Longtime NFL writer Peter King is marking the release of his new book, “The Game,” with a wide-ranging interview in the New York Post, and some of his sharpest comments land on two subjects that matter to anyone skeptical of institutional overreach: the league’s embrace of gambling money and its handling of Deflategate.
Asked what he would do if he ran the NFL, King didn’t soften it. “I would say, ‘Listen, you’re gonna have to accept a little less money, but we’re getting out of bed with the gambling companies,'” he said. He’s not calling for a ban. “I don’t think gambling should be illegal. I don’t think the NFL should ban any attempt at gambling,” he said. But he says the league’s posture has flipped entirely in a decade. “Ten years ago talked about gambling like it was smallpox, now talks about gambling like, ‘Bring it on and give us more. And let’s have more Super Bowls in Vegas.'” King’s prediction: “Ten years from now, I think there’ll be more people in Gamblers Anonymous than Alcoholics Anonymous.”
King also took aim at Roger Goodell’s handling of Deflategate, the 2015 scandal over underinflated footballs that led to Tom Brady’s four-game suspension. “I believe that Roger Goodell used a 100-pound sledgehammer to kill an ant,” King said. He argued the commissioner should have quietly confronted Brady, Bill Belichick and owner Robert Kraft rather than hand down a punishment with little real effect on the game. “Let’s say for the sake of argument that the footballs had been a pound deflated each. Tom Brady’s numbers in the previous nine years for home and road games might have been 1 percent different,” he said. At the same time, King was unequivocal that the Patriots broke the rules under Belichick during Spygate, the videotaping scandal years earlier. “Patriots got what they deserved,” he said, noting Belichick ignored a direct warning from then-Jets coach Eric Mangini before a 2006 game. “It is a competitive advantage, and it was against the rules. So they broke the rules.”
On the state of the game itself, King pushed back against calls for the NFL to take on more off-field responsibility. “Stop trying to ask players to do more. Players don’t need to do more, they’re doing enough already,” he said. He also argued the sport is filling a real need in the country right now. “The bottom line is in America, I really think we need football. We’re in such a divisive time in our history, and we need football. We need it badly.”
King also opposed a longstanding NFL owners’ push to expand the regular season further. “I would tell the owners we’re not playing an 18th game, period. If you want to play an 18th game, you’re gonna have to hire a different commissioner,” he said.
Beyond policy, the 194-question interview covers four decades of reporting, including a revelation that former commissioner Paul Tagliabue, who worked on Defense Department nuclear threat assessments before joining the NFL, was gripped by fear of a follow-up attack as he walked home through the ash of Lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001. King also recounted chasing down Tom Brady for an hour-long interview about the Patriots’ Super Bowl LI comeback against Atlanta, texting him: “The time to remember the greatest game in your career is now. Not after you retire.”
King’s book, “The Game,” is set for release Tuesday.
