Opinion | Why NFL chief Roger Goodell and New England Patriots are deserving bedfellows
Despite having his head handed to him by Tom Brady's legal team, NFL commissioner is back inflating the money machine
There was nothing subtle about it but then championship celebrations rarely are. The NFL is officially back and on a dreary, overcast and wet New England evening the Patriots opened the season against the Pittsburgh Steelers by raising their fourth Super Bowl banner in the past 14 years.
The fans could hardly contain their hubris. Screw you all, they bellowed, because haters are going to hate
Rain, what rain? For 80,000 chowderheads crammed into Gillette Stadium and millions more across the region, no one was going to rain on their parade. No one. Backed by the 70-plus members of the Springfield Symphony Orchestra, hip-hop impresario T-Pain belted out win, win in front of a delirious crowd. Three former Patriot stalwarts brought out a Super Bowl trophy each before the latest gleaming instalment of the collection emerged from the tunnel in the hands of owner Robert Kraft.
No one was more responsible for the Patriots dynasty than the beaming septuagenarian, who had actually blocked the former owners from moving to Jacksonville 27 years ago before buying the team some six years later. In 21 years of Kraft's ownership, the Pats have been in the play-offs 16 times while making seven trips to the Super Bowl.
On the sidelines was the architect of the four championships - coach Bill Belichick. A tactical and managerial genius, Belichick has no current peer and is arguably the greatest coach in the NFL's history. Leading the players on to the field was dashing star quarterback Tom Brady, 38 going on 28. Touchdown Tom, Tom Terrific, Tommy Franchise, he is all that and more and as the only member of all four championship teams Brady is also arguably the greatest quarterback of all time. Watching all this through Beantown bifocals, it was borderline orgasmic.
But as they flipped the coin to start the game, what the rest of the world saw was something entirely different. To them T-Pain should actually have been singing "All I do is cheat, cheat, cheat". Under the auspices of Kraft and Belichick, the Patriots have been tagged for a number of violations including most recently "Deflategate" and most notably "Spygate".
The Pats initially managed to avoid serious repercussions when NFL commissioner Roger Goodell inexplicably ordered all evidence against the team illegally videotaping other teams practices destroyed in 2007 after only four days of investigation.
