Word: nfl
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...NFL could hardly use more strife this season. This summer the league had to hold a "concussion summit" to tackle the growing problem of career-shortening brain injuries suffered on the football field. Older retired players, broken and broke, clamored for better disability benefits, portraying the league, its rich young players and their union as greedy. Bad player behavior--Adam (Pacman) Jones' involvement in a strip-club shooting, Vick's ties to a dogfighting ring--forced commissioner Roger Goodell to enforce unprecedented penalties for off-field incidents. Then there were tragedies: Denver Broncos cornerback Darrent Williams was murdered early...
...imperfect NFL season overshadowed by Michael Vick's jailing, the murders of two players and a host of other off-field issues, the prospect of the Pats as champs seems oddly appropriate. After all, it's also a safe bet that these Pats will be forever tarnished by the Spygate affair, in which the team was caught trying to steal an opponent's signs, using a sideline camera. On the surface, more controversy would seem like the last thing the league needs. But it turns out the Patriots are the ideal villains. The drama inherent in their chase...
...along come the cheating Patriots. The NFL must be ruing this, right? Wrong. Very wrong. "I've got to tell you, there's no one in the NFL sad about New England's issues," says Marc Ganis, president of Sportcorp, a marketing firm that has consulted for the league. "A team that is exceptional and that has controversy surrounding it offers the best possible situation...
...Nice Bill, a tireless if disheveled football chess master who had finally escaped the capacious shadow of Bill Parcells, the Super Bowl-winning coach for whom he had toiled as a longtime assistant. Claiming three of four Super Bowls is a truly mind-boggling feat, given that the NFL's salary-cap structure is designed to spread the wealth and prevent dominance. It takes some kind of football genius to escape the league's parity policy...
Others are still talking, including members of the 1972 Miami Dolphins, set on preserving their legacy. Don Shula, who coached those Dolphins--the only team in NFL history to stay unbeaten through the Super Bowl--said if New England finished undefeated, an asterisk should be placed next to its record because of Spygate. He later recanted those remarks, but kicker Garo Yepremian insists that "a few" asterisks be attached to the Pats. Says Hall of Fame coach and ex-Buffalo Bills general manager Marv Levy: "I saw one or two other former coaches say, Oh, everybody does it. Baloney...