The Best Super Bowl Never!
a/k/a Once Upon A Time in the NFL: AN ALTERNATIVE HISTORY SUPER BOWL LIII THAT WOULD’VE SAVED THE SHIELD, AMERICA, HUMAN DIGNITY & POSSIBLY EVEN THE HALF-TIME SHOW
by Michael X. Ferraro
January 20th, 2019. The NFC Championship Game in New Orleans. The game was tied, 20–20, late in the fourth quarter, but the Saints were driving and the Superdome was jazz-rocking. The home team was in the red zone and the Los Angeles Rams were back on their heels, having just been gashed for 43 yards of prime Louisiana real estate on a contortionist catch by Ted Ginn Jr. Now it was third and 10 from the 13-yard line, with less than two minutes to play.
Quarterback Drew Brees dropped back and zipped a quick pass out on the right flat to Tommylee Lewis, a wide receiver who’d lined up in the backfield. The gadget formation worked — Lewis broke open toward the sideline, at the five-yard line. The ball was right on the money. A touchdown here would’ve been ideal, but even a first down would have likely sealed the game for the Saints, as the Rams had just one timeout remaining. If they moved the chains, New Orleans could run out most of the clock before kicking an easy field goal to put them ahead and leave the Rams with precious little time to come back.
However, Rams cornerback Nickell Robey-Coleman, spying the open Lewis, rushed to the open receiver and drove into him, helmet to helmet, well before the pass arrived. The ball and Lewis both thudded to the ground, where they were soon joined by… zero penalty flags? Somehow, the entire officiating crew had missed both the pass interference and the “helmet to helmet” infraction committed by the defender.
The missed call was a glaring omission, baffling even announcers Joe Buck and Troy Aikman. New Orleans coach Sean Payton transformed into an irate windmill, beseeching the officials for justice. The salty sea of Saints fans frothed jagged, booming waves of invective around the Superdome. The impassive clock stopped on the incomplete pass, and the Saints field goal unit prepared to trot onto the field… until it happened.
Every schoolchild and sports fan knows the story by now, but watching it unfold, live, back then, was truly mesmerizing. Robey-Coleman beckoned to down judge Patrick Turner. The Rams cornerback tore off his helmet and said something quite forcefully, repeatedly to the vexed official. That’s when crew chief, referee Bill Vinovich, spied the mini-kerfuffle and trotted over, where he also got an earful.
The guys up in the booth were perplexed, as was the viewing audience. “I don’t know what is going on here, but Robey-Coleman just got away with pass interference,” opined Buck. “If he winds up earning an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, Troy, that would be nothing short of unforgivable.”
“That could ice the game for the Saints, Joe,” Aikman astutely added.
Down on the field, Vinovich stood hands on hips, listening to an animated Robey-Coleman. Abruptly, the ref could be seen double-blinking and mouthing “You…?” He pointed at Robey-Coleman, questioningly. The player nodded, jumped up and down, pointed back at the spot where the previous play had occurred.
Vinovich looked over at the back judge, Turner, who shrugged and nodded, seemingly in concession, as various eavesdropping Ram defenders tried to drag Robey-Coleman away. Vinovich asked two other officials direct questions, with one adamantly shaking his head no. The lead official then dug into his pocket and tossed a yellow flag on the field.
The booing in the Superdome congealed into a boozy, curious buzz. An inkling of clemency bloomed. The ref huddled briefly with his colleagues, and stepped forward to the hash-mark where he knew the TV cameras would find him.
Vinovich looked almost nervous for a second, glancing to the heavens as if for guidance. “On the previous play… the defense…” and here he looked over at Robey-Coleman, now walking toward the sideline, who nodded animatedly, his teammates casting sidelong glances in his direction. “The back judge has confirmed that the ball was not tipped. Number 23 on the defense confe — …” he mumbled that last word fragment, before hastily reconsidering and resuming. “Has committed pass interference. Pass interference, defense. The result of the play is a first down and goal to go, New Orleans.”
Vinovich stepped forward and pointed his arm dramatically toward the end zone, prompting thousands of New Orleaneans to blast euphoric jet fuel out of their esophagi. Conversely, Rams tackle Aaron Donald did a back-flip of pure outrage, some wags later conjecturing that perhaps he was trying to pull a Superman and reverse time.
