The New England Patriots are like the cartoon character that gets squashed by a falling anvil only to pop up immediately and stick out its tongue, taunting Roger Goodell.
If the Pats can survive -- no, thrive -- despite the NFL commissioner's wrath, what chance do the Miami Dolphins have Sunday in Foxboro, Mass.?
Goodell won the ridiculously unnecessary Deflategate case. He figured Tom Brady's four-game suspension to start the season would finally show the rule-bending Pats who's boss.
The league would teach them a lesson for leaky footballs, Spygate and the coach's poor fashion sense, sending what was left of the Pats West to face the contending Arizona Cardinals for the opener. With star Rob Gronkowski and several offensive linemen injured and a starting linebacker punished for PEDs, the Brady bunch surely would get their comeuppance.
Advantage, Pats.
New England 23, Arizona 21.
Hey, Commish, look over there at that camera in the bushes: You're on Pranked by the Patriots!
Gotcha again, Roger.
If he doesn't think the joke's on him, all Goodell needed to see was the Instagram photo leading up to the game. Captured is the banished Brady under house arrest back in New England, doing insufferable hard time by throwing passes to his supermodel wife, Gisele, who writes, "Don't worry, guys. I will keep him ready."
It's all devilishly hilarious, the most entertaining show in the NFL. And it's produced by Coach Bill Belichick -- the world's most humorless human.
He's also the smartest coach in any sport.
Belichick is the MacGyver of the NFL. He got his Pats out of a tough spot in Arizona with only a bobby pin and a stapler.
Belichick, he of the four Super Bowl rings, has been blessed with all-time greats like Brady and Gronk, no question. But he routinely surrounds them on both sides of the ball with plug-and-play guys who might not fit anywhere else.
He's won without elite receivers (save Randy Moss) and his running-backs-by committees seemingly break into even smaller groups. Can non-Pats fans name three of his defensive players?
Everyone declares how the NFL has become a passing league, but Belichick was ahead of the curve, turning Brady loose.
He's as resourceful as Bear Grylls. Or as the noted football philosopher Bum Phillips once said about Bear Bryant, "Bryant can take his'n and beat your'n and he can turn around and take your'n and beat his'n."
You're not going to beat the Pats if Belichick has five months to prepare for the Cardinals. That's like giving Rory McIIroy strokes.
Without Brady, Belichick was forced to take a young quarterback named Jimmy Garoppolo out of the incubator. He typically devised a game-plan to suit Garoppolo, who engineered the winning drive against the Cards in his first start.
The Pats have won the toughest game on the non-Brady schedule. Next up are the Dolphins, Houston and Buffalo -- all of them at home. Miami has lost seven consecutive times in Foxboro, part of New England's 20-1 run against AFC teams at Gillette Stadium since 2009.
Suddenly, the Pats can go 4-0 with a back-up quarterback, tweaking the commish.
If that happens, Goodell would know he got it all wrong. If he wanted to really punish the Patriots for deflating footballs, he should have suspended the guy in the hoodie holding the bobby pin and stapler.
Sports on 09/15/2016