I Think With Mike Leach's Opinion On DeflateGate We Have Officially Come Full Circle

LBS- “It’s kind of disturbing if you think about it,” Leach said, per Mike Schlabach of ESPN.com. “With everything that’s going on, we’re worried about how much air goes into a ball when everybody uses their own ball. It’s not like it’s a forged football.

“We waste a lot of time with that, and then we worry about the Kardashians. How can it be that we laugh about England’s obsession with the royal family? At least the royal family has college degrees and military service.”

“Give them an empty football and let them fill it however they want to,” he said. “If your quarterback wants a deflated football, your soccer-style kicker is going to want it kind of full. If your quarterback wants it really full, your straight-on kicker is going to want less air in it. It’s a regulation football; let them use it however they want to. You use your own ball.”


Okay fine, Mike Leach is a little bit out there. Always has been, always will be. So, with that said, you have to take any of his opinions with a grain of salt. That's why I am able to forgive him for going off the rails with that whole Kardashian/Royal Family comparison. Mostly because it's funny listening to old, white football coaches ramble incoherently (shoutout to Lou Holtz), but also because he brings up the very point that I made when the news of DeflateGate officially leaked. If you want to two professional football teams to compete on an even playing field, why the FUCK would you let them play with separate balls? Damn near seven months later, and still no one has answered that question for me. 

The NFL is the biggest business in professional sports and it is a business of winning. That's why they have the most cases of gamesmanship/cheating. Teams and players will do anything to get ahead. So when you leave them alone in the locker room with an air pump and a bunch of footballs that only they will be using you are basically enabling their questionable judgement. Of course they are going to test the limits off what is legal when you willingly give them the opportunity to. You know why pitchers alter the ball every chance that they get? Lack of institutional control, either intentionally or unintentionally, by the MLB. If you don't want Tom Brady to use a deflated ball then don't give him the opportunity to deflate the ball. Just put a ball on the field and tell both teams to deal with it. We have to pander to every preference and desire of both quarterbacks because most of them are making $20 million a year now? When you make that much money I should be able to give you any kind of ball and you should be able to make it work. Here take this medicine ball and hit your receiver on a 20 yard out because you are being paid handsomely to do so. You think the NBA cares if LeBron likes his ball to have a little less gripe than Steph Curry does? Not a chance. It's a competition, and in an organized, fully funded competition all other factors should remain equal. I would think the first thing on that list would be the object required to score any and all points, but what do I know, I'm not a needy multimillion dollar quarterback that can tell the difference between 10 PSI and 15 PSI.

Look where we are at now. We have both parties in a pissing match about who lied about what. We have destroyed evidence, false allegations, appeals, lawsuits, injunctions, and (insert any more legal terminology here). Ten different newsworthy updates on the situation every day. Yet still, no one can give me a reasonable answer as to why the NFL gives a bunch of morally compromised NFL players the leeway to modify their own balls. Mike Leach and I may have different stances on DeflateGate, but at least we both realize it's about the air pressure of a fucking football that the NFL has continually left in idle hands. With the circus that has come of this I think it has become easy to forget that.