Timothy Birdnow

When I was in high school I attended a lot of professional wrestling events. A friend's father received not only free tickets but IP front row tickets, and so I went to quite a few matches and sat within touching distance of the wrestlers. It was fun, because we knew it was fake and we could enjoy heckling the guys we didn't like.

At any rate, I became familiar with the way they worked. Professional wrestling was a morality play, and while evil triumphed frequently over good, the good usually came on strong near the end, a promise to the audience that the battle was not lost. And when the good guys won, they usually took a beating through much of the match, rallying in the end to be victorious.

In other words, most pro wrestling events looked just like Superbowl 51.

Now, miraculous comebacks do occur, but usually not at this level. In fact, nobody ever came back from a 14 point deficit prior to last night! Something smelled, and I think I know what it was.

I think this whole thing was as genuine as the breasts of a Hollywood stripper.

During the '80's and early '90's the Superbowl ended in blowouts after boring games, and the public was complaining about the hype that disappointed. That seemed to change, and has remained so for a while now. How, you ask? Well, for starters, the officials discover those little yellow handkerchiefs they tote around when the game starts getting out of hand. And we saw that yesterday with a series of penalties against the Atlanta Falcons that ended with the first points the Patriots posted. A string of fouls changed the dynamic of the game. After that the Falcons started playing cautious; the blitzed less, they covered receivers less diligently, and the offense began playing timidly. The momentum of the game shifted as a result of calls by the refs, and often those calls were either bogus or should have been offset by calls against the Patriots. For example, there was a disastrous call against the Falcons that put them out of field goal range late in the game (which would have won it for them). The refs ignored a facemasking by the Pats on the same play, which would have led to offsetting penalties.

That is the kind of stuff that changes game outcomes.

It should be pointed out that all but one of the announcers last night said the Pats would win, which means all the money was on New England, a not inconsequential motivation.

And the New England team has always played fast and loose with the rules. Deflategate kept Tom Brady out of the first four games of the season (and was referee assistance payback for the suspension?) More egregious was the spygate scandal of the last decade. It is now know that the Pats stole the Superbowl from the St. Louis Rams in '02; they had all the plays and could disrupt the precision offense of the best team in football at that time. STL. running back Marshall Falk - hardly a man to make rash statements - said at the time it was as if they had their playbook. Now we know they did.

So the great Bellicheat/Brady dynasty was built on cheating and lies. But more than that, last night smelled to high heave

When the Pats beat the Rams in the Super Bowl I knew the game was lost before the kickoff. I said as much to my chums who were watching with me. How did I know? The 911 terror attacks had happened that fall, and so this was a more than usually hyped championship. Paul McCartney was present at the pre-game, and he said "wouldn't it be wonderful if a team called the Patriots won the Supperbowl". At that moment I knew the fix was in; the NFL would never allow the Rams to win. They wanted the name, the pageantry of a Minuteman mascot, the coastal appeal. The didn't want a flyover country team of religious zealots to win. Surprise, surprise, the Patriots won, and they have been winning ever since.

I'm not saying they aren't good; they are as good as it gets. But I am saying they get a little help from their friends.

Getting back to the pro wrestling metaphor, I think last night was a morality play. There were several disgusting politically correct "commercials" that did not seem designed to sell a product so much as promote multiculturalism and open borders. A Coke commercial, for example, had America the Beautiful sung in different languages, showing how we aren't an Anglo nation but a salad, a potpourri of different nations, peoples, cultures, and tongues. An ad for 84 Lumber was just as bad, with a heart-wrenching vignette of Chicano illegals trudging their way to America (and no mention of the gangs, the drug cartels, or the crimes committed by the immigrants. No mention either of the cost in jobs, in "reverse gentrification" of communities, in stolen social services and resources. And no mention of the rule of law.) The league approved those ads.
And let us not forget the Kapernick capers. The league took no steps to stop Kapernick from insulting the patriots who watch the NFL. In fact they gave tacit approval to him. Funny; they fine a player for not tucking in his shirt during a game but won't order a guy to stand for the national anthem.

I didn't watch the regular season precisely because of this left wing politicization.

At any rate, what I think we witnessed was a morality play designed to put some spirit in the left. The Patriots are from New England, epicenter of liberal snobbery and elitism. They now represent the old guard, the Establishment. They WERE the counter culture in bygone years, but now hold the power. They were facing an upstart team from the South, infamous home of redneck pro-rasslin' fans and NASCAR enthusiasts. The Pats are the enlightened, the cultured, the patrician. In other words, they are the people who would have voted for Hillary Clinton.

(Yes, I know; Tom Brady took a lot of heat for having a "make America great again" hat. But that doesn't matter to the larger picture, now does it?)

Consider what this did. It showed a team being pummeled, and miraculously coming back in the end to win. Isn't that the exact metaphor you would use to buck up the depressed Left, who desperately need some sort of hope right now? If the Pats can come back, so too can the Progressives! The dark times will pass and if you stay in the game you will triumph! That is precisely the message conveyed. It was as if a Hollywood producer had scripted it. And the team is from Boston, the center of the Ivy League and the bluest of blue places.

We know the fake news stuff is real, and it largely comes out of the mainstream media and the Establishment. Sports journalists are especially liberal and politically active, and they wouldn't dream of questioning the veracity of so important (and financially lucrative) a game as the Superbowl. But we've been lied to in the past, and an attempt to subvert the superbowl - especially by the NFL itself - is not beyond credulity.

Well, how much proof do I have of this? None whatsoever. This post is a matter of pure speculation. But I am not one to accept things at face value, and something about last night's game does not sit right. I don't believe the Falcons could have collapsed so easily. SOMETHING happened last night, something that should concern the league because it is something that likely undermines the credibility of pro football. Or at least it casts doubts on the integrity of the league. While there may not have been open duplicity at least the policy of officiating to keep the game close is skewing the results.

If this keeps up the NFL will join the WWE as a faux sport. Someone needs to take a hard look at this.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:09 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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