The giddy Lewis, skipping around in circles, found Robey-Coleman and hugged him as he trotted off the field. Rams Coach Sean McVay, the flummoxed wunderkind, flung his red challenge beanie to the heavens, but it was not honored. (The NFL, in part inspired by the turn of events, would institute a pass-interference appeal rule in the off-season.)
Despite an animated and profane call between Commissioner Roger Goodell’s office and the Art McNally Game Day Central crew in New York during the commercial, nothing was done to overturn the stupendously late and seemingly requested flag. The result stood, and New Orleans had possession, first and goal on the Rams’ five-yard line. Robey-Coleman was sent to the locker room. Brees took a knee three times as the Saints ran the clock down to :17 and kicked the go-ahead field goal. After a booming kickoff through the end zone and two Rams incompletions, New Orleans advanced to what became the most-talked-about athletic event in human history.
********
The Aftermath
The two weeks leading up to the equally unforgettable New Orleans-New England Super Bowl nearly broke the Internet as well as millions of throbbing blood vessels in the heads of NFL fans, players, coaches, owners and sports talk bobble-jaws. Polls showed that 75% of the country thought Robey-Coleman should be “banned for life” from the NFL, with 37% saying “incarceration was not unreasonable.”
Social historians contend that his solitary mea culpa, seen on live TV by millions, with replays viewed on the Internet by billions, permanently tilted an axis in human behavior. It shifted the culture not just of competitive athletics, but modern society — corporate, military, socio-political — in ways that may play out for generations.
In the days that followed, numerous high-profile individuals and institutions came forward and “came clean,” distancing themselves from their past behaviors. Citing Robey-Coleman as an inspiration, they lamented a complicit, near-universal acceptance of self-serving, rule-skirting, dishonest and arguably dishonorable behavior typically shielded under the guise of “healthy competition.”
Which is not to say that all of humankind immediately, magically turned over a new leaf. The majority of people found the action laughable and/or dangerous. Robey-Coleman’s detractors included not only the President of the United States, but most of Congress, the major pro sports leagues, including the NCAA, and various titans of industry. Their position was perhaps most cogently summarized by Joe Rogan on his podcast: “Sure, now it’s trending that the meek might actually inherit the earth, got it. But the planet will apparently be a flaming ball of pussified tofu curd by then, so they can freakin’ have it. If men really are from Mars, let’s have Elon Musk figure some of that zero gravity slash breathing shit out, plus bang out some kick-ass rovers and head on back to the mother planet, ASAP.”
The unlinked but eerily similar events that transpired in the wake of Robey-Coleman’s stunning admission almost reached epidemic status, and the two-week time span before the Super Bowl is now studied as “the great awakening” in many a college classroom, including those at the University of Southern California, which of course no longer has a college athletic program.
A quick, totally satirical refresher:
The Timeline:
Jan 20th 11:53 p.m. Tweet from Nickell Robey-Coleman, aka @slotgod23:
“P.I. on me! Had to do it. I put that dude’s ass on a Waffle House frying pan. #Truth”
The tweet is deleted at 11:57, but screen-captured by Deadspin and other outlets and widely circulated. Robey-Coleman was not on the team’s charter plane back to LA, which reportedly sustained $120,000 worth of damage to the interior during “a lively team discussion,” according to a team spokesman.
The self-appointed Slot God was neither seen nor heard from for the next 10 days, in effect becoming the Edward Snowden of the NFL.
Monday, Jan 21st: 9:00 a.m. The Los Angeles Rams’ formal protest of the call and the result of the game is summarily rejected by Commissioner Goodell. The official party line, explained in a televised statement is, if not conclusively Kafkaesque, then certifiably Stengel-ese:
“The officiating crew separately conferred and determined that a tipped pass had not occurred on the play in question and therefore a pass interference had been committed. In a championship game of this magnitude it was an act of due diligence and a line of inquiry that was not as timely as possibly could it have been, but certainly not in any way fully or partially motivated by the aberrant and inexcusable behavior of primary members of the Rams’ secondary.”
Vinovich and all members of his crew are also put on a league-mandated media embargo, as was Robey-Coleman, whereabouts still unknown.
