Drone Flying Over Falcons Practice is Just the Thing to Give This Super Bowl Some Juice
By Kyle Koster
Super Bowl LI is in a few hours and, at the risk of beating a dead horse, we’ll point out that the buildup has been less than feverish. For almost two weeks, the media has waited on bated breath for some sort of controversy to emerge and then to milk it for all it’s worth.
And it finally happened.
Someone flew a drone over the Atlanta Falcons’ practice at Rice University.
“Security officers grounded a drone that was sent airborne by one of the residents in the neighborhood on Thursday,” wrote Peter King, the only reporter given access to Falcons practice this week.
The offending party is clearly identified by a nearby citizen. We can presume the highly likely is true and that his drone-flier has no affiliation with the New England Patriots. But what fun would that be?
Instead, let’s point out that the Patriots have engaged in — let’s just say — habitual line-stepping when it comes to gaining any available advantage. From Spygate to Deflategate to Eligible Receivergate, they’ve had more than their fair share of controversy.
If this unauthorized drone can’t be spun into a scandal, then the NFL media has lost its edge. If under-inflated footballs can turn into a two-year story, this violated air space has to be worth a solid nine months.
If nothing else, Falcons fans will have something to talk about on particularly woke message boards should Matt Ryan & Co. fall short tonight in Houston.