he National Football League (NFL) is by far America’s most popular sports league. Among the 32 clubs in the league, the New England Patriots are one of the most valuable franchises. From 2000 to 2014, the club claimed 12 division titles, played in nine AFC Conference Championship games, reached five Super Bowls, and lifted the Lombardi Trophy on three occasions. Along with winning, controversy follows closely behind, and the Patriots are not immune to it either. In 2007, the Patriots were caught illegally videotaping opponents, causing the NFL to fine the club and coach Bill Belichick, and taking a draft pick away (McNear, 2017). Ever since then, the Patriots have been under the microscope from the league, media, and fans. Then came January 18, 2015. The Patriots were hosting the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC Championship game on a cool rainy Sunday evening. It was just a normal football game until halftime, were behind the scenes at Gillette Stadium, NFL officials were checking the air pressure of footballs. It was thought that the Patriots were deliberately deflating footballs. That moment spiraled into what many refer to as deflategate and becoming one of the leading stories not only in the sports world, but nationally, as NBC and CBS ran stories during their nightly telecast. One of the leading newspapers in the Boston area, the Boston Herald, had a very challenging task on their hands the week following the controversy and leading up to the Super Bowl—that is, how to
Deflategate, which is also, humorously known as Ballghazi. The controversy started when someone from the NFL leaked to ESPN correspondent Chris Mortensen false news that 11 of the 12 balls used in the AFC game were 0.5 under the required 12.5 by the league. This set the narrative of presumed tampering with the championship
Kevin Van Valkenburg’s multiple articles on New England Patriots’ quarterback Tom Brady are unique due to how they humanize a polarizing star. Ever since his breakout 2001 season, where the Patriots defeated the St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI, Brady has adhered to the policy of the “Patriot Way,” where players under head coach Bill Belichick and owner Robert Kraft reveal next to nothing to the media and the public eye.
Finally, the NFL found that 11 of the 12 Patriot footballs were under-inflated. They were investigating whether the Patriots did this on purpose or it was just an accident. Either way there will be consequences. There are also many questions the players want to be answered. Pat McAfee, Colts kicker/punter, asked if they would be playing in the superbowl or not. Patriots cornerback, Brandon Browner, says that he could have carried a beach ball and they still would have won. The Colts were not happy about what the patriots did, and neither is the NFL. So they have been thinking about what they should do about it
The New England Patriots are looking for top tier athletes to compete for the greatest reward in NFL Football, the Lombardi Trophy, against some of the best athletes on earth. You are required to have multiple years of football experience and at least two years of college football. You must be a great teammate, have a great work ethic, and also you must be dependable and great critical thinker. You get payed on your performance. The better year you have the greater chance of a better contract next
This year we experienced, according to many, the greatest comeback in sports history. The New England Patriots came back from being down 28-3 to end up winning the Super Bowl against the Atlanta Falcons. The NFL has had many crazy games, but where did it all begin? The NFL, founded in 1920, has morphed greatly since the origin, and has immensely impacted the world of sports.
I do believe that the New England Patriots deflated footballs in the American Football Conference championship game against the Indianapolis Colts. The game was held on January 18, 2015, at Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts. The National Football League requires footballs to be inflated between 12.5 and 13.5 pounds per square inch of air (2016 NFL Rulebook). Before halftime the Colts’ linebacker, D’Qwell Jackson, intercepted a pass from the Patriots’ quarterback, Tom Brady. Later, Jackson said the football appeared spongy, which describes the texture of an underinflated ball (Deflategate Timeline). At halftime all twelve of the Patriots’ footballs were measured, and all twelve were below the minimum pressure (Deflategate). After the game when the National Football League launched an investigation, they hired Ted Wells to
To persuade my audience that Tom Brady should suffer an indefinite suspension of 1 whole year from the National Football League.