Monday, Jan 21st The FBI announces that Nickell Robey-Coleman has received numerous death threats, and been placed under protective custody at an undisclosed location. The President tweets that if he had lost money on the game, he “might be inclined to release the address of said undisclosed location.” In a separate tweet, the President wrote: “I thought Rams were tough. Also very very STUPID and hard-headed and selfish. Fitting Mascot name. #Loser #HollywoodElites”
January 21st Late night host Jimmy Kimmel comes out for his monologue wearing a Rams #23 jersey, to a mixed response of laughter, cheers and boos. He claims the weird LA weather that day “wasn’t the marine layer we sometimes experience — meteorologists think it was the evaporation of boiling hot tears from Rams fans.” He then asks for a spotlight and a moment of silence. Kimmel steps forward and says that, in the spirit of Robey-Coleman, he’d like to take the moment to ‘fess up to some serious infractions of his own. Voice quavering, he admits to having “rolled more stop signs than Snoop Dogg’s rolled joints.”
Kimmel then rolls a montage of grainy, “car-cam video” to back up his story, with green-screen clips showing the host wearing decade-appropriate wardrobe (spandex, acid-washed jeans, tie-dye, etc). He calls the California Highway Patrol on a speaker-phone and confesses, doing the rest of the show self-cuffed to his desk, awaiting a “police escort” to jail, which turns out to be Matt Damon sporting Oakley sunglasses and a surprisingly operational taser.
On his show, Stephen Colbert reveals that the NFL was going to have both a replay booth and a confessional booth on the sidelines — “but for on-field transgressions only. Because hey, the games are long enough as it is. As a wise man once said, ‘Dropkick me, Jesus, through the goalposts of life.’”
Samantha Bee tapes her program, recumbently, from a fainting couch: “Because a big, strong sports-ball man actually admitted he made a mistake, did wrong, and for some strange reason did not wish to get away with it! My oh my, I do believe I have the vapors.”
Tuesday, Jan 22rd Saints coach Sean Payton promises on Twitter that he’ll pay any and all fines the NFL assessed to Robey-Coleman. Mistake. This sentiment lands him a fine of his own from Goodell (“We will not condone collusion, or the appearance of such.”) and a league-mandated gag order on all matters until Media Day.
The President tweets at 1:17a.m.:
“The Record-Setting American economy under my Leadership is doing so great, some Dumb football players are even taking second jobs. Like Refferee. #Communist #RamScam
And then again at 1:21a.m.:
“If I had a Nickel for every time Nickel and other Dumb Commies did something dumb, I’d be a Billionaire. Oh wait! I Am!!! Socialized football sucks. Very Sad. #CommieBernie
Jan. 23rd During a special live presentation of the Netflix sitcom, “Fuller House,” actress Lori Loughlin breaks character and speaks directly to the camera, thanking former Trojan Robey-Coleman for doing USC proud. Clutching the arm of a clearly baffled John Stamos, she snarfles that her daughter will be withdrawing from the school immediately, “because of something wrong her parents have done.” A full press release is issued the next day, detailing illegal payments made by Loughlin and her husband to a third-party “consultant” to help their daughter matriculate at USC using doctored documents. (After an internal investigation, the school’s athletic programs are disbanded a month later.)
Thursday, Jan 24th Nike runs a full-page ad in USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and The Los Angeles Times with a photograph of Robey-Coleman upending Lewis. The slogan below it read, “Own your deeds.”
Protestors outraged by the company’s ad, led by the Shut Up & Tackle Coalition, plus various radio & blogging pundits including Rush Limbaugh, announced plans for a “Million-Nike-Bonfire: The Swoosh Goes Woosh!” for later in the week. Limbaugh says on his show, “How can you ‘own’ anything when you’re a Commie?” and encourage his listeners to abandon the “clearly Bolshevik” brand. (Organizers for the event later said there were permitting issues which prevented it from happening, and denied that there was an overwhelming lack of people willing to throw their $100 footwear into a fire.)
The President tweets at 3:49 a.m.:
“Failing Nike is now the Official Footwear of Loosers — Kneelers and Squealers. #PlayToWin #Tariff #Communists
A subsequent tweet from a presidential parody account blames “#KommunistKolinKaepernick and #NickellCovfefage,” as well as calling for “reasonable stop and search, on the field” and “tasers for Reffs” is retweeted and liked by 3 million people, a vast majority of whom seemed to be unaware of the satirical nature of the rhetoric.
Thursday, January 24th Robey-Coleman is awarded $3 million from an unnamed Swedish philanthropist commending him for his “USA- Ultimate Sportsmanship Action.”
The President tweets in response:
“What has Sweden ever won?? #Losers Except World-Classy Bikini Team #HotLadies Mind your business or maybe you’ll get a tariff. Stay Neutral or Else.
