Fincelfork

Fincelfork?

Ethan: “My favorite Patriot is Fincelfork.”
Me: “Fincelfork?”
Ethan: “Yeah, Fincelfork.”
Me: “… Vince Wilfork?”
Ethan: “Yeah, him.”

Ghost Town, Grapevine, Patriots-Dolphins, etc.

Busy weekend. My parents babysat Ethan for us on Saturday evening so Penny and I could go out for dinner and a movie to celebrate our anniversary. On the movie front, our choices were pretty limited. Burn After Reading was out because I can’t stand Brad Pitt. Vicki Christina Barcelona was a contender until we watched the trailer for it and hated it. So finally, we decided on Ghost Town because a) the trailer was funny, and b) so is Ricky Gervais.

It ended up being the kind of enjoyable, forgettable rom-com stuff that’s perfect for a date night. A little uneven at times, but frequently hilarious, too. Well worth the two hours and $20.

Being out of practice on the whole “going out” thing, we didn’t make dinner reservations and were consequently turned away at the first three restaurants we tried in Beverly. We had better luck in Salem, where we managed to get a table at an upscale Italian place called The Grapevine. The food was decent (I had pumpkin raviolis), we drank a half-bottle of Savignon Blanc, and I questioned the waitress’ assertion that the wild boar tenderloin on the menu was actually “wild” since the boar was apparently raised on a farm in Canada. She responded with all the confidence of John McCain and Barack Obama discussing the economic crisis (which is to say, not much), but we moved on and had a pleasant dinner with refreshingly adult conversation.

Yesterday my dad and I went to the Patriots-Dolphins game at Foxboro. I bought him the tickets for his 60th 39th birthday, and we had a great time despite seeing the Patriots get obliterated by a team that went 1-15 last year and started this season 0-2. The weather was nice, anyway, and our seats were on the 50-yard-line. (About a mile from the field, but on the 50-yard-line nevertheless.) The Brady-less Patriots don’t look very good, but any time I can watch the game with my dad it’s a good time.

Spy games

Before it completely fades from the national consciousness, I want to point out one thing about this whole “Spygate” nonsense that no one else wants to discuss: namely, just how widespread the illegal video taping practices may have been throughout the league. In his recent interview with the New York Times, former Patriots video assistant Matt Walsh shared this little tidbit of information:

There was one time that I was filming and another team had set up their third video guy right next to me in our stadium. And when our team was on defense, I looked over at him, and he was angling his camera toward our sideline. I didn’t ask him about it, because I was doing the same thing he was. But after the game, I went and told Romeo Crennel, “The next time we play this team, you may want to change your signals, because I think they’re doing to us what we do to them.”

Catch that? They’re doing to us what we do to them. Shocker! the Patriots weren’t the only ones doing it. Now, call me crazy but if I’m a New York Times reporter and Matt Walsh lays that on me, my next question is probably about the identity of that other team. Where’s the follow up? It never comes, because everyone already knows that everyone else was doing it.

You wanna say the Patriots broke the rules? Fine. It happened. They did it, they got caught, they got punished. End of story. Or so you’d think. Instead everyone outside of New England has taken on this ridiculous holier-than-thou attitude about it, as if their teams are beyond reproach.

And that’s fine. You can take that stance, as long as you’re not a fan of:

1. The Miami Dolphins, who in December 2006 purchased audio tapes of the Patriots offensive play calls and then used those tapes to pick up quarterback Tom Brady’s cadence and audible calls so they could scheme their blitz packages around his protection calls and pick up his audibles. Where’s the outrage of over audiogate?

2. The Super Bowl champion San Francisco 49ers of the 1980s, who cheated the NFL’s salary cap structure in order to get Steve Young, Brent Jones, Lee Woodall, and Jim Druckenmiller under contract. Think those players made a difference?

3. The Super Bowl champion Denver Broncos of the 1990s, who also circumvented the salary cap between 1996 and 1998 in order to keep superstars John Elway and Terrell Davis under contract. With those two players leading the way, the Broncos won two championships. I demand an asterisk!

4. The Carolina Panthers, who had three key members of its 2004 squad get nailed for steroids within two weeks of their Super Bowl appearance—against the Patriots, no less! 

5. The mystery team identified by Matt Walsh as also violating the league’s video taping rules. Hey, sports fans—you 100 percent sure it wasn’t your team?

Point is, everyone’s doing something in the NFL. The Patriots got caught and paid the price. That ought to be the end of it.