THE GOOD – THE BAD – AND THE NOT QUITE UGLY ENOUGH . . .

DEFLATE-GATE ???

Please… As my good friend Davis Parr pointed out, “Someone forgot to pay the Physics Bill!” This is a NON EVENT. It’s VERY physically possible for the balls to deflate due to weather . . . Did the Patriots monkey around with them? Maybe… But without a “clever” Ray Rice tape (oops) of some poor ball boy putting a pin into the footballs, there just isn’t anything to prove or disprove. Maybe it would be funny for owners to have challenge flags (design concepts welcome at FrazerRice.com…) when they think something is “askew” during a game. In reality, who cares? Heck, remember when it was cute for the Oakland Raiders to cheat? The league needs villains!

Truth is, the NFL has a superb history of creating competitive imbalances going back to the AFL (Buy the competition out before they get entrenched) and the USFL (Create an anti-competitive environment and then lawyer them to death in the anti-trust world). Deflate-Gate? More like Ticket-Inflate gate! The cheapest ticket on Saturday was 9K last time I checked – yikes!

Check this out:  “Some ticket brokers are being caught in a short squeeze and it’s shedding some light on the NFL’s ticket allocation policies . . . there will probably be blood. Jesse Lawrence, CEO of TiqIq, sheds some light on this market . . .” [Zerohedge, 1/31/2015]

PREDICTIONS:

Anyway, I have no dog or betting interest in this American Football National Holiday. My team (the soon to be re-named to something less controversial, Redskins) can’t even cheat correctly. PATHETIC. Anyway, here are some fearless prognostications:

New England 31 — Seattle 27

The teams are evenly matched. It comes down to two (maybe three) factors:

• First, I think Brady has the better receiving corps, and Belichick to parse through Seattle’s defense. I will take that over Wilson, his receiving corps and two weeks of Belichick to confuse him. If Wilson has to throw it- and he will- I think Revis and his fellow Islanders could cause havoc
• Second, Craig Easterbrook has a great theory on the doom of the pick-6 – look for that to be a factor! [ESPN, Super Bowl Preview 2015]
• Third, I think Brady and Belichick know that this may be it. They are already football immortals. They are now playing for GOAT status. All this Deflate-Gate stuff did was make the two of them annoyed and focused. I think they have more will. In a match-up this close, I think that’s all it will take.

MVP:  Gronk — I just don’t think the Seahawks can deal with him. We also need more Gronk Erotic literature.

Best Ad:  I honestly haven’t followed any of this. We have been promised lots of puppies and not much cleavage. The only thing I can say for certain is that the Clydesdales will make me cry and I will go buy a case of Budweiser to support Missouri and America (and . . . those nice European folks over at InBev)

Katy Perry Halftime Show: Unless she has the mother of all wardrobe malfunctions, I’m still going to be upset that Van Halen was passed over. (Does she even have long-enough songs to fill a halftime show? Will she at least sing/reenact “I Kissed a Girl????”)

Impact on Monday: Some sluggishness at the office is to be expected. It’s too cold to loot in New England (although I suppose setting cars on fire is good for all seasons…) And, of course, we’ll all wonder why Go-Daddy still spends what it does on Super-Bowl Ads…

REMINDER: I’m live-tweeting the Super Bowl, Puppy Bowl, AND Downton Abbey tonight at @frazerrice – Follow the non-stop Twitter-frenzy and enjoy the shenanigans!

PS – One of the greatest strong safeties in NFL history will be the Seahawks Honorary Captain . . . Kenny Easley. If you like Kam Chancellor, you would have loved Kenny Easley. He was a terminator and ballhawk for the Seahawks secondary for years – and one of the league’s great players. Here’s a little more on him: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenny_Easley]