Friday, Jan 25th The Houston Astros inexplicably announce the firing of manager A.J. Hinch, and minutes later, the Boston Red Sox follow suit and do the same to Alex Cora, even though the pair had skippered their teams to the previous two World Series championships.
Saturday, Jan 26th: The National Enquirer publishes a photo that allegedly depicts Robey-Coleman and Edward Snowden making it rain at a strip club in Minsk.
Sunday, January 27th The NFL’s Pro Bowl makes headlines for the first time in years. On the first play from scrimmage, Broncos linebacker Von Miller throws a yellow flag high in the air during the snap count (he’d stashed it in his uniform pants), runs behind the line despite a plethora of whistles and hug-sacks NFC quarterback Aaron Rodgers. Miller pulls a rolled-up sign from the back of his pants and flashes it at the officiating crew — “Let Us Ref, Too!” Rodgers shrugs and extracts a whistle hanging on a chain inside his jersey, blowing it a couple times for good measure.
Monday, January 28th Super Bowl Media Day. The NFL desperately tries to make the focus of the interviews about “The Battle of the 40 Year Old Future Hall of Famers,” with quarterbacks Drew Brees (40) and Tom Brady (41) both having led their teams to the championship game with outstanding seasons. But Robey-Coleman’s moral presence eclipses all the sports talk.
Earbuds throbbing as he approaches the podium, Saints guard Andrus Peat answers a curious reporter about what tune he’s jamming out to: “ ‘Honesty,’ by Billy Joel, baby! Shout out to the righteous Ram!”
Asked how he thought his team’s defense would deal against Brees and the Saints’ high-octane offense, Tom Brady says with a perfectly straight face, “I’ve talked to our secondary about this — I know Drew has those puppy-dog eyes, and he’s a good guy and everything, but you just can’t give him free first downs when he throws an incompletion,” Brady finally cracks a smile, even his dimples seeming to wink. “I’m pretty sure Bill would… you know, he’d probably frown upon that.”
Asked for feedback on his quarterback’s quote, Patriots Coach Bill Belichick brings down the house with a textbook grimace-stifled belch combo. He later claims not to have heard the question, and said that he thought Brees and Jimmy Garropolo were both slightly better than Brady.
Tuesday, January 29th:
The spotlight swings from the Superdome eight miles away to a Waffle House in nearby, Stone Mountain, Georgia. Ultimately causing consternation in Alabama, jubilation in Georgia and general befuddlement everywhere else, Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban holds an impromptu press conference with two unlikely guest stars. Flanking him are 93-year old Hall of Fame coach Marv Levy and 94-year old former President Jimmy Carter. Plunked in front of the trio are the 2018 College Football Playoff National Championship Trophy.
Saban steps up to a makeshift podium, snorting the icing from a Little Debbie oatmeal cream pie before speaking. “Greetings, all. Looking forward to this special Super Bowl. Twenty days ago, my team, my school — lost the national championship to Clemson,” Saban says. “They whupped our butts, fair and square. But last year, we were the champs against Georgia. Or at least, we walked away with this,” he says, referencing the CFP trophy.
“So, the reason these two fine gentlemen are here with me today is, we’re going to do some house-cleaning. I’m not sure if I’m authorized to do this, but I figured maybe President Carter being here would help it out. I’d like to present last year’s championship trophy to the state of Georgia, and the University of Georgia. To share with us, as co-champions.”
The assembled press starts firing questions about what the heck he was talking about. Saban: “We had a young man on our team who was having a tough day. Lost his cool. The officials did flag him for unsportsmanlike. In the heat of the moment, he took a swing at a Bulldog, and somehow the crew missed that, just like in New Orleans last week. These officials are human, just like us,” Saban chuckles. “He shoulda been tossed right then and there. Then, he came back to our sideline, cussing to beat the band, still all fired up, I suppose, and then he tried to go after one of our coaches!”
“For some dumb reason, which I later realized was maybe greed, I guess — I let him to continue to play and wear our uniform that day. [Saban was referring to linebacker Mekhi Brown, who later transferred to Tennessee State]. He made a damn fine play later on, which helped us come back to ‘win’ the game,” Saban said. “But I can see now that, while we won on the scoreboard, we sure didn’t in the other sense. In the sense of being sportsmen. In the sense of ‘playing the game right,’ as they say.”
