Gregg Doyel Writes Predictably Terrible Story About The Cheating Patriots
By Michael Hurley, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- At this point, you just have to feel bad for The Indianapolis Star's Gregg Doyel.
The man who has fired up so many hot takes that he could rightfully be arrested for arson is already using the upcoming Patriots-Colts game as an opportunity to lob as much manure at the wall as humanly possible in an effort to get people upset and in turn pay attention to him.
It would be fine, it's just … he's not very good at it. By now, he should be better.
Doyel -- the man who dismissed as homers every analyst from Boston who said last January that the AFC Championship Game would be a blowout, while simultaneously and legitimately busting out a pair of pom-poms for the Colts -- took the opportunity Tuesday to cobble together some scattered thoughts about the hideousness and evil that lives within the New England Patriots.
(Writing it on Tuesday allows for Doyel to set up his media appearances, where he doubles down on his statements and flips off the camera and whatnot.)
Some "highlights" from Tuesday's story:
Brady had his suspension overturned in September for the legal gobbledygookiest of reasons. A U.S. District Court didn't find Brady innocent. It found NFL commissioner Roger Goodell guilty of overplaying his hand.
…
The Patriots, meanwhile, look to be as good as ever – and this is a franchise with four Super Bowl titles since 2001.
Sickening, isn't it?
If this is me playing the lame homer card, fine. The Patriots cheated the team in my city. Residents of Indianapolis and the surrounding areas, you give the Colts the best you've got: money, emotion, more. The Patriots rigged the AFC title game. Cheated the Colts. Cheated you.
Sickening.
…
They're angry about DeflateGate making them look bad, the NFL siding with the Wells Report, the Colts for ratting them out after that 45-7 blowout in January.
That's what Patriots fans believe. Check the cesspool they call #PatriotsTwitter, or – because that cesspool spills onto the Indianapolis media, and onto me more than most – take my word for it: Those people truly believe the Patriots are blowing teams out because they're mad at the world, and maddest most of all at the Colts.
As if the Patriots have any right to their anger.
…
Only a scared team would cheat, too.
Let's not be scared around here, OK? Let's not be anything like the franchise coming to town on Sunday.
Again, more "Rah-rah, let's go Colts!" stuff at the end, where he refers to himself as part of the team. Yuck. Even Colts fans must cringe reading that.
There's also Chief Justice Doyel demonstrating his thorough legal knowledge by bestowing upon us a term as complex as "gobbledygookiest." (By the way, I've checked with several attorneys and can confirm that such phrasing does indeed appear in many federal court rulings, along with "baloney," "malarkey," "shenanigans" and "¯\_(ツ)_/¯".)
There's Gregg spewing the "cheated" and "rigged" fairy tale that he's been telling since January, even though nobody in the world with even one-tenth of a brain would believe that air pressure in footballs affected the outcome of any game, let alone the 45-7 thumping in Foxboro. Even Gregg himself has said that. But it wouldn't fit his story to drop the "rigged" line now, not in what is likely the last week that the country will really care much about the Colts for at least two months.
The strategy is intended, obviously, to incite, to arouse anger in New England, in an effort to draw wild attention onto the writer. He's admitted as much, really, telling Grantland, "Here's how it works: If you write something and it's compelling enough, it leaves a mark. Boston went nuts over what I wrote. You know why? Because I left a mark. I'll take that."
Most writers seek to be factually accurate, or be insightful, or at least provide some thought-provoking material that is based more on reality than it is the gobbledygookiest of premises. But Doyel only wants to leave a mark, and so typing "cheaters" and "sickening" accomplishes that without having to endure much grueling thought.
Doyel also said this to Grantland: "It also left a mark with some media people. ... There are a handful of people in that [Boston] market that are embarrassing."
Again, this is a non-embarrassing media member who mocked all of New England for believing the AFC Championship Game would be a lopsided Patriots win, so much so that for New Englanders to predict a 38-22 win was for them to expose themselves as homers.
Doyel wrote back in January: "If it weren't sincere, the stuff these people in New England are saying and even doing this week, you'd swear it was a lampoon of the area's haughty, arrogant stereotype. ... Any team that can go to Denver and do what the Colts did last week can go to New England and compete, even win. ... And while it is tempting to paint the entire New England landscape with a broad brush and dismiss all of them as delusional and dismissive, let's call the Boston media this week what it is: a symptom of Boston's arrogance."
The Patriots, of course, won 45-7.
Doyel's simply a guy who rode the Hot Take Wave back in January and loved it. He milked the story for all it was worth out in Indy, likely placating some readers but also peeling back the layers of his process to the more astute readers. The blueprint remains quite simple: Sit behind keyboard, attach "cheater" and "liar" and "shameless" to Tom Brady's name, compare the quarterback to Lance Armstrong and Mark McGwire, then sit back and watch the page views (and interview requests) roll in. Along the way you can feel free to overlook basic facts, encourage the gross misbehavior by the people in charge of the multi-billion dollar NFL, intentionally fail to recognize the message in a satirical story, and demonstrate a dazzling lack of self-awareness.
There's nothing wrong with that strategy, per se. It's clearly working for him. He's getting hits on his story, people are tweeting at him, and you can expect his voice and his mug to hit the local airwaves before Sunday.
But by now, you'd just think he'd be better at it.
Hopefully, strictly from an entertainment standpoint, the Colts can put up a stronger showing on the field Sunday night than Doyel did at his laptop on Tuesday morning. (No more of this, please.) Blowouts aren't all that fun to watch. Neither are blowhards.
Read more from Michael Hurley by clicking here. You can email him or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.
