Over in The Nation, Ron Currie’s reaction to the controversy surrounding Graham Platner is that it is impossible for anyone to truly know anything.

But it’s also true that Platner, at least to my eye, seems to be who he sells himself as. In a world desperately short on both character and conviction, he appears to have both. Beyond that, it’s precisely in his flaws that I find Platner most appealing. I’ve been that drunk in public. I’ve got a tattoo I definitely should have given more thought. I’ve gone through mental troughs that were not at all pretty but that I like to think made me a better friend, husband, human.
One of the things I’ve learned, in my own reckonings with mental fragility, is something of a paradox: that I know almost nothing. And while that likely sounds like a state of mind you’d prefer to avoid, I’d invite you to consider it is precisely this not-knowing that could save us.

By the way, that’s the only mention of the word “tattoo” in the entire essay. There’s getting “a tattoo I definitely should have given more thought to,” and then there’s allegedly coincidentally choosing the skull and crossbones Totenkopf of the Nazi SS and not noticing it for 18 years.

But, as a football fan, I am particularly irked by one of Currie’s arguments:

I don’t know if Tom Brady made Bill Belichick great, or if Bill Belichick made Tom Brady great, or if together they achieved a level of accomplishment neither could have reached on his own.

Actually, pal, I think each man’s career without the other offers some pretty darn clear answers to that mystery. Without Belichick, Tom Brady won a Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Without Brady, Belichick accumulated a mediocre record in his remaining time with the New England Patriots, and, so far this year, has two wins and five losses in an odd arrangement where his much younger girlfriend, Jordon Hudson, sometimes seems like a co–head coach.

Bill Belichick was always a good coach, but the presence of Brady turned him into one of the all-time greats. Without Brady, Belichick’s record is 83 wins and 104 losses. Without Belichick, Brady’s record as a starting quarterback is 37 wins and 20 losses. I think that indicates that Belichick was really important to the Patriots dynasty, but Brady was utterly irreplaceable.