Saban’s eyes start to brim with tears, and President Carter lays a quavering hand on his shoulder. The two men smile at each other, before Saban continues. “If we’re supposed to believe all that stuff we tell our kids, our peewee players and so forth, then the true spirit of competition, is not to win at all costs. It’s to do your best, to put forth the best version of yourself, not just yardage and points, but character and respect. Otherwise, pardon the language, Mr. President, it’s just a big stinkin’ pile of horsehockey, and humanity is doomed to repeat all our mistakes of the past.”
Saban grunts, pauses for a moment, composing himself. He turns and says, “Mr. President, if you’d be so kind as to read one of Coach Levy’s most famous lines?” James Earl Carter does so, opening a page that Saban has bookmarked: “Football doesn’t build character — football reveals character.” The peanut farmer from Plains smiled broadly, saying, “I like that. I like that quite a bit.”
Next, the Alabama coach, fighting tears, asks “Coach Levy, a man I greatly admire,” to read an excerpt from Saban’s book, “How Good Do You Want to Be? A Champion’s Tips on How to Lead and Succeed at Work and in Life.”
Levy dons his reading glasses, turns to the page with the mini Post-it, clears his throat and reads: “Character is what you do when no one else is watching.” He nodded and added an “amen,” for good measure.
Saban rolls his eyes and chuckles. “Man, what a load that was. What about what I did when 30 million people are watching?” He chuckles grimly before continuing. “Look, don’t get me wrong. I think — no, I know I’m a hell of a football coach. I’ve had great players and great teams and have helped a lot of young men improve their financial lot in life. But that game, in that moment, with millions of people watching, I did not. I let that young man down, and I let the school, my team down. Could we have won without him? Probably. I wish we would’ve found out. I’m not taking this trophy away from my players, who were out there on the field that day, doing their best — but I am offering to share it with Georgia, because they didn’t have the benefit of an entirely worthy opponent. And that’s on me.”
With that, Saban burst into tears and hugged the President. “Starting today,” Carter adds, “Mr. Saban is taking a one-year sabbatical from college football, and volunteering with our organization, ‘Habitat for Humanity.’”
Saban also takes the opportunity to announce that a planned HBO documentary with “my good friend, Bill Belichick,” will be postponed, “unless Bill agrees — unless Bill and I agree to discuss certain matters, and issues, I guess you could say, of competitiveness run amok.” Declining the resulting flurry of questions, Saban leaves the Waffle House, imploring Americans to buy the books by Levy and President Carter, and shred his if they happen to own a copy. “Or burn it, instead of those Nikes, right?”
Wednesday, Jan 30th
The President tweets that “All the Hurricane Stress of living in Hurricane Central Alabama has clearly made Coach Saban a little cuckoo. Sad. Propping up our Least Popular Living President, too. Barely. And Marv Levy?? What has Marv Levy ever won? He’s like Hillary.”
The gang at Fox & Friends breathlessly report “rumors circulating that Nickell Robey-Coleman is dating Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.”
Dozens of LA Rams fans launch a class-action lawsuit against Robey-Coleman and the NFL for “neglecting to abide by the initial determinations of the officiating crew, thereby depriving them of their rightful place in the Super Bowl.”
A tweet emerges from Robey-Coleman’s dormant account:
“smh. Y’all saying that I’VE ruined the Super Bowl? I sure as hell didn’t book Maroon Damn 5, lol. #FreeMeek”
Thursday, February 1st
Two days before the most anticipated Super Bowl ever was to be played, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp reports for work… to his old office, Secretary of State. He confers with the flabbergasted new Secretary of State, calls his vanquished gubernatorial opponent, Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams, and directs his staff to proceed with paperwork for a special election for Governor in the state of Georgia. Kemp makes the following announcement live from the CNN building in Atlanta:
“In the light of recent events on the football field and some serious reflection, it is now clear to me that I was unable to oversee a fair and equitable election process for Governor in this great state last year, as I had a vested interest in the outcome. Even the appearance that I was randomly enforcing voting statutes in a manner that could be construed as unfairly advantageous to my cause was an issue. Because, frankly, I was. And they were. That ‘exact match’ legislation is some serious voter suppression. I apologize to Ms. Abrams and the good people of Georgia, and I say let’s do it one more time, and have the best candidate win.”
