It Belongs In A Museum
First off, credit to the Colts. They played a much better game than I think most of us expected, certainly looked better than I expected. They gave it the ol’ college try and came up short, but it was a noble effort.
Except for…that.
That was the worst play I’ve ever seen. That’s the kind of play that gets replayed for years and years. That was buttfumble levels of dumb. It was definitely worse than the Redskins version against the Giants several years ago. The Redskins swinging gate play was at the end of the half, the Skins were down by 24 points, and Jim Zorn was effectively flicking off Dan Snyder with it. This…this was just a complete brain fart. At least the Skins player got the pass off. At least the Skins player was supposed to snap it. At least the Skins version was a sort of *screw it, we’re gonna lose, let’s do something silly* and not a deciding factor in a close game against a rival. This swinging gate was the Colts outsmarting themselves, trying to pull a Belichick and missing horribly. Even if the guy manages to not snap the ball and screw up everything, what’s the endgame? To make the Patriots confused and maaaaybe get one of the most disciplined teams in the league to make the kind of mental error they never make? Or then take the delay of game and punt anyway? That’s the best case scenario? They’d have been better off trying an actual fake punt. When is the last time people saw a swinging gate work in the NFL? The last time we saw one, it became a laughing stock and a symbol of Washington’s dysfunction. I can’t remember seeing one before that.
Anyway, I made this comic and then realized I could have just made a gif of it instead, so here is the comic in gif form
Everybody was expecting the Patriots to have some sort of biblical vengeance. Perhaps this was the better revenge: making them so scared and nervous they piss their proverbial pants on prime time television.
The world will know that free men stood against a tyrant, that few stood against many, and before this battle was over, even a god-king can bleed.
I will never in my life understand how people can actually think that the superbowl champions, who are currently undefeated and easily the best team in the league, somehow got “revenge” by slightly beating a 3-3 team that got assraped in the AFC game so hard it bled untill march.
Revenge for what? Catching them doing something they’re not supposed to do? Pointing it out to league authority and watching as an investigation occurs and investigation that had little to no effect on the team’s overall morale since they haven’t lost since 2014?
Fuckin, sorry?
You are seriously underestimating how much the Patriots and the fanbase can twist anything into a victim complex. I mean they spent the entire damn offseason playing up the victimhood despite being the best team in the league with the trophy to prove it.
Seriously look at it. They all think they are completely innocent of the charges. Not nearly enough solid evidence was found to prove they are guilty, So to them, they think their entire Super Bowl win is viewed as tainted for absolutely no reason, and that they are viewed as cheaters for no reason. They completely see themselves as the victims, and the Colts as whiny crybabies who put them through all this offseason BS because they are sore losers. So they want to get revenge on the Colts for that.
It makes perfect sense.
People like you will say they “got the trophy to prove it” and call oit a victim complex and then also be the first people to call the trophy illegitimate. Fuck off.
I don’t think their trophy illegitimate. I have never thought that they should vacate the win, or anything silly like that. It’s not a big enough infraction for me to care. The Patriots earned that victory, and their little equipment violation, if it actually happened, didn’t have a big enough effect on the game to matter. That trophy is legitimate. All those asterisk gifs I made back early in the story’s life were mostly just to troll Pats fans because it was incredibly easy back then, and at the time things weren’t on their side.
>”People like you will say they “got the trophy to prove it” and call oit a victim complex and then also be the first people to call the trophy illegitimate. Fuck off.”
It’s amazing how people can say shit like this and then call the colts fans crybabies
In all fairness, regardless of whether or not the Pats cheated, the Colts are definitely a whiny crybaby organisation who subjected us all to this offseason BS because they are sore losers. Same goes to the Ravens. If they hadn’t leaked this stupid story to the media, none of this would have happened and no ne would care about a slightly under-inflated ball in the middle of a driving rainstorm in a cold winter Massachussetts night. By the way, this is a Dolphins fan saying this.
Actually, a first round pick next year and a 4th round pick for 2017 were docked by the NFL from the Pats, and even if the Pats were to trade into the 1st round next year, the higher pick of the two gets taken. Basically, this deprives the Patriots of the opportunity to draft a potential 10 year starter on a cheap salary (almost guaranteed actually, because Belichick does a very good job drafting in the 1st round). Then on top of that, you have the 1 million dollar fine and Brady almost getting suspended for four games. Greg Hardy, who beat his girlfriend, threw her on a pile of guns, and scared her so much that she refused to show up in court to testify against him, had his 10 game suspension reduced to 4. Sheldon Richardson, who went 140 mph in his car with a handgun under his seat and a kid under 10 years old in his backseat, did not receive any punishment from the NFL whatsoever. Brady did not get any reduction whatsoever on appeal, and in federal court, the NFL still would not budge even with Judge Berman pretty much nudging them to do so in order to settle. Read the released appeal hearing transcripts and Berman’s full decision – people say that Berman only ruled on CBA violations and did not exonerate Brady, but that is not true if you read the decision as he wrote extensively about how the evidence against Brady is pretty much nonexistent and the few pieces that do exist are borderline circumstantial at best. The evidence is shoddy at best, and yet the Patriots lost 2 draft picks including a 1st rounder and $1 million. Not even teams that cheated outright and with solid evidence of cheating, such as the Broncos cheating the salary cap during the Elway and Terrell Davis years, received as harsh a punishment. So you can see why Patriots fans have a “victim complex”, because they truly are the victims. Just not having that 1st rounder alone will impact the franchise in a myriad of ways for years to come.
P.S. Most Patriots fans blame Bob Kraft right after Roger Goodell for what I wrote above. Kraft just rolled over and took it, and then later tried to justify his actions by saying that he thought doing so would help Brady in his appeal (for all the good that did). If you watched the opening night game against the Steelers, you may have heard some boos when Kraft came out with one of the Lombardi trophies during the opening festivities.
