NFL Week 22: Super Bowl XLIX

Sunday's Super Bowl in Arizona is about as classic a match-up as anyone could hope for. On one side you have the apotheosis of the corporate machine led by the evil genius Bill Belichik and his telegenic, super-model-marrying, duplicitous matinee idol quarterback Tom Brady. On the other side you have the young, fresh, beautiful, black free men led by the sprightly Pete Carroll and his acerbic, cerebral cornerback Richard Sherman.

Sherman made news when he accused National Football League commissioner Roger Goodell of a conflict of interest. Answering a question about Deflategate (also referred to as "Ballghazi"), Sherman said don't expect any punishment to be forthcoming when Goodell is hanging out socially with Patriots owner Robert Kraft. According to ESPN's Jeff Legwold ("Carroll: Sherman expressing opinion"):

Sunday, shortly after the Seahawks' arrival in Arizona, Sherman said he didn't believe the Patriots would be punished if they were found to have adjusted the air pressure in 11 footballs prior to last Sunday's AFC Championship Game.

Sherman cited a photograph that included Goodell and Kraft from a party at Kraft's house the night before the AFC Championship Game, a photo that was then posted to the Patriots' official Twitter account: 

"Will they be punished? Probably not," Sherman said. "Not as long as Robert Kraft and Roger Goodell are still taking pictures at their respective homes. You talk about conflict of interest. As long as that happens, it won't affect them at all. Nothing will stop them."

Dave Zirin picked up on Sherman's comment in a blog post yesterday, "Patriots Balls and Christopher Hitchens":

This conflict of interest is very real. As GQ’s Gabriel Sherman wrote in a damning long read that dropped this week about Goodell, Kraft is apparently known among NFL execs as “the assistant commissioner.” Even this description is charitable. It’s less the relationship between an assistant and a commissioner as much as it is one between a hand and the bottom aperture of a puppet. Bob Kraft, in addition to being just a “friend of Goodell,” has been the great defender of Goodell’s stunning $44 million salary. He was Goodell’s first defender during the release of information that showed that the NFL cared very little about domestic violence until tape went public of Ray Rice striking his wife Janay. He also, according to GQ, orchestrated Goodell’s disastrous defense of the NFL’s domestic violence policies, in conjunction with CBS network who was about to start airing its lucrative Thursday night NFL telecasts. Kraft ordered Goodell to speak to CBS and grant an interview to, in Kraft’s insistence “a woman,” who ended up being Norah O’Donnell. Goodell complied.

Drew Magary wrote, in analyzing the league’s deep concern with the optics of this, “[Y]ou can see that NFL higher-ups were far more concerned with LOOKING like they were handling domestic violence appropriately than actually doing so (cut to Eli Manning in a No More ad looking like you just told him that we’ve run out of cupcakes).

This relationship with Bob Kraft and the mere appearance of impropriety that marks how Goodell handles every issue that crosses his desk, tells its own story about why he must go. A reckless incompetence now defines everything he touches, whether it is his enforcing of the rules, the health and safety of players, or his dealings with the union. Instead of acting—like his predecessor Paul Tagliabue—as even the mildest of checks on the grasping of the bosses, he is their id unleashed. Instead of listening to players, Goodell is so comically distanced from the reality of his own ineptitude that he has become the sports version of Yertle the Turtle.

Zirin hopes that Deflategate proves to be Goodell's undoing. I think Sherman's comments will prove to be on the mark. Nothing will happen. Already the media has moved on to former Seahawks now Patriots cornerback Brandon Browner  and his statement that New England should go after the less-than-100%-healthy Sherman and free safety Earl Thomas and try to knock them out of the game.

And I'm sure this is what the Patriots will do. I was a die-hard 49ers fan in the Bill Walsh era. In the 1980s a premiere rivalry in the National Football League was between the San Francisco 49ers and the New Giants. Bill Parcells coached the Giants; his defensive coordinator was Bill Belichik. Belichik's tenure as chief architect of those defenses led by Lawrence Taylor, Leonard Marshall, Harry Carson and Carl Banks established him in the league. Belichik had a reputation among the 49ers for encouraging cheap shots, dirty play.

Of course I never forgot this. And subsequently I always considered Belichik teams to be the foulest and most conniving.

Who could root for a Belichik team particularly with his philosophy that all players are expendable? Isn't the point about giving your allegiance to a team is that there is something special, unique, transcendent about the players? Not according to Belichik. To Belichik players are just so many interchangeable widgets; that is why free agency bulks so large on his teams (think Randy Moss).

Consider it this way: Russell Wilson would never start on a Belichik team. Too small. Maybe, if Brady went down, Wilson might see some time in relief, but never would he be given run of the offense. Also consider Belichik's disdain for star running backs. Belichik believes running backs are a dime a dozen, easily replaced and largely indistinguishable. He never would allow a free, package-grabbing man like Marshawn Lynch the all-important role he has on the Seahawks offense.

What makes Pete Carroll the polar opposite of Bill Belichik is that rather than scheming and cheating and searching for any and every advantage in the X's and O's Carroll is sensitive to the intangibles, the spirit world. Carroll sees and knows that athletics are about the organic unity of team play, positive energy, a will to win and the human spirit. Belichik's corporate slavery is the exact opposite.

Then there is the issue of race. The Seahawks are a black team full of young black men who are incredible leaders. I speak here of Kam Chancellor, Richard Sherman, Earl Thomas, Marshawn Lynch, Russell Wilson. Free men. Black men. The Patriots are team with more whites than most. Tom Brady, Rob Gronkowski, Danny Amendola, Julian Edelman, Rob Ninkovich.

Carroll has complained in the past that the Seahawks are singled out by the league, and that is why they are called for so many penalties. I think it is because the Seahawks represent a threat to the institutional racism of corporate America.

So for the future, for free men, for Black Lives Matter, for athleticism over trickery, for human spirit over corporate dominance, for Carroll over Belichik, for Richard Sherman over Tom Brady -- take the Seahawks!