The President tweets at 4:11 a.m:
“Have instructed Attorney General of Great State of Georgia to arrest Crazy Brian Kemp, and am appointing Tremendous American Newt Gingrich Temporary Gov in his absence. Stacey Abrams = Nasty Loser. NOTE TO SELF: Ask Hannity if is okay to do?? DO NOT SEND”
Thursday, February 1st
Staff at the Malibu home of director Steven Spielberg report an overnight break-in — only to discover that nothing has been stolen and the 1999 Academy Award for Best Motion Picture had been placed on his coffee table by masked intruders, surrounded by what forensic investigators later determined to be a few specially scented Goop candles.
Film buffs will recall that Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan” lost out that year to “Shakespeare in Love,” starring Gwyneth Paltrow, in an upset victory. As later reported in Vanity Fair, infamous mogul Harvey Weinstein’s studio Miramax, the producer of “Shakespeare in Love,” utilized relentless negative campaigning, possibly even using forbidden parties and other enticements to sway Academy voters along the way.
Friday, February 2nd
Hundreds of thousands of protestors take to the streets in Georgia — some to celebrate the Bulldogs’ “national co-championship,” some to protest the new gubernatorial election, on either side of the issue, but most to protest Maroon 5’s halftime booking. An online petition to have the band removed from the Super Bowl halftime show garners over 5 million signatures in less than 24 hours. It pointedly contends that “since the game is a worldwide showcase for the best that America has to offer, this melodic Muzak wackness will not stand.”
Saturday, February 3rd
Citing “creative differences with the country,” Maroon 5 puts out a press release announcing that they would not perform at the Super Bowl, and rather “wishes to stay home and spend time with our massive royalties.”
Via tweet, the President orders that “my very Good Friends, Kid Rock and Ted Nugent,” be flown to the Superdome via the Loudest Helicopter in the World and be made available to serve “their Dear Leader and their Country and the rapidly stumbling bumbling crumbling NFL, which I NEVER tried to buy a team in.”
Sunday, February 4th
Finally, the game. You would have thought it would be a letdown after all the navel-gazing chaos that ensued from Robey-Coleman’s largesse, but Super Bowl LIII is a thriller in and of itself. The Saints and Patriots are tied at 24–24 at the end of the first half.
The halftime show singalong of “This Land is Your Land,” led by Willie Nelson, Lizzo, the Muppets, Bruno Mars, Arlo Guthrie and the cast of “Hamilton” stretched to 12 minutes long and was a raucous tearjerker for the ages.
Then, with 14:25 left in the fourth quarter, 4-time Super Bowl MVP Tom Brady takes a truly mind-blowing delay of game penalty. After wresting the ball from his center, Brady tosses it to the referee with the play clock running down. As confirmed later by field mics, Brady told the official he “thought the ball was under-inflated.” (The ball was checked, and the quarterback was proven right.) Incensed by what he later called Brady’s “spontaneous vigilantism,” Belichick makes the biggest power move in sports history, benching arguably the greatest quarterback of all time.
At this point, the Pats are trailing, 40–27, but Belichick bucks convention again — by not bringing in backup quarterback Brian Hoyer. Instead, he places wide receiver Julian Edelman behind center, despite the fact that Edelman was the top receiver in the game up to that point. The feisty Edelman (a fine college quarterback at Kent State) brings his team back, however, orchestrating two speedy touchdown drives around a Saints’ score, making the deficit 47–41. The Patriots get the ball back with under a minute to go and have one last chance with :13 left in the game.
On 3rd and 10 from his own 48, Edelman heaves a majestic Hail Mary to the end zone. A scrum coalesces around the twice-batted pass, which finally disappeared into a dogpile of flailing athletes. As the officials pull players off the pile, New England tight end Rob Gronkowski springs up, ball in hand, and ceremoniously hands it to the back judge. Fighting off the defenders still jostling him, Gronk steps forward, flexes… and makes the incomplete signal?
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell collapses on camera in a luxury box. Belichick dunks his headset in a Gatorade cooler. And we all know what happened next… ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE NFL.
********
EPILOGUE
First of all, this parallel universe Alternative History is in no way an indictment of Nickell Robey-Coleman. In real life, the guy did what practically anybody else would, and has done, in that same situation once he realized he got away with one. Played it cool, went about his business, and took the blown call as a bit of good fortune.
The governing logic against self-reporting your mistake goes like this — hey, we’ve gotten screwed by bad calls in the past, and now the other team gets screwed by this one! Theoretically, it all evens out, and it’s not my problem they screwed up. They need to do a better job officiating the games. We all know this and abide by it. (The NFL even addressed Robey-Coleman’s undetected penalty and put a giant, weird Band-Aid on it, by acknowledging the blown call and instituting “pass interference” challenge rules news for the next season.)
