What’s Up With Deflate-Gate

April 30, 2015

Perhaps the NFL is hoping we will forget. That we will forget “Deflate-Gate.” It is absurd that it has been over 100 days since the NFL launched its investigation into whether or not the New England Patriots were complicit in deflating their footballs versus the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC Championship game.

We’re now approaching May, the NFL draft is this week, and there’s still not even a timetable about when the league’s investigation will be made public. We were told it would be several weeks, not several months.

It is beginning to look like the NFL does not want the public to know the results. And that the league is embarrassed with the results. Therefore, it will likely try to minimize the PR hit by releasing the findings close to the opening week of the regular season. When fans could care less.

Of course, maybe the findings are conclusive that the Patriots cheated and they do not want to tarnish the Super Bowl. If that is the case, the findings will likely never be made public.

Whenever the investigation is released and whatever it says, there’s been enough rhetoric from all sides that it may be impossible to know what to believe.
 
Would You Draft Winston Number-One?

The NFL draft began today and all indications are that the Tampa Bay Bucs will select Jameis Winston with the first pick.

My regular readers know I would not take Winston in the first round, let alone the first pick. In my eyes, he is virtually undraftable in the first two rounds.

Yet, he has been atop more mock drafts than anyone.

I realize there is a certain point where the reward outweighs the risk. But not with the No. 1 pick. Winston is a good QB, but he is not great. And he certainly is not good enough that you should have to draft his baggage too. The Bucs have the pick of the litter. Winston is far from a sure thing like Andrew Luck or Peyton Manning were.  He’s a fine quarterback with a checkered past. Why not take another fine player without the problems?

Jameis Winston

I don’t see how any NFL team can think of giving a chance to a young man who has displayed low character time and again. Off the field, Winston just had a three-year job interview for the NFL, in which he acted like a spoiled brat throughout.

From the crab legs to jumping on the table to dressing for a game for which he was suspended, Winston has acted with the maturity of a high schooler who flunked junior year. And then there is the still pending civil suit for alleged rape.

Winston got by at the college level on sheer talent alone. That is not enough in the NFL. The NFL is not the ACC.

Still, it looks like Tampa Bay will take the risk. In just a few months, Winston will have $23 million guaranteed coming his way and more freedom than ever? Ask Johnny Manziel how that worked out for him.

The Bucs are wondering if it is more risky to draft Winston, with his past history or is it riskier to pass on Winston, take a player at another need position and wait to see whether Winston fails or succeeds somewhere else? 

But we know how the NFL works. The NFL is seduced by talent and blind to all off-field issues, no matter how much it says otherwise. And when Winston busts, don’t come crying about it. The signs were everywhere.