In a lawsuit filed last Tuesday, a small group of New England Patriots fans — not the same patriots from 250 years ago — demanded the NFL return the Patriots’ first-round draft pick. The draft pick was taken from the team by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell before last season in response to the questionably deflated footballs used by the New England team in the 2015 playoffs.
The scandal is better known as “Deflategate” — as if it deserved any right to share a comparison with something as historically significant as Watergate. Then again, Seth Carey, the lawyer who filed the lawsuit last week, had no problem drawing historical ties. As he put it, “We have an uphill battle, but that never stopped a bunch of simple farmers with muskets from taking down a mighty repressive regime.”
Well, thank goodness they weren’t the ones fighting for this country’s freedom, because a federal court rejected the lawsuit this past Monday. And although the trivial squabble may be over, it doesn’t solve the apparent phenomenon trending in the NFL where fans are taking their devotion too far.
Football is America’s game because it has always stood for what America is. It still does today, but not in enlightening terms. According to The New York Times, the average price for a ticket to Super Bowl I was $85, after adjusting for inflation. This year, tickets for Super Bowl L went for thousands of dollars. Professional players used to have second jobs in the off-season because 21-year-olds weren’t given million-dollar contracts.
Football used to be the sport of the working class, but now the Americans who find importance in suing over an NFL draft pick are the same people who prioritize values seen important by the very few. For example, the main plaintiff, Todd Orsatti, is suing because his seven-year-old daughter “will no longer go to games with him because she thinks the games are fixed by the NFL after her team was punished merely based on conjecture. She is talking about finding another team.” Life is tough all around.
The main issue at hand is that Patriots fans are missing the bigger picture here. Does it have to do with the fact that the resources used for this lawsuit could have been used for bigger and better problems? Battling poverty? Combating climate change?
Nah. New England fans are missing the fact that Goodell’s nab of the Patriots’ 2016 draft pick actually does the organization a favor. Bill Belichick, the greatest coach in Patriots and NFL history — in his eyes — almost always gives away the first-round pick. In 2010, Belichick traded away the Patriots’ 22nd and 24th picks to the Broncos and Cowboys, passing up on future Super Bowl champion Demaryius Thomas and two-time Pro-Bowler Dez Bryant. If anything, losing the 2016 draft pick prevents Belichick from tarnishing his coveted self-image any further than necessary.
Maybe some New England fans believe they’re playing the Patriots for football’s freedom from Goodell’s tyranny. But honestly, it’s just a draft pick. Tom Brady himself, future Hall of Fame quarterback and potential Calvin Klein model, wasn’t picked until the sixth round of the 2000 draft anyway. If Patriots fans are so worried about finding another gem in the draft, other teams will have no problem giving up their sixth-round picks.
It may have been only a handful of Patriots fans who were a part of last week’s lawsuit, but in how they’ve handled it, they not only disgrace the entire Patriots fan base, but they also give more reason for foreign citizens to shake their heads at U.S. sports and say “those Americans.”
Football used to be about the game itself. It should be so in the future.
Joshua Udvardy is a UF mechanical engineering freshman. His column appears on Wednesdays.
