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MMBM: New England and Indianapolis, a tale of two cities

The Patriots are truly as good as the dickens.

By PFT Commenter

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Maddie Meyer/Getty Images

We're required to remind you that these strong takes are SATIRE. Sorry, not sorry. All spelling errors are intentional, we think. -Ed.

Wellcome to the Monday Morning BM,, just a word of warning your probably not prepared to handle the strong football takes and barrelfire NFL truths that you never knew your Mondays were missing. This column is written for and by a REAL fan of the NFL. Its designed to be read on your Monday Morning commode break after a long Sunday eating bad-for-you food and drinking beers. If you care more about SPELLING then you do about TELLING theres the door because this columns not for you.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

Boston and Indianapolis are case studys in success and in failure. The New England Patriots have built a city around a football team- one that consistently wins to the point where they dont even celebrate victories. Not having to beat themselves up after a loss should be reward in itself. You dont need a ribbon for winning a superbowl- thats literally your entire job.

See this is where America went wrong. After we beat the english and I forget the next people we fought it was like Lousiana or something, we didnt throw a big party- we picked up the pieces, maybe got on top of our wives, and went about our business. We expeted to win. Then sometime after we beat Iraq in 2003, everything changed. George Bush turned the USS Abraham Lincoln into worlds biggest Fuddruckers  and threw a big end of season team party and past out participaton trophys left and right. You would of thought we had never won a war before.

Some franchises still know the kind of attitude it takes to win consistantly though- and this is no better exemplified then with the New England Patriots. Just yesterday they awarded their 2014 team members with championship rings and they are a case study in exellents:

Putting "Do Your Job" on the side of a ring that you earned for doing your job is some incepton-level motivation here. The only ring that matters is the next one- every day in the NFL if your not putting in the work the only thing your earning is your expi-RING. In My Opinoin, NFL teams should have the option to reposses Superbowl rings banners and memoribilia from players who dont maintain a lifestyle consistant with that of a champion.

But as you've got Tom Brady playing the part o the selfless revolutonary reminding his teammates that they have a long ways to go to be truly Elite,  you look across to the other franchise the Indianapolis Colts. And there Madman Defarge owner Jim Irsay is spending his days smearing wine across his face basically living in a liquor store and knitting this banner that they hung up last week:

This is the culture that you cultvate when you have Peyton Manning as your QB for 12 years. This is like France putting up statues all over there country commemorating all the times they came in a close second during wars. The Arc de Triumph is basicaly a "great job" sticker that England has allowed them to put up on the fridge since they're certainly not using it to store there cheese.

The Colts are a pinterest team and the Pats are still only concerned with the box scores. But while the Colts take the only good leader they've ever had and put him in exile to Denver, the Patriots have fostered such a loyalty that Tom Brady raised his hand, and took the fall for DeflateGate, throwing himself on the blade as a champon to spare the greater good of his team. His punishment is the ultmate sacrifice, and Bradys willingness to bearit is truly symbolic of the small, but large differences between these two cultures.

So while the Colts once again try to look for a spring of hope after a winter of despiar, you can almost see a smile on the Patriot captains face as he heads to the guillotene, ready to accept his 4 week supsenion:

"Its a far far better thing that I do then I have ever done;; it is a far, far better rest that I go to then I have ever known."

-Tom Brady, 2015

Road Grader of the Week: Figo the Service Dog

(Photo via Frank Becerra)

Thinking about just renaming this category "Pet of the week" during the offeseason. The secrets out- dogs are where its at over the summertime folks, and Figo the Golden Retreiver is just the latest example. Despite being named after a greasy Portoguese soccer player who never won a superbowl and who couldn't get within 80% points of beating Sepp Blatter in a election, Figo came to play this offseason.

Hes a seeing eye dog which means its his responsiblity to make sure his owner gets home safe, but this is more of a believing eye dog story. He led his owner into a crosswalk when the "walk" sign was illumnated, but there was a incoming bus that didnt stop. Instead of making excuses and blaming the bus, Figo put his head down and made a Ben Roethlisberger like game-saving tackle and lept in front of his owner to push him out of the way, saving his life.

Thank god we as a society chose dogs instead of cats to be are seeing eye species. If Figo was a cat he would of probably bit his owner on purpose for trying to put a leash on him and then stayed at home all day thinking of ways to make him even more blind.

Joe Flacco Elite-O-Meter:

It has been my contenton that Joe Flacco is whats known as Baldingers Cat- both Elite and Not Elite at the same time. Each week MMBM will track Joe Flaccos performence in order to determine once and for all the answer to the unanserable NFL debate: Is Joe Flacco a Elite NFL quarterback?

This week Joe Flacco took to answering questons about his longevity. Namely- how many more years of quasi-elitish play does he have left in the tank? His answer left me feeling,,, well less than confidant.