In real life, after the Saints kicked the field goal, Robey-Coleman’s Rams came back to tie the game, and then won it in overtime. They then went on to lose to the Patriots in a very boring and not-at-all-ethically-challenging Super Bowl with a universally panned halftime show. Ho-hum.
(And for the record, Robey-Coleman actually did ‘fess up after the fact, in a remorseless Facebook video the following night, saying: “All right, we’re gonna get straight to the point — the call about last night… Obviously, I smacked his ass. You feel me? Put that boy on a… m*therf*cking Waffle House frying pan.” So, credit to the drowsy and perhaps altered Slot God #23 for some of the creative inspiration for this piece.)
But — what if he’d actually done the “right” thing, as I so (brazenly/naively/heretically) suggest? Of course, you can yell that it wasn’t Robey-Coleman’s duty to turn himself in, and you would be correct. But here’s my follow-up to that: Why shouldn’t it be? What is the true point of competition? The ancient Greeks had an idea, and it actually included “ideals”:
“Do you think, fellow citizens, that any man would ever have been willing to train for the pancratium or any other of the harder contests in the Olympic games…if the crown were given, not to the best man, but to the man who had successfully intrigued for it? No man would ever have been willing. But as it is, because the reward is rare…and because of the competition and the honor, and the undying fame that victory brings, men are willing to risk their bodies, and at the cost of the most severe discipline to carry the struggle to the end.”
- Aeschines, Against Ctesiphon, 179
Geez, didn’t those high-falutin’ Greeks ever hear of the phrase, “If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin”? Instead, there is all that blather about competition and honor, and the cost being “the most severe discipline.” Back in the days of tunic thunder, those athletes discovered cheating were fined, with the proceeds used to commission bronze statues of Zeus lining the road to the stadium. The statues were inscribed with written accounts of the offenses, “warning others not to cheat, reminding athletes that victory was won by skill and not by money, and emphasizing the Olympic spirit of piety toward the gods and fair competition.” (The Perseus Project, Tufts University)
By logical extension, it seems that the very height of competitive excellence just might be when an athlete feels compelled to right their own “wrong,” just as my Alternate History Robey-Coleman does.
In fact, I wrote a novella a few years back, Circus Catch, with a very similar instigating incident. In my book, a prima donna wide receiver from Cleveland named Brevard (B-Wack) Wackson (think Terrell Owens times Odell Beckham Jr. with a splash of Flava Fav) is given credit for a last-minute, tip-drill Hail Mary catch at the bottom of a dogpile in the end zone, just like my Alternative History Gronkowski. B-Wack’s miraculous touchdown will — pending PAT — vault Cleveland into the playoffs for the first time in forever. (Sorry, Cleveland fans, it’s a parallel universe — but extremely parallel).
However, B-Wack knows with certainly that he did not secure the ball before it scraped the ground. And for reasons clear only to himself (and now, I guess, the parallel universe Robey-Coleman), my protagonist seeks out the officials to inform them the touchdown should be taken off the board. Flabbergasted, the referee considers invoking the concussion protocol and ignores the player’s confession. When the replay does not have a conclusive enough angle to overturn the catch, all of Cleveland rejoices, but the rebuffed receiver wants justice. With the PAT still to come, he takes matters into his own magnificent hands, and Cleveland… well, remains Cleveland.
I’ve had the opportunity to work with many athletes and sports media folks during my career. When I presented the premise of Circus Catch (and now, “The Best Super Bowl Never”) to them — the reaction was nearly unanimous. Nearly.
Working with Hall of Fame wide receiver Michael Irvin on his SpikeTV reality show, Fourth & Long, I asked his opinion of whether something like that might actually ever happen in the league. The man they called The Playmaker cocked his head, grabbed my shoulder and roared with laughter. “No way, Mike! Never gonna happen,” he said. A longtime ESPN reporter I know categorically dismissed the notion that a player would argue against a beneficial call for their team. When I asked why it’s so preposterous to imagine, he paused to consider and measured his words. “These games are for important stuff.”
This is a widespread sentiment, no doubt. And it seems obvious, on the face of it. You’d have to be crazy to give away a victory in a big game. But let’s go back in time, in our own lives. As little kids, when we played board games with our families, did our parents let us cheat when the dice roll was an unfavorable result? No, they did not. They were teaching us lessons about playing by the rules, playing “the right way.” Teaching us that sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose, but that there is sometimes joy and always accomplishment to be found simply by competing your best.
