New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick was a guest on The Late Show last night, and the segment was lighthearted and puffy, as are most of the interviews David Letterman conducts on his show. Obviously, Letterman made some jokes about the Ballghazi scandal, because David Letterman is a comedian and that's what he's supposed to do. No reasonable person should have strong opinions about this, but Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio is not always a reasonable person.


In an atypically long blog post on his site this morning, Florio expressed dismay at the fact that David Letterman, a comedian, didn't seize the opportunity to pepper Belichick with some hard-hitting questions about Ballghazi, a non-scandal:

Belichick smiled a lot during the interview. And he should have; it's a comedy show. But it was still Belichick's first (and probably only) one-on-one interview, and it gave Letterman a prime opportunity to ask at least one or two meaningful questions under the guise of cracking wise. His efforts, however, weren't focused at all on advancing the ball, moving the needle, or getting to the truth, with sarcasm or wit driving the bus. Letterman operated under the premise that the entire situation is a joke, that nothing improper happened, and that if it did it doesn't matter because even though the difference between a properly inflated ball and a deflated ball is "palpable," using deflated footballs "wouldn't make any difference in a game."


You can't help but marvel at the idea of someone like Mike Florio chastising a professional comedian for acting like a comedian instead of a half-deranged, scandal-humping football reporter. It's like when Tucker Carlson tried to give Jon Stewart shit for not asking tough questions: You can't decide whether the category error or the hypocrisy is more unbelievable.

The thing about Mike Florio is that he's spent years being one of the NFL's most faithful shills. He's the guy who argued that Roger Goodell should get a raise in the wake of the referee lockout, and the guy whose site hasn't written a damn thing about the league's completely hollow and entirely PR-driven attempts to help prevent domestic violence. And here he is chiding a late-night host for not taking Ballghazi seriously enough. Get the fuck out of here, Mike. Take a nap.