Ben Affleck’s ‘Drunk’ Deflategate Rant On ‘Any Given Wednesday’ — It’s Not That Bad [Video]

If you read the headlines after researching why Ben Affleck’s name is currently trending on Twitter, you would expect to see a falling down drunk Affleck making a fool out of himself. Yes, the New England native who is Ben does put his raw feelings about Tom Brady and Deflategate on display in a manner that probably includes more curse words than LeBron James’ speech at the Cavs parade on Wednesday — but it’s not the “s*** show” that people are making it out to be.

Anyway, the video contains pretty colorful language from Affleck — so non-Southies beware.

Ben’s rant has helped bring attention to the new show, Any Given Wednesday with Bill Simmons on HBO. Bill recently was interviewed about his split from ESPN — and Simmons discussed how horrible the break was, as reported by the Hollywood Reporter. Now it seems Simmons has a new hit on his hands, with celebrities like Affleck feeling so comfortable that they can let down their hair and rant about inflated and deflated balls.

The video, titled “Any Given Wednesday with Bill Simmons: Ben Affleck on Deflategate (HBO),” has swelled to nearly 100,000 views in less than 24 hours or so. While it does contain some slurring from Affleck, it seems like any old sports talk one would hear with their buddies at a bar or at home in their living rooms. It doesn’t seem like the cry for an intervention or the clarion call to necessarily sign a person up for AA that folks on social media are making it out to be. Perhaps.

As reported by TMZ, Ben’s sentiments about Deflategate were called bizarre, but Affleck called it the ultimate outrage. According to the publication, Bill and Ben had already engaged in a heated debate about Deflategate prior to the cameras rolling for the show’s premiere episode — so that’s why Ben was fired up when the interview began. Smart move, Simmons. Most folks save all the drama for the TV screens — but apparently Simmons cut to the good part.

Ben’s five-minute, expletive-filled rant on Deflategate showed Affleck defending Tom Brady’s decision to not give up his cellphone to the NFL. Affleck said he’d never give his own cellphone to an organization like the NFL, which is not known for high levels of security.

Affleck said he could empathize with Brady wanting to keep his opinions in emails, phone calls and texts private. After all, Ben argued that the NFL is not the FBI. Eli Manning did a whole layout about the grit and grass he uses to massage the football, Affleck argued, saying that nobody batted an eyelash.

However, by Brady transporting footballs from a warm place to a cold place — a move that can deflate them — it’s World War III. It’s like eight percent less deflation, the duo surmised, claiming that Brady’s ball wasn’t measured correctly anyway. Ben said that football players across the board think the whole deflation controversy is BS, especially with Tom’s suspension lasting a quarter of the regular season.

Affleck said that if someone was busted taking steroids — if the NFL really knew how to test them correctly — everybody would be busted. Ben believed that guys who work for the Jets and Broncos are screaming about Brady, “Hang ’em! Get ’em!”

Yet it’s about authority, says Affleck, who seemed to end his rant in the best way possible by comparing the seriousness to domestic violence against ball inflation or deflation.

“We haven’t done anything to address the crisis of domestic violence — but if we found out you deflated a ball, you’re gone for four games.”

On Twitter, folks are reacting to Affleck’s rant in a number of ways.

BTW – we taped AGW in the late-AM, Ben got fired up about DeflateGate during the convo, that's it.

— Bill Simmons (@BillSimmons) June 23, 2016

[Photo by Marco Ugarte/AP Images]