Truthfully, winning the Super Bowl would be the most aesthetically pleasing for the general population, but as far as sticking things so far up someone's hind parts that you can see it when they smile, Brady taking the MVP trophy out of Roger Goodell's hands, would be considered karmic response of the highest order.
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| Brady (12), with Bennett |
As most people in the civilized world and Canada know, Brady was suspended for the first four games of this season as the scapegoat for Goodell's old-fashioned sting operation, known universally as "DeflateGate", where Brady and the Patriots were set up by the league and the management of the Indianapolis Colts to take a hard fall for presumably deflating footballs in advance of the 2014 AFC Championship game...
...complete with a whirlwind, SWAT-style confiscation of footballs at halftime of the game and a very public indictment of the team and Brady via a constant stream of falsified leaks from the NFL offices - and when the smoke cleared, the Patriots had lost a million dollars, their first round draft pick for 2016 and their quarterback for the first four games of this season.
To quantify, that first-round draft pick is gone. The million clams shelled out by Kraft has already gone to a charity of Goodell's choosing. Tom Brady has already served his suspension.
None of those things are coming back, so the next best thing is to get full value from the injustice that was - and always will be - the evil and wrong"Deflategate" saga. No one is really sure what the league got out of penalizing the Patriots for what amounted to a referee being unsure of which gauge he used to check the PSI of a football, which made the "evidence" that much more compelling.
Sure, there are questions as to why the league would purposely suspend the face of their product for something as frivolous as a few ounces of air pressure - kind of a "cut off your nose to spite your face approach" - and to this day no one really knows the answer to that, and the only tangible thing gained by anyone is that we all now know why the air pressure in our car tires decreases in cold weather...
...which thrilled most scientists, with the possible exception of Bill Nye, the Science guy. Why, the league is so up to date on the Ideal Gas Law now that they now apparently wave off any notion of altered air pressure with the condescending air of men who are suddenly experts in theoretical physics.
Ignorance of the law is their excuse, though it is difficult to imagine that an entity that can afford to consult the brightest minds in law and science wasn't collectively aware, at the time, of the data - and since there was no baseline documented as to the pressure in the balls to begin with, Brady and the Patriots were screwed from the start.
It was a sting that failed so miserably that Goodell was forced to fall back on playing the media like a marionette would a brace of puppets to gain public opinion as to Brady's guilt, then eventually suspended him for impeding an investigation for destroying cell phones after hired gun Ted Wells assured Brady that the investigators didn't need them
It was a total job, prima facie absurd at every turn, and the Patriots could do nothing about it...
That is, until Belichick did do something about it.
The Dark Master went on a former high round round pick safari, bagging via free agency or trade tight end Martellus Bennett, offensive guard Jonathan Cooper, defensive end Chris Long, defensive tackle Terrance Knighton and linebacker Shea McClellin, then rubbing it in Goodell's face by making in-season moves to pick up linebackers Barkeveous Mingo and Kyle Van Noy, cornerback Eric Rowe and, just recently, wide receiver Michael Floyd.
All of the aforementioned athletes were drafted in either the first or second rounds by other teams, and all but Cooper an d Knighton are still on the roster. For those keeping score, that makes eight first rounders on the depth chart, and seven second rounders - most of the top talent residing on the defensive side of the ball.
You see, when Goodell took away the Patriots' first round draft pick, he took away something that Belichick cares about very deeply, something that he refers to as "capital", but he came away with so much in response that it could very well be considered that Belichick got full value from his vendetta with the league, and deserves not only to be named Coach of the Year, but also Executive of the Year, for his work as the team's defacto General manager.
In fact, full value in this context, means three things: First, Head ball coach Bill Belichick is named Coach of the Year and Executive of the Year. Second, Brady wins the MVP. Third, the Patriots take home a fifth Lombardi Trophy.
The team is well on their way to another trophy, as a Patriot win against the Jets on Christmas Eve coupled with an Oakland Raiders' loss to those same Indianapolis Colts would ensure that the road to the Super Bowl goes straight through Foxborough, leaving only Brady's MVP candidacy - which needs no explanation at all, but let's do it anyway, because the numbers are amazing:
Despite missing four games due to Roger Goodell's ego, Brady has thrown for 3064 yards in the ten games he has played, which is good only for 22nd among all quarterbacks, but if those numbers are averaged out over the course of 14 games, Brady would be leading the conference in gross yardage, net passing yards and touchdown passes thrown...
...and he already does lead the conference in least interceptions thrown, completion percentage, yards per attempt, least times sacked, and quarterback rating. If he is not the MVP of the league, there is no justice. Oh wait...
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