Emmitt on the Brink – Season 5: Week 10

Emmitt on the Brink.

The premise: Coming off a Super Bowl victory, the Patriots open the 2013 season with a blowout win. Unfortunately, they get into trouble for Spygate II. As punishment, Roger Goodell orders the Patriots to fire Bill Belichick and replace him with Emmitt Smith. Three years later, the Patriots beat the Bears in the Super Bowl, 2-0. After the game, Emmitt announced his retirement.

This is a weekly feature that will take a newspaper reporter’s perspective and follow Emmitt through his post-retirement days.

Of course, you can always look at all of Emmitt’s quotes in the Emmitt Smith Anthology.

Emmitt Smith 2015 New England Patriots head coach.

Emmitt Smith announce his unretirement!

NOT ENOUGH EVIDENCE TO CONVICT JONATHAN VILMA

By Alex Rodriguez, Special to the NFL Bible Network
Friday, Nov. 3, 2017

With Emmitt and his crew stranded in Chicago, trying desperately to procure enough money to buy a plane ticket to go to Florida to further investigate Bountygate II, something sinister was bound to happen this weekend in the NFL. Well, we didn’t get to the weekend before witnessing the worst violation of Bountygate II.

For those who didn’t watch the Thursday night battle between the 49ers and Seahawks, San Francisco scored a touchdown on a long Kendall Hunter run with half a minute remaining to go up 10 points. Head coach Jim Harbaugh, however, told the official that he wanted to decline the touchdown and opt to end the game right on the spot.

There’s an old, arcane rule in the NFL, even more obscure than the free kick after a fair catch,” Harbaugh revealed during the post-game sideline interview. “It says that if you decline a touchdown with less than half a minute on the clock, you can win the game automatically. We thought it was important to do so because winning by more than eight points would have covered the spread, I mean… what? Who said that? What I meant to say that I wanted to be sure the game was 100-percent over so we couldn’t cover, I mean embarrass the other team.”

As Harbaugh was finishing up his chat with Alex Flanagan, a fierce gust of wind blew by. Suddenly, former Saints’ linebacker Jonathan Vilma was standing there holding a wooden box.

“Uhh… hi, Jonathan,” said a suddenly tense Harbaugh, knowing very well that Vilma is one of the ringleaders of Bountygate II. “What brings you here to this game?”

Vilma said nothing initially. He opened the box. Expecting to see the usual hamster, mayonnaise and toast, Harbaugh was taken aback when Vilma revealed a rattlesnake, a bottle of mustard and an Amazon gift card. Harbaugh tried running away, but Vilma grabbed hold of him and tackled him to the ground.

“I bet two units on the 49ers minus-eight because WalterFootball.com told me to, and now because of your dumb antics, I’m two units in the hole!” Vilma shouted. “Now, you’re going to be my latest Bountygate II victim so you can feel my suffering!”

Vilma grabbed the items in his box. He covered the hungry rattlesnake with mustard and shoved both into Harbaugh’s backside. He then proceeded to insert the Amazon gift card for good measure.

“Oh God, it hurts!” Harbaugh yelped, as Vilma laughed maniacally.

Vilma tried to throw a smoke bomb so he could disappear, but NFL commissioner Roger Goodell restrained him. He put handcuffs on him and walked him to his office, where he told the former linebacker that he would finally be punished for his misdeeds. However, just hours later, Vilma was released.

“I filed an appeal,” said a confident Vilma. “The NFL Players’ Association agrees with me. Roger Goodell has no proof that I did anything wrong. He says he does, but he won’t show it to me, which obviously means that he has nothing and that I’m completely innocent.”

We then asked Vilma if he considered our videotape of him shoving a mustard-covered rattlesnake and an Amazon gift card into Harbaugh’s backside to be any sort of proof.

“No, not at all, there’s no proof,” Vilma stated. “The videotapes could have easily been doctored by Commissioner Goodell, just as he plotted against me during the initial Bountygate scandal.”

While we once again don’t buy Vilma’s act, there’s no doubt that there will be a long, futile, drawn-out hearing to determine Vilma’s guilt or innocence. This is a shame because if he’s truly guilty, there will be many other players and coaches who will have rattlesnakes and Amazon gift cards shoved into their rear ends while the NFLPA once again wastes everyone’s time.