The Patriots were docked for violating the rules of the game. Greg Hardy, Ray Rice, etc. legally can not be penalized for actions outside of the workplace. The only reason the NFL is at all allowed to punish them is the damage they do to the NFL’s image.
But the Patriots did not violate the rules of the game. Their footballs followed the Ideal Gas Law and lost pressure when they got cold.
The posts and claims that there was anything done to deflate the footballs just show that the lies and misstatements early in the whole fiasco convinced people of what they wanted so desperately to believe: that the Patriots aren’t really that much better then all the other teams in the league.
But they are.
You do know the Colts’ footballs were also measured as under inflated, right? That despite the fact that they started out inflated to a higher pressure than the Pats’ footballs. So here’s a comment following up on that, posted on PatsFans.com:
And for anyone who digs an inch beneath the surface they’d find that this is yet ANOTHER instance in which Goodell and his minions prove their bias
In the case of the Colts there were two readings and two different gauges just as with the Patriots, as we all know
The Wells Report is on the record that in the case of the Patriots they assumed the lower reading was the accurate one – and needed to assert that Walt Anderson – the guy who’s memory was good enough to accurately remember 24 pre-game PSI readings – was WRONG about which gauge he said he used
In the case of the Colts, the Wells Report is on the record saying they assumed the HIGHER reading was the correct one.
Nope – no blatantly obvious bias there
So even if you accept – as Roger Goodell and the Owners do – that the Laws of Physics are suspended in the NFL – you also still have to accept that the Investigation can be shown as inherently flawed and grossly biased in many ways
>You do know the Colts’ footballs were also measured as under inflated, right?
Yeah, except that was significantly less balls deflated, which eliminates the “ideal gas law” excuse. If it really was just the ideal gas law, then they would be evenly deflated. They weren’t. More pats balls were deflated by a huge margin.
>in which Goodell and his minions prove their bias
yee illuminati conspiracy time yo. Definitely cant just recognize my own wrongdoings. Gotta blame it all on the cops/government/authority figures of some kind so that I can remain spotless.
“If it was really was just the ideal gas law, then they would be evenly deflated.” Actually, no, they wouldn’t. Brady likes his footballs on the lowest legal PSI setting, whereas Andrew Luck prefers them more inflated. They weren’t starting from the same point, so why would they finish at the same point?
You remember that time that you got a project that seemed really easy, so you decided you were going to show off and do something really crazy and over-the-top and go well beyond the expected parameters? That time you decided you weren’t going to give 100% or even 200%, but 300%, trying things that had never been tried before, making everyone realize just how good you are at what you do and flaunt your success in the face of traditional concepts?
And then it all blew up in your face because it was stupid, convoluted, overcomplicated, and you outsmarted yourself in your pointless effort to make a point?
Chuck Pagano just did that on one of the biggest stages he’ll ever be on.
I just love that moment after the snap when the guy realizes he has the ball and tries to do something, but is already swallowed by two defenders.
This must have been a very easy comic to make.
That play could have worked, just make it where the punter lateral the ball to a backup qb, who then throws a screen pass to give a fullback/3rd string tight end room with blockers ahead
Even So they formation was illegal because the other players were not on the line of scrimmage, this is glossed over by the snap.
Mike Greenberg was saying it was an illegal formation anyway (because it’s so pathologically stupid?), so they ran the risk of being flagged as it stood.
If the idea was to somehow draw the Smugs into a penalty for a First Down, they were never going to fall for that. Darth Bellendcheat would have had spines for breakfast for a week.
It wasn’t “at risk” of being flagged, it *was* flagged because none of Indy’s o-line actually lined up on the line of scrimmage.
Also there wasn’t a receiver on the other side of the ball too. Just mindblowingly stupid
There doesn’t need to be another player on the side of the ball. Any player on the LOS can snap it, including the eligible receivers on the ends. Regardless, still the dumbest play of all time.
What’s that play on the other side of the buttfumble?
Leon Lett in Thanksgiving
I think it’s actually the Redskins doing the same dumb play a few years ago.
Oil painting of Redskin’s Swinging Gate: http://misterirrelevant.com/index.php/2010/11/05/redskins-swinging-gate-oil-painting/
When Cameron was in Indy’s land, let my Pagano go
Gotta see the “Hitler Reacts” video!
This is genius.
Off-topic, but the gifs of the Michigan punter and Sam Bradford reacting to bad/fumbled snaps are just glorious. There should be a whole website that’s nothing but close-up of players’ faces when they fuck up.
the whole point of a play like this is that the formation may be less efficient than the standard one, but that you’re more familiar with.
It was clear though that the colts *didn’t* really understand the play. The center was uncovered on the left, and the linesmen weren’t on the line on the right, so it was all sorts of illegal. but if:
1) they split someone out wide left, and presumably a patriot split with him
2) the linesmen were on the line
3) the center knew if/when to snap the ball
the play could have worked. the idea is that if the patriots have 4 committed to the central area like they did, then you can lateral and have an effective screen to the right.
It’s not the dumbest play ever, it was just *very* poorly executed
i’ve been trying to make this point all week. it’s basically bad execution due to bad coaching and bad coaching to not know that your team doesn’t know how to execute the play.
SO DO YOU!
I’m hoping that’s the reference you were going for.
Only the 4th worst play of all time according to nfl.com:
http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-hq/0ap3000000561607/Top-10-worst-plays-of-all-time
Having this on your resume is actually far worse than just getting blown out again.
They did this play horribly fucking wrong
Where is the sexy rexy? I can’t find it D:
Wouldn’t Cameron be a Bears fan though? (I bet he would want to be a colts fan rather than a bears fan right now)