, and after Greg Hardy got in a shoving match with the special teams coordinator, and after he fought with Dez Bryant on the sidelines, and in general spent most of the season acting like he was on Jersey Shore.
Denver Broncos GM John Elway, whose Super-Bowl-winning teams of the late 90s had a slew of their own cheating allegations, ranging from offensive linemen getting caught with Vaseline on their arms to cheating the salary cap, also supported Roger Goodell as he dealt with the Patriots:
“Well, I mean, I think one thing about it is the game is No. 1 and I think the integrity of the game is No. 1, so the commissioner obviously felt that was compromised and did what he believed he had to do,” Elway said. “What the commissioner does, he’s done a tremendous job for this league and especially in the growth that it’s seen since he’s been here. So, I support the commissioner 100 percent.”
Obviously, the Broncos have had a year most teams would be thrilled with, especially after the Patriots gift-wrapped the number one seed in the AFC for them last weekend. The Broncos’ defense is either hands-down the best defense in the league, or the second best, depending on who you ask. They won 12 games and dealt the Patriots their first loss of the year.
The black comedy of the Broncos is their quarterback Catch-22. Peyton Manning, who set the NFL passing touchdown record just two seasons ago, looked exactly like you’d expect a quarterback who was drafted in the Napster era to look earlier this year, finally getting benched after a four-interception faceplant.
Brock Osweiler’s performance as Manning’s squire has ranged from “Hey, this kid might be on to something!” to bad enough that Osweiler got benched last week and Peyton went in despite not having played since that four-interception game that got him benched in the first place.
The Broncos won’t even say who their starter for the playoffs is, which is either a slick bit of gamesmanship, or they really have no freaking clue who’s a bigger liability.
Maybe the curse of DeflateGate took mercy on the Broncos after John Elway admitted poking the bear was a bad idea.
And finally, the wrath of the DeflateGate curse visited the New York Jets, slow-burning them over the course of the season before dangling a playoff berth right in front of Gang Green’s face, then yanking it away and doing the Dr. Evil laugh.
Wait, the Jets? What did they do?
Witness this gem from Darrelle Revis, right after he re-signed with the Jets on a massive contract:
“But if (the NFL) feels he did the crime or he did something and they want to penalize them, then that’s that. (The Patriots) have a history of doing stuff. You can’t hide that.… Tom was there when they did that stuff in the past.”
“New England’s been doing stuff in the past and getting in trouble. When stuff repeatedly happens, then that’s it. I don’t know what else to tell you. Stuff repeatedly happened through the years. You got SpyGate, you got this and that and everything else. Obviously in those situations in the past, they had the evidence. So they did what they needed to do.”
And wait, who was the one who told the Patriots “You’re in big F-ing trouble!” when footballs got tested at the AFC Championship Game?
Mike Kensil, NFL Vice President of Game Operations, and the 20-year Director of Operations for the New York Jets.
And when it looked like the Jets had finally gotten it right in 2015, and they were playing great football at the exact right time of the year, riding a five-game winning streak with a hellacious defense and an overachieving offense, and playing in a Week 17 game where a win would get them their first playoff shot since 2010…
…They lost.
To Rex Ryan, the man the Jets threw out like a pizza box on a Monday morning after an embarrassing 2014 season. The Bills, with nothing left to play for and a slew of injuries, won in no small part due to Jets quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick’s backbreaking interception late in the game that ended New York’s comeback attempt.
Come to think of it, the Madden Curse better look over its shoulder after making a DeflateGate joke in the tutorials…the DeflateGate curse doesn’t take kindly to being mocked.
The Patriots are the number two seed in the AFC, and have a bye week this week to prepare for whoever emerges from the wild-card round this weekend, which could be Cincinnati, Houston, or Kansas City.