We've finally gotten to the bottom of Deflatgate. Sort of. Actually not really at all. After spending all these months and all that money