The author intended to write to an audience who were well informed on the subject, or who were still trying to figure out which story to side with. We can start to see the author talk about the subject without explaining a whole lot, which she probably assumes her audience knows a lot about anyway. She then tries to persuade the audience away from the belief that the Patriots had any real involvement in the whole situation, and that Goodell has made another false accusation. She then brings up a couple of points from past NFL scandals that a good portion of her audience probably knows about. The way the author writes in this article helps her create a wide audience that a majority of people could be
When it comes to sports, a competitive mindset is key. In American football, it’s hard not to win without communication and teamwork. In the NFL playoffs of 2015, the New England Patriots beat the Indianapolis Colts 45-7 for the AFC Championship. In a game that originally portrayed the Patriots as an offensive force to be reckoned with, ended out to be a game that goes down in history. After further investigation, the NFL found 11 of the Patriots' 12 footballs in the game to be underinflated by about 2 pounds below the NFL’s requirement. Now whether the allegations are determined to be true or not, it does raise some speculation about the truth of the AFC
The NFL: League of Denial, written by Mark and Steve Fainaru is one of the first books to publicly question the NFL’s concussion protocol. The book was originally produced as a documentary on PBS, which aired in 2010. The two authors, Mark and Steve Fainaru are ESPN reporters, and brothers. Steve Fainaru formerly worked as a war reporter in Iraq, while Mark Fainaru primarily focused on sports journalism. In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, Mark Fairnaru describes the book as documenting "pretty extensively two decades worth of denial by the league to basically bury the concussion issue as anything serious for the sport" (Chicago Tribune). The two authors became interested in the concussion crisis in the NFL after reading the research of Dr. Bennet Omalu. Dr. Bennet Omalu is a Nigerian, now American Medical Doctor, Forensic Pathologist, Professor, Medical Examiner, but most importantly, the discoverer of the connection between the brain disease, CTE and sports-related concussions. The book focuses on Dr. Omalu, and the case of former NFL player, Mike Webster, and his football related injuries, which later led to his death.
Numerous former employees say the Patriots would have someone rummage through the visiting team hotel for playbooks or scouting reports. The whole league knows the Patriots are cheaters and they cover their tracks after they leave Boston. The deflategate was no accident; it was a purposeful act. The Patriots claim innocence in the incident. The Patriots are not victims because other teams claim Patriots have cheated against them, Former Patriot employees claim they were asked to cheat for the team, and Patriots claims about weather conditions are false.
Last July, a few weeks before the New England Patriots started training camp, I got a call from Donald Yee, the agent in Los Angeles who has represented Tom Brady since he entered the N.F.L. in 2000. It had been four years since I first told Yee that I was interested in writing about Brady, even though I typically cover politics. I grew up in the Boston suburbs, rooted for the Patriots as a kid and even possessed vague memories of watching the team play at Fenway Park, one of their homes before they settled into the nowhereland of Foxborough, Mass., in 1971. My friend Josh and I once wrote a letter to the team’s young quarterback, Jim Plunkett, inviting him to dinner at Josh’s house. (Plunkett never responded.) Their teams were mostly bad, their owner was an embarrassment, their stadium a dump. Yet the Patriots always retained a lovable haplessness about them, with their cute minuteman logos, their A.F.L. lineage and the identity crisis that comes from being named after an entire region instead of a city or state. (The Seattle Seahawks are not the Pacific Northwest Seahawks.)
Contests in skill, strength and speed have occupied an important place in every culture throughout the ages. The meaning of the term sport and the effect that sport has on society is always changing. Sports have especially changed in the last two decades and can certainly be evidence by the growing number of labor disputes and court cases involving all sports.
American football is one of the most popular games played and followed in United States. Many believe it to be No. 1 sport in North America and take it as religion than sports. It is dream of majority of youngster to pursue their careers in American football, as it is source of wealth and glory. To attain a successful career one has to play this game before he is 14. He has to be part of High School League, College League, and eventually National Football League (NFL).
The NFL has become the most popular sport in the United States. It is watched my millions every weekend. The NFL is only growing in popularity. With new fans joining the fun every day. The NFL has faced its share of problems too. With concussions scaring away many future players, the NFL is hoping to lower the possibility of concussions in the future. Each NFL team plays a total of 16 games over a span of 17 weeks. There are two conferences in the NFL, the AFC and the NFC. There are four divisions in each conference, each with 4 teams. The playoff teams are decided by the division rankings. The winner of each division makes the playoffs, with the two best 2nd place teams making it in as a wild card.