Phil Taylor's misguided SI column

So in his latest commercial Shaq now claims the body powder he uses makes him smell as good as he looks? Dang. Excuse me but, considering his mug, how bad does this stuff smell anyway?

On the back page of the most recent Sports Illustrated issue, Phil Taylor claims Tom Brady would be better off giving up the fight against Roger Goodell and the league, and accepting the 4 game suspension. PT says Brady falling on the sword would cast him in a better light with the public and give him a forum to exert even more scrutiny on Roger Goodell's highly dubious recent record of handing out punishments.

Taylor obviously misses the bigger point. Every once in a while there comes a time when someone has to make a stand. No plea bargains and/or accepting a slap on the wrist just to tidy up legal matters. They will settle for nothing less than being totally absolved and vindicated -- as well they should if they are innocent. On the other hand, if somone knows in their heart they were complicit in a "crime", trying to scam the system could blow up in their face and result in a much worse outcome.

Whether or not Tom Brady had anything to do with ever-so-slightly underinflated footballs in a playoff game several months ago (as Taylor put it -- the same amount of air a child needs to blow out birthday candles) likely only Brady himself knows for sure. All the rest is just speculation. Name the networks (talking heads), scribes for various publications, on-line armchair quarterbacks, and the legions of social media chirping away, and everybody has an opinion. But none of them really know anything conclusive. It's little more than a mass exercise in editorialism.

Maybe Brady's dirty, and maybe not. Just because some NFL commissioned report found him "more likely than not" to be "at least generally aware" of hanky-panky hardly constitutes a smoking gun. And let's get real. Goodell and his minions didn't pay Ted Wells a boatload of money only to come back and say, "I can't find any hard evidence of wrongdoing". They wanted something they could act on and Wells tailored his language to give it to them. But like everybody mentioned in the previous paragraph, Wells didn't know either. Give him a polygraph test and that would likely become quite evident. He was merely giving his masters (see cha-ching) what they wanted.

[Contrary to much public opinion, lie-detectors are deathly accurate these days. Like computers, phones, cars, etc., they have become much more sophisticated as well over the years. Fooling them is virtually impossible. The only reason they still aren't used is because a large swath of the lawyers would find themselves out of business. No longer necessary. You don't have to pay a polygraph $500 an hour to shuffle paperwork and file frivolous motions. It gets right down to the nitty gritty. Who's kidding who?]

Of course the same could be said of Brady. He may or may not prevail in federal court with his legal eagles, but one objective polygraph operator asking pertinent questions would solve this case in a hurry.

For the sake of argument, let's assume Brady really was/is innocent. It has been stated by many that Brady should have surrendered all the information on his cell phone to prove himself as such. These poor devils have been brainwashed. It is not the responsibility of a citizen to prove his innocence, but rather the onus of the authorities to prove his guilt. A HUGE difference. Why would anybody in their right mind voluntarily surrender a cache of personal information to those that are looking for a way to use it against them? Those that advocate such a policy of having to prove one's innocence have succumbed to the Big Brother mentality and become no more than lemmings. An easy stance to take when bad things are happening to somone else, and they think it can never happen to them. It can, but they fail to grasp that concept.

At the end of his article Phil Taylor suggests Tom Brady would be much better off "taking a knee" and swallowing the 4 game suspension. Better for Brady, better for the league, better for everybody in the long run. All nice and neat and case closed. God forbid we should have to trouble a precious federal judge with sorting out this matter, though when parties can't agree, that is EXACTLY his job.

Again, Taylor misses the point. Taking a knee is normally done when a game is "in the bag" and the closing seconds are winding down. The victory has already been secured.

In this case, the final outcome of the game remains very much in doubt. Would you want your quarterback taking a knee when the score is tied and the fourth quarter has just started? Just to serve some misguided politically correct cause? How do you think the fans would react to THAT? They'd be outraged and rightly so.

Tom Brady has decided to take a stand against Big Brother. He might win and he might lose, but if he thinks he's right -- then more power to him.

Too bad Phil Taylor and his ilk seem incapable of grasping the notion that every once in a while a man has to stand up, draw the line, and fight back. Writing columns is easy. Getting down and dirty in the trenches is not.

Those who are man enough to play the games -- will. Others are limited to sniping from afar and hoping they impress their gullible audiences of fellow lemmings.

How Brady v Goodell will turn out in court is anybody's guess. But here's giving #12 all due credit for standing up and fighting for what he perceives to be right. It's an ordeal most "journalists" will never have to experience. They just ramble on with their slants knowing full well they will never have to bear any semblance of responsibility.

Another big difference.