So how come that ethical bar gets lowered to speedbump level and corners are viewed as increasingly cuttable when we get older? Isn’t that absurd? Especially when the primary rationale seems to be — the other team/person/company does it, so why shouldn’t we?
Several years back, I wrote a somewhat controversial essay for Medium’s sports site, “The Cauldron” called “Derek Jeter is a Big Fat Cheater.” I did so because the beloved Yankees captain, the role model, had admitted after a game that he purposely duped an umpire into thinking he’d been hit by a pitch when the ball actually struck the knob of his bat. Afterward, in the locker room, Jeter owned up to the ruse with a wink to the adoring, unchallenging media and said, “It’s my job.”
With all due respect — the pride of the Yankees left the building that day. (By the way, I was not the lone soul who didn’t vote to enshrine Jeter in Cooperstown. If I had a ballot, I definitely would have checked his name.) However, Jeter’s justification was rather like a stockbroker saying insider trading is their job, because it helps the clients’ bottom line. This is disingenuous at best.
Let’s be honest, though, Jeter just did what almost everybody else would, and it’s covered under the increasingly slimy and expanding umbrella of “gamesmanship.” That’s a word invoked with blind passion and kneejerk fury by those who are keen to remind you that the Greeks hung up their olive leaves a couple millennia ago. But, the bottom line is, as Wallace Matthews described Jeter’s “grubby” move on ESPN.com, there is just “something unethical and faintly unseemly, something you know is accepted in sports but never quite makes you feel right when you see it, even if it is done by your favorite team or player.”
Is it really so unreasonable that one of the basic tenets of human competition should be to hold ourselves to a higher ethical standard? Why is “getting away with one” considered the “right” move to make? We’ve cynically shrugged off honor in the realms of politics and business — places where moral compasses seem quaint and obsolete. Why can’t our primary responsibility, when competing on a playing field, be to uphold the purity and integrity of the event itself? May the best team win. Not the one with best cameras in the outfield. And why shouldn’t those in charge of players, in charge of teams, insist on and instill those values that really will create good role models and a better world?
It is precisely for that reason that I call out Nick Saban, a football coach whose teams have won numerous championships. In January of 2018, a young Alabama player, Mekhi Brown, had a violent outburst on the field and followed that up with a borderline-aggravated-assault-illegal hissy fit on the sideline, swinging at a coach on his own team. When I saw him walk away undisciplined, un-benched in the national championship game — I was stunned. The commentators practically yawned at the melee, anxious to get back to the “action.”
I asked myself an extremely simple question. What would have happened if one of the players I was assistant coaching at the time, 8-year olds playing youth basketball at the Eagle Rock Rec Center, did the same exact thing?
Would that 8-year old kid get to stay in the game?
Bwahahaha. Not even close. Way more likely, since I live in Los Angeles, the whole saga would be turned into a Lifetime mini-series, marking Lori Loughlin’s triumphant return. So why on earth, in front of millions of people, would a self-described “leader” of young men allow that player to remain in the game? Saban unwittingly answers it in his own book:
“It’s sometimes difficult for employees to respect individual differences in their coworkers. Often I remind our various staff groups that we treat everyone fairly and honestly — but we don’t treat them all the same.” (Nick Saban, How Good Do You Want to Be? A Champion’s Tips on How to Lead and Succeed at Work and in Life)
An angry Brown was a good-tackly Brown, so there you have it, kiddos! Coach Saban did give him a stern wag of the finger on the sideline (before the swing at the coach), so… leadership lesson concluded?
I truly hope one of the few dozen kids I’ve coached over the years has the guts to step up and self-report on themselves in the heat of the moment in a big game. On another sports-based reality show I was working on, I mentioned the notion to an NFL official who was on set, and asked him if he’d ever had any player, at any level, try to overturn a call that went in his favor. Negative, of course.
Then, a few minutes later, the intrigued ref approached me as I stood next to the one and only Rob Gronkowski himself (all reality TV shows are required by law to reach out to Gronk to see if he’s interested), and said, “Ask Gronk your question.”
So I did. And Gronk, after listening carefully, and having me go through the scenario twice to be sure he understood it properly, looked at us very earnestly with that guileless, wide-open, sure, let’s even say child-like, face, and said, “Yeah, I’d do it. I’d admit it.”
Damn it! It really would have been the best Super Bowl ever.