"I don’t feel any worse because of my age yet," Flacco said. "I’m not going to be 50 [years old] and playing. I hope I’m 40, but 50, no."

Is Joe Flacco allready quitting on the 2035 Baltimore Ravens? Because thats what it sounds like to me. This guys starting to sound more and more like Derrick Rose every day folks more concerned about being able to pick up his kids than pick up another ring. The fact is that Flacco has put himself so far in student-athlete debt that he'll have to play until his 50s if he wants to truly be able to pay back the Ravens management for all the money they invested in him. Hell son if you want to be able to play with your ids when there older then what better way than to get them on the team with you

This week's rating is: Hes a disgrace

flacco

10 Things I Know I Know

1. Kellen Wisnlow doesnt get it:

Ok number one, do you think a player with bad feet would of lasted for 3 years on a Rex Ryan team? Kellen Winslow wishes he was at least a foot note in the NFL but the fact is hes just a tramp stamp. And speaking of trampstamps, heres Cromarties come-back:

Thats a walk-off folks

2. Last week I began advocating for the forced breeding of Cavs Mega-Star Matt Dellavedova and rugby grit babe Georgia Page to form the ultmate blue collar workhorse lunchpail dream team family. The Scrapson 5.

They could be given squatters rights to the entire outback territorys where there children could form a roving clan of Mad Max style lock-down defenders and selfless team-first scrappers hunting there dinner barehanded and drawing up plays in the dirt. Every few years you could introduce a few litters of there children to the Pounceys native breeding grounds to keep the entire south florida coastline from turning into a invasive cannabis rainforest.

But then I thought, is hunting them down and locking them in captivity really the smartest way to go about this? And in my opinon, the answer is "no." Why force them into a cage when maybe all I have to do is play matchmaker, introduce them to one a nother, and then let nature take its course?

Anyways I reached out to Georgia last week to take her temperature on whether or not she'd go out with Matt, and she seems receptive IMO. Currently navigating the back channels/billabongs to establish this soon-to-be first family of Grit.

Alright this is a good start. Sounds like Georgias truly "Up for whatever" so now we need to figure out what the best way to Dannys heart is. You know what they say- the fastest way to a Australians heart is his penis. I can just see Matt having a walkabout through the bush, battling through screens and leaving it all out on the dirt when he notices a pretty young sheila literaly headbutting a crocodile into domesticity. Rucking is literally the Australian version of Road Grading so this is really the perfect fit.

There mating ritual would likely just be them taking turns diving on to the ground naked for a loose ball until penetraton occurred out of happenstance and she lays a soft-shelled egg after 3 weeks. I like to have some fun with it and call there courtship "50 Shades of G'day"

3. Move over Albert Haynesworth, JJ Watt is the new scourge of the American Interstate Highway system. Over the past two weeks, Watt has posted TWO selfies of himself while driving through the streets of Houston. As if taking pictures and tweeeting while driving wasnt enough of a distracton, one can determine through forensic analsys that Mr. Watt is not wearing a seatbelt while behind the wheel- a clear violation of Texas code 545.413 secton A in either occasion.

On other words JJ Watt is on a behind-the-wheel crime spree that would make Marco Rubio look like driving miss daisy.

For a guy who scored 18 points on defense in his career his lackadaicial attitude towards safety is shocking. Even more dangerous is the fact that in the State of Texas your allowed to premeptively hurt someone in order to prevent them from hurting themselves.

4. Lets talk Rachel Dolezeal real quick. In case you missed it, she was the head of the Spokane Washington NAACP but the catch is she was a white person who was pretending to be black. So wait, the NAACP isnt allowing her to lead their organization just because she's white? Whose the real racist now? In fact she just had to step down because she admittied to faking her race, I guess there first clue she was white was that she was literally named "Rachel."

But lets at least be consistent here. Shouldnt the NAACP have some sort of reverse affirmative acton policy where historicaly underepresented people like Dolezeal have a chance to compete on the merits of how hard they can advance colored people instead of these "gotcha" ethnicisty requirements? Aren't there laws against discrimination in this county?

How come when a White person changes there skin color in a effort to end racism the media turns them into the bad guy but when a black person does it to sell records and throw birthday parties at there ranch they get a free pass and the paparazzi completely ignores them. Goes both ways.

Also this story has Jimmy Kimmels fingerprints all over it. Shes literally the human version of #TheDress and you guys are the ones getting taken to the cleaners.

5. Jason Campbell is retiring from the NFL to spend more time getting his family members fired from there jobs.

6. Peter Kings on vacation so Jenny Vrentas from the Sport Illustrated is writing the MMQB column this week. Sup.

To be honest shes kind of showing him up a little bit by writing a great column squeezing blood from the mid-June NFL stone. Its like in Any Given Sunday when Willie Beamen came in as the backup for the entrencehed star Dennis Quaid, and he played so very well that it was almost disrespectful to his teammate. You have to admit that its more then a little ironic that on the 800th birthday of the Magna Carta, she is truly demonstrating the limited power of the King.

