NFL Dos and Don'ts: The New England Patriots

As we prepare for another year of NFL football, let's take a look back at the highs and lows from 2014 for each team. Welcome to NFL Dos and Don'ts. If you missed one, you can read all our recaps right here.

Ah, the New England Patriots. What's going on with these guys? Anything? Hahaha, seriously though: fuck these guys. They are all almost certainly dirty cheats, and deflated footballs are just the stupid, inconsequential tip of the iceberg. The NFL has nothing on them, but media companies might!

Saying that "the NFL has nothing on them" is a little bit of a half-truth, though, after reading Outside the Lines's comprehensive deep dive into Spygate, as it relates to Deflategate. Here we will pause to note that any time you are involved in multiple "-gates," you are a scumbag organization. A number of "-gates" greater than one is the "where there's smoke, there's fire" rule of controversies. While we are pausing, let's also take a moment to acknowledge the salty, humorless fan base that has perfected the science of channeling Donald Trump anytime someone dares to point out that the Patriots are slimy cloak-and-dagger types. "You're just jealous loser crybabies! Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go hold a sign outside a midtown Manhattan office building. FREE TAWWM!"

OK, back to business. The NFL was at one point so far up New England's ass that when the decision was made to destroy evidence of their cheating—which is not the crazy part here, amazingly—they allowed the Patriots to choose the method of destruction. Fucking Jeff Pash, the same guy who played an instrumental role in the Wells Report, stomped on the tapes in a New England conference room. Imagine a bunch of lawyers in their white shoes stomping on tapes! And good job shredding the notes of the guy with the photographic memory. I'm sure that solved that.

From that moment forward, the Patriots knew they could do whatever the wanted, and they probably have. That they got caught for something as stupid as deflated footballs is a bummer, made even worse by Pash and Co. deciding to grow a spine and seek retribution when they had nothing. There will be a tell-all book one day, and Belichick will go down in flames. It's the only way this can end. Which reminds me of a fun game I just invented. This is the first paragraph from the Wikipedia entry for Faust, slightly edited. Let's see if it still makes sense, yeah?

_Belichick is the protagonist of a classic NFL legend. He is a scholar who is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a pact with the Devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. The Belichick legend has been the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical works that have reinterpreted it through the ages. _Belichick_ and the adjective Belichickian imply a situation in which an ambitious person surrenders moral integrity in order to achieve power and success for a delimited term._

I'm not sayin'. I'm just sayin'.

There is at least one part of the team that is not an irredeemable piece of shit, though. So, as it turns, out, we Do have a Do.

Do

If you want to live the life, then you basically must Do whatever the hell it is that Rob Gronkowski is doing. What is the essence of Gronk? There's a lot to choose from, including Gronk-inspired erotic literature, or Gronk pounding beers at the victory parade in Boston, or even Gronk and Marshawn Lynch playing Mortal Kombat with Conan. All worthy choices, none even close to being as good as Gronk telling the world it can "deflate deez nutz," though. Just look at this guy! Loving life, doing whatever the hell he wants, saying funny-ass shit on video.

Don't

Just kidding! Gronk is kind of a fucking disaster. He's a Freaky Friday 13-year-old yelling at people and telling them to "deflate deez nutz." This is an adult man, arguably the third most visible person in the organization, filming himself telling reporters to deflate his testicles. That sentence is 100 percent accurate, and somehow Gronk is one of the NFL's most marketable stars. He is not vigilantly stewarding any shield, except maybe Trojan's. Don't fool yourself, and Don't do this. It is embarrassing.