America’s most beloved football team visited 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on Thursday. At every turn of their White House visit, the Patriots trolled President Obama.
President Obama greeted the Patriots with an unfunny "Deflategate" joke.
"I usually tell a bunch of jokes at these events," Obama said at the ceremony. "But with the Patriots, in town I was worried that 11 of 12 of them would fall flat."
The joke was greeted with "awws" and "boos" by the Patriots players.
The slights began before the team even took off for Washington, though. Team leader, UGG model, and supermodel husband Tom Brady snubbed the president completely. Brady cited "family plans" as his reason for not meeting with the president.
Rob Gronkowski, however, did.
"I told him to keep his shirt on," Obama said. "He asked me what would happen if he took it off. I said, ‘Secret Service probably wouldn’t like it.’ He said, ‘What could they do to me?’"
Of course, the most celebrated professional spiker and infamously hard partier was asked if he consumed any adult beverages with the president. Gronkowski, clearly unimpressed by the president’s "Deflategate" joke, took the opportunity to retaliate.
"There was no drinking," he said adding jokingly, "Maybe the President was wasted—that deflate joke. We’re still wondering as an organization about that."
In the words of the president, that’s "Gronkowski just being Gronkowski."
Gronkowski made the statement with teammate Julian Edelman, owner Robert Kraft, and coach Bill Belichick behind him. Overheard laughing in the background, the Sith Lord of the NFL expressed more positive emotion than he did for the entire season, including after winning the Super Bowl.
Belichick traded in the sleeveless grey hoodie for three Super Bowl rings. The coach hit the president with a not-so-subtle statement, wearing an Armenian flag pin on his suit the same week Obama once again broke a campaign promise by failing to acknowledge the Armenian genocide.