Dateline: May 6, 2015

Greetings and salutations, patient readers! I’ve enjoyed my time away from my trusty word processor on my forced vacation this past while. It’s given me a new perspective on all the things that make my life and career special; namely, the absence of assaults on my persons by cowardly, crazed cuckolds!

While there’s been plenty of NFL news to digest since exiting my poolside wine-cooler haze–I hear we’re almost ready for the draft!–there’s one bit of rarely-covered, esoteric news that I, your noble and worldly sportswriter, wish to educate you on. This story contains intrigue, scandal, skullduggery, and a cast of characters spanning a storied sports organization! Yes, dear readers, I, the wizened and rakish Bud Winston, have the scoop of the century, a little matter I’m calling The Squishy Ball Incident!

I’ll even be kind to you and not string you along any further this time–The Patriots, a team we are forced to acknowledge as the league champions, have been caught playing with intentionally under-inflated footballs!

I will let you recover from your shock. Please, take your time.

Now, when I first heard of New England having involvement with deflated balls, I was certain Bob Kraft had discovered sexting. When you get to our age, you need a wide lens to make sure the entire craggy landscape makes it into the shot! (Also, If I’m being honest, I also had flashbacks to my recovery from a misguided purchase following a google search on “male silicone enhancement”. Always do your homework before you trust budget medical supply outlets!)

It turns out that (disappointingly), the story is much less salacious. From what I could understand from the report released today, Tom Brady manually sucked the air out of every football he used during every single game in his entire career to the point where he was practically throwing around a leather raisin to his receivers. This gave him, according to modern sports analytics, a 1000% positive advantage over the defenses he faced–which, when you take that into account, makes him a terrible quarterback, and an overreach at his draft position! This was done under the direct supervision of Coach Belichick, Gronk, Wes Welker, Bob Kraft, Roger Goodell, Bill Simmons, Gene Simmons, President Obama, and even The Pope!

(I should add that I was skimming this report while still poolside and long into a Bartles and James binge, so I may not have gotten all the details 100% right)

Naturally, I decided to go right to the source. I called up my inside source, Bobby Dubanowski, a reserve tackle on the Cleveland Browns practice squad and formerly of Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Oakland, Detroit, New England, Kansas City, and Jacksonville. Having been a part of the Patriots organization, I knew he had the inside scoop of items like this.

“Well,” he said, “During practices, they used to video tape everything. I mean everything–each play, and… well, each play. And then we’d have to watch them, again and again and again!” But what about balls, I asked. “Oh, sure. You always end up seeing wrinkly balls around the New England locker room.”

Confirmation! You can always trust Bud Winston to find you the scoop, the dirt, the payola! If you’re not convinced, though, I contacted one other New England super fan who I can always count on having the inside skinny.

“There’s no way anything untoward, illegal, against the rules, or negative AT ALL happened because of anything anyone on the Patriots staff ever did,” Said Floyd ‘Underball’ Chitstain, 11, reached at the Boston Home For Unwanted Orphans, “They’re perfect and wonderful and anyone who says otherwise is just a JEALOUS HATER! JEAAAAAALLLLLOOOOOOUUUUSSSSSSS HAAAAATTTTTEEERRRRRRRRR!”

And there you have it, dear readers, the soul-shattering, tragic voice of a delusion-filled and a broken psyche, caused by the nefarious and morally-devoid actions of a once-proud football organization. It seems only reasonable for the entire New England NFL franchise to be dissolved and its assets sold off to an ethically-focused organization, like my favorite all-American beer maker–Budweiser!

Until next time, dear readers, keep your balls to yourself!