In Defense of Cheating

This little bit of bitterness comes from another blog.

After the most exciting NFC Championship Game in my memory and the most boring AFC Championship Game that followed, we have two teams ready for the upcoming Super Bowl.  The New England Patriots...and the Seattle Seahawks.

THIS is an exciting game for me, as it pits two of the very, very best at what they do--cheating.

What we have are two cheaters as coaches.  New England is coached by a man who paid the highest penalty for cheating in NFL history.  He was so obvious that South Park mocked him in a sendup of Stand and Deliver (a fine movie--the best teaching film ever).  Today, there are indications that the Patriots deflated the footballs for last night's AFC Championship Game.

On the other coast, you have the man who helped USC enjoy years of sanctions, including a vacated Heisman Trophy.  A man who called time-out four times in a half during the referee lockout.  At the beginning of this football season, he and the Seahawks paid over $300,000 in fines related to player contact.

Sure, you can be disgusted, but I will remain amazed and impressed.  Consider some other things:

Bill Belichik is the longest tenured coach in the NFL (among active coaches).  Teams tend to keep winners.  He has three fully-fuctional adult children.  Pete Carroll has been married for 38 years. He's a grandfather of two.  Both coaches are noted for giving chances to players in need of a little more understanding.  Though neither has a perfect track record, both are generally decent human beings in society.  They're just cunning on the field.

Football is a game.  There are rules.  If you break the rules (and get caught), then you pay a fine...or draft picks...or other such things.  Nobody gets physically hurt in this kind of "cheating."  It's not like the Saints--who paid players to inflict concussions.  It's not like the Ravens--who can't stop beating women and killing people.  Seems like I mentioned that last one sometime earlier...

As Jim Rome often says:

If you're not cheating, you're not trying...and...it's only cheating of you get caught.

In fact, Rome is willing to discuss the right way to cheat.  It's a game, after all.

There are those who follow the rules perfectly, but have not the character to prove the rules meaningful.  These two coaches know that you push the envelope, just like athletes do.  When they get caught, they pay the price and move on.  Were we all that capable and willing.  In other cases, we see teams split apart by "commitments to religion" that equate stealing signs as a sin.  It's a game...try not to get so bitter.

This is a perfect Super Bowl matchup for me: a supreme battle between the two greatest cheaters in the NFL.  It won't matter who wins on February 1, 2015; the trophy will be vacated five years from now.

And NOBODY will consider the loser to be the "true" champion.

Perfect.