7. The Croatian mens national soccer team played a Euro2016 qualfier vs. England over the weekend and the game was notable do to a swastika that had been burned into the field surface using chemicals.

In the first place thats a terrible swastika in the turf. It no wonder that the Nazis allways struggle to organize any sort of grass roots movement. Honestly this makes me think that Nazism is a lot less of a problem then I did before. If these guys cant even take over a couple square feet of an abandoned stadium Im pretty confidant for the future of the Balkans. Right now Adolf Hitlers gotta be looking down from heaven shaking his damn head in embarassment at this type of thing- if you cant even show a dramatic difference between colors on a soccer field how can you do it in a society. Just goes to show you that the Nazis still havent learned anything about their historical difficultys dealing with scorched earth.

But lets not let one bad Croatian apple spoil the rest though. Most of there supporters respectful and polite. This is probably just a one time isolated incident, hey by the way I wonder how come there werent any fans at all in the stands of the swastika game that strikes me as kind of odd

The game at Poljud Stadium was played behind closed doors after Croatia were punished for racist chanting during their match with Norway in March

The real victims here are the people who use the swastika repsectfully and responsibly using our constituional rights to retroactively learn about Hinduism and Buddhism to justfy why I have to make people uncomfortable. Whats interesting is that Its literally against the law to do a Swastika in Europe and they have the biggest Swastika issues of all. If you outlaw racism then only outlaws will be racist- people forget that.

8. Ill adress this in my next NBA column but you have to admit Jennifer Tracey is on to something here:

I agree how much more arrogant can you get? Assuming that your the best basketball player in the world when you havent scored a single point against 99.99999% of them goes to show you just how out of touch with realty James is. He hasnt even scheduled the SEC much less taken on the undiscovered tirbes of the Amazon. People give the USA a bunch of shit all the time for being arrogant but at least we've beaten just about everyone in a war so our claims to the title are at least legitimate. Hell the USA is even 1-0 verse 'Bama.

(H/T @BenjaminHolcomb)

9. The Geniuses over at NFL Reddit have stuck again:

I think its a very fair point, and a situaton that numerous NFL fans have considered before. If I brought my girlfriend or casual encounter to a bar and my favorite NFL guy was there,, I would need to make a decison. As a man with a date, its my call to determine who I allow to get to hook up with her. In other words, who would I let her allow me to permit her to hook up with, and how far would I authorize her to concede to me the right to authorize them to go?

Now I dont really consider myself a jersey chaser-chaser, so If me and you are drunk at a bar and Darnell Docket walks in there's no chance that Im going to sanction you going past 3rd base with him unless I get to be in the room watching. I guess Im just kind of a old-school prideful guy in some regards.

But if Im being honest here and really considering all aspects of this indecent proposal theres only one real answer and its "tribbing with Brett Farve."

This weeks sign we're living in the Golden Age of Takes: The rise of "The Lethal Take"

The United States govement is not to be messed with folks. They invented something called "The Lethal Take" which is literally bird genocide.

Since 2011, more than 1.6 million protected migratory birds across the United States have been killed with the blessing of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Birds often are dispatched on golf courses, even though the courses are certified as wildlife sanctuaries.

Businesses and the government are supposed to resort to what’s called lethal take only as a short-term solution. But as reporters Tom Knudson and Rachael Bale dug into Fish and Wildlife’s never-before-seen data, they found that many business and government agencies received permission to kill the same species in all three years for which they had data.

Here in order is the complete and total list of birds that I would like to see killed:

1. Grackles

2. Only grackles just kill grackles

Makes you wonder if maybe Mike Smith might have a future as a Fish& Game Warden since he was basically feeding the Falcons Alka Seltzer for the past 2 years.

(H/T @Desertpyr0)

This week in Rovell: Rovell sells about 20% of available tickets to his #TwEATup

As SBNations Sports Business Reporter Reporter I paid close attenton to ESPN Megapersonlity Darren Rovell's TwEATup event at Citi Field last Thursday. Tickets were only $100 to eat dinner with Darren Rovell and then watch the Mets play so I guessing you probably had to hold the ladies back like a damn One DIrection concert.

I checked in on Wednesday night on He had sold 32 as of the night before, so even if I assume a generous big marketing push on the day of the event Im guessing he probabley didn't crack the 100 ticket threshold. Selling under %33 of your inventory isnt great for the brand in my opinion.

Not sure why more people didnt want to pay $100 for this.

Reader Mailpail: Man Bites Dog isnt news anymore

"Sounds like a Ruff time IMO"

-Connor

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