No, Gisele Didn't Reveal the Pats Are Cheaters This Week

Welcome to the NFL Underground Mailbag. Ask Chris Harris your question about the NFL, general sports or cultural minutiae at HeyHarris@HarrisFootball.com . Follow him @HarrisFootball .

Zachary W.: Does Gisele outing Tom Brady's concussion(s) from last season confirm the Patriots are cheaters?

For the uninitiated, Brady's wife Gisele gave an interview to Charlie Rose in which she let slip that she thinks about her husband retiring because football is violent and because he suffered at least one concussion in 2016 and, she stammeringly implied, others throughout his career.

Is the potential "cheating" outrage here that the Patriots didn't list Brady on the injury report, and doing so might've changed defensive approaches against him ("For God's sake, hit him on the head with that anvil!")? Is the outrage that the Pats subverted the on-field concussion-evaluation rule, so his rightful place was on the sidelines rather than generating the greatest comeback in NFL history?

I get that some people equate Brady/Belichick/Kraft/Patriots with Trump, and view New England's fifth title as proof that there's no God. But at some point, aren't we doing the same the kind of insane dot-connecting and selective reasoning that sends us up a tree about Trump? In our hearts, we assume everybody in the NFL suffers concussions, everybody in the NFL plays whilst needle-prodded by Toradol, and everybody in the NFL does HGH. We know this. So why do some folks—not necessarily Zachary, but some folks—let this stuff make them crazy?

A quarterback who's been sacked 417 times in his career and played 9,167 career NFL snaps, like Brady has, has suffered tons of concussions. It's axiomatic. One reason Brady is the greatest of all time is he's such a maniac that he doesn't ever come off the field unless his ACLs snap.

I grew up in Boston and can't help my own Patriots fandom. I thoroughly acknowledge that if I'd had a choice in the matter, I would hate them and root against them, as we all root against dynasties and arrogant-seeming out-of-market teams and players. But the easiest way to appear an idiot is to say, "They're cheaters, everything they ever won is tainted!" rather than acknowledge they're great. I loathed the Yankee dynasty of the 1990s, but do I run around screaming about Jeffrey Maier and Chuck Knoblauch's phantom tag and Tino Martinez taking strike three? I don't, because it's obvious that Yankee team was the best of its era and one of the best ever, and I prefer not to appear a fool. The extent to which a person engages in conspiracy theories in sports is a pretty good IQ test.

Ted F.: Why is NFL in-game announcing so bad? Will it get better with high-profile former players moving into the broadcast booth?

It's not all bad. Many of the play-by-play guys are a delight. Off the top of my head, I enjoy Al Michaels, Ian Eagle, Kevin Harlan, and, lately, Kevin Burkhardt. Cris Collinsworth is an astonishing analyst. I guess some viewers just don't like smart people, but Collinsworth never ceases to amaze me: he'll see something in real time that's unique and insightful and hard to notice, and alert us to keep it in mind as we watch the replay, and damn if he isn't right a lot of the time.

But let's face it: Collinsworth is the exception, because ex-players and ex-coaches are almost universally a scourge on intelligent analysis.

They fall back on clichés. They hammer predetermined narratives. Most importantly, they shy away from criticizing players. Jon Gruden blows so much sunshine up our national skirt on Monday nights, I'm surprised we all don't shit rainbows.

But I guess there's your answer: the average fan doesn't want insight. He or she wants comfort. How else do you explain the appeal of terminally edgeless Jim Nantz? In some quarters of our narcotized culture, appearing smart is a cardinal sin. (It was once relayed to me that, speaking about my TV career, one higher-up in production at ESPN said, "Nobody likes the smartest guy in the room.") And if the average viewer doesn't care about—or actively eschews!—learning, why not increase your broadcast's Q-rating with some lovable doofus saying, "Turnovers certainly derailed their opportunity to play at a high level on offense."

Will Tony Romo joining CBS change any of this? Of course not! Romo is universally known as a nice guy, he's friends with everyone in the league, and he and Nantz will almost certainly fall all over each other to say things like "They can measure how fast you run and how high you jump, but they can't measure your heart."

I guess I give Jay Cutler a slight chance to be better, because I'm pretty sure he has no friends in or out of the NFL.

Kyle P.: Weather-wise, what's your favorite season?

Most of the year, I live in the hellscape of western Massachusetts, where apparently we've decided we're way too hearty to need wimpy transitional trappings like "spring" or "fall." I spent the winter in Los Angeles (more on that in a moment) and returned April 29, whereupon it rained here for three weeks and never got above 50. Suddenly we got to Wednesday and it was 93. As far as I can tell, the world has menopause.

(Incidentally, those who would tell you that a native population's ability to withstand shitty weather is some indication of character and backbone are the same people who tell you The Fountainhead really kicks into high gear around page 600. Do not listen to these people.)

Fortunately, I work from home and am somewhat personally unlovable (therefore I have no wife or children), and thus I have nothing that forces me to endure what is no doubt objectively the shittiest season in northern climates: winter. Often, therefore, I go someplace warm for the winter and have a grand old time.

So, perversely, I'll say my favorite season is winter, because I can run and hide.

Lance A.: Why is the NFL really about to shorten the length of its overtime ? It's not actually about player safety, right?

Hm. I assume not?

After all, the entire league seems designed for the express purpose of destroying its labor force. These are the same owners who are barreling headlong toward an 18-game regular season. So this is probably evil.

Possible evil angles:

* More ties will trigger obscure stadium-finance clauses that require local municipalities to pay for chocolate fondue fountains in owners' luxury suites.

* More ties will allow Vegas wise guy with incriminating Mark Davis photos to collect on "There will be more ties this season than Pacman Jones arrests" wager.

* More ties will make Donovan McNabb cry.

Jon: LeGarrette Blount to the Eagles. Winning combo?

Hm. I assume not?

Aptly nicknamed "LB," the hefty Blount gained notoriety as a T.J. Duckett–esque fantasy football hero last season, serving as Tom Brady's goal-line caddie. Unfortunately, he's not actually very good at playing football. Heck, until his Patriots days, he hadn't even been very good at short-yardage rushing, even at 250-plus pounds:

Really, though, numbers don't do Blount's trash-baggery justice.

I've watched him with great rooting interest over portions of the past four seasons, and he's fairly certain he's Warrick Dunn. Too often, he turns his shoulders perpendicular to the play and starts lumbering toward the sideline, only to be tripped up by faster (read: every) defensive players. The dude is a frontrunner's frontrunner. If you're up by two touchdowns? Blount is your guy. But if you need him in a tight road game against Denver, he vanishes.

If I'm an Eagles fan, most worrisome is this:

There's a reason the Patriots signed Mike Gillislee, traded for Rex Burkhead, and renewed James White instead of keeping the man who just gave them 18 TDs. It's because they know Blount is 30 and not good. I don't begrudge the Eagles taking a shot. If Carson Wentz is ready to make a big leap behind a good offensive line, maybe Philly will need a close-in TD machine.

But it's likelier that Blount gets caught blazing in Wendell Smallwood's SUV.