I don’t really remember exactly how and when this offseason began. The ending of Super Bowl XLIX in Glendale, Arizona, with Malcolm Butler’s ESP-enabled interception was a marvel, for sure, and then football was supposed to technically leave our lives for a period of time, but it never felt like it did go away, not for real. If there was any sufficient football-free rest period since last February, then I barely got to put my feet up. The NFL and Roger Goodell and a cadre of $700-an-hour lawyers saw to that… but that’s all over now.
Football — real, honest-to-God professional football — is back tonight.
Oh, the Deflategate saga (debacle? fiasco?) made it so, so, so difficult on us. There were calls that Tom Brady should follow Bob Kraft’s example and just accept the suspension for “the good of the league,” which is a wholly laughable premise since the only good the NFL truly cares about is its unfettered ability to print money at will. But now Brady is free, and we can all move on with our lives, secure in the eternal knowledge that literally every quarterback since the dawn of time has liked his footballs inflated to a certain feel. And that this punishment — which, remember, also included a $1 million fine and the loss of a first-round pick, something that has proved eminently valuable to the team — was a laughable overreach that our grandkids will never believe was actually, seriously imposed when we sit them down one day to discuss this, the Great Unnecessary Lawyering of ’15 (but also the NFL will cease to exist by then, so never mind).
But what do you think the Patriots are actually going to do to the NFL this season? Remember when the Spygate controversy broke around Week 2 of the 2007 regular season, and the Pats proceeded to Transformer into some unholy football-playing behemoth and crush the living souls of every proceeding opponent until the Giants in the Super Bowl? We need to acknowledge the very real possibility that’s going to happen again. Buffalo and Miami restocked this offseason in the hopes of finally mounting some credible challenge to Bill Belichick’s army, but the counteroffensive from Foxborough, I suspect, will be merciless this year. Tom Brady grew up in San Mateo, California, just a short drive from Santa Clara and the site of Super Bowl 50 this February. The sight of Goodell handing over the Lombardi Trophy to an exultant Pats team in Brady’s backyard is so perfect… it’ll probably never happen, but the dream shall never die.
Speaking of the Pats, they’re maybe interested in signing running back Fred Jackson, who was cut by Buffalo, which now has LeSean McCoy, who used to be in Philadelphia, which now has DeMarco Murray, who used to be Dallas, which now has Darren McFadden, who used to be in Oakland, which will now be starting Latavius Murray, who is not a Key & Peele character. Point is, mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be running backs. The job security sucks, and we haven’t yet perfected bionic knee ligaments, so maybe push ‘em toward some safer position, like being Peyton Manning’s backup.
Some people are expecting this is the year Peyton starts to slow down a little, maybe show the world he’s mortal after all and that his cervical fusion surgery wasn’t some Rookie of the Year-like fluke that only made him superhuman. We all know that quarterback passing yards are the pitcher wins of football, but here are his last five healthy seasons: 4,500, 4,700, 4,659, 5,477, 4,727. He’s started all 48 regular season games for which he’s been a Denver Bronco, and has gone 38-10 with 131 touchdowns (2.72 per game) in those contests. That’s 16 more scores than anyone else. You underestimate Manning at your own peril. Not me. (#GoVols)
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We may have survived the offseason, but only nine of Jason Pierre-Paul’s 10 fingers did. (We think?) But that’s nothing compared to what the 49ers had to endure. Except for quarterback Colin Kaepernick and tight end Vernon Davis, almost every other person of any import whatsoever either left the team, was kicked off, or outright retired. San Francisco is now a moldy husk of the team that opened Levi’s Stadium a year ago, the team that was coming off of three-straight appearances in the NFC Championship. I can’t fathom a more dysfunctional situation for an organization slated to be hosting a Super Bowl. And that this upcoming Big Game being so highly touted only magnifies the embarrassment further. And never mind what the 49ers are putting onto their field; how about the field itself? They spend $1.4 billion on the most technologically advanced sports facility in the world, and they can’t even get the dang grass to stay in place.
But we made it, even while some others weren’t so lucky. Jordy Nelson is already out for the year, but that just means Aaron Rodgers will now get some other fortunate wide receiver to the Pro Bowl. Robert Griffin III is out as Washington’s quarterback, but not altogether out of Washington, which is somehow much worse. There’s a universe where Griffin bounced back from his Rookie of the Year campaign and kept his club competitive atop the NFC East, but Mike Shanahan also retired from coaching years ago in that alternate dimension, so go figure. Johnny Manziel, now sober and a year older, continues to taunt Jerry Jones from the Cleveland bench, while Jameis Winston, having somehow successfully escaped Florida State, looks to put his own troubled past behind him and start his pro career in earnest. (#FSUTwitter, he hardly knew ye.) And really, who could’ve predicted that in a league featuring Philip Rivers that Geno Smith would be the one QB to be knocked out of meaningful games by being sucker-punched by a teammate? Wonders never cease.
Russell Wilson managed to again traverse the tricky terrain of an NFL offseason. Two years ago, he did so by divorcing his wife. This summer, God talked to him about Ciara and then he promoted nanobubbles to treat concussions, which sounds exactly like something you’d hear from a person who suffered a concussion. Next summer? Let’s start with a drug-filled walkabout through Australia (a la Ricky Williams) and just see where life takes us.
And there are so many other stories to follow along: Marcus Mariota’s presumed survival in Tennessee, Buffalo’s historic attempt to win every game 3-2, Baltimore’s inevitable playoff collapse, Chip Kelly’s slow-burn implosion in Philly, Oakland’s neverending promise to exorcise the grinning ghost of Al Davis, and so forth. Anyone who has any idea what’s going to happen this season is, as per usual, either lying, a degenerate gambler, or both. That’s fine. We take it week by week, and, before you know it, the big 5-0 in Northern California will be upon us. Let’s savor every game until then, every Blake Bortles arm punt, every Ndamukong Suh stomp, every Eli Manning goshdangnabbit facial expression.
The offseason is over. Football is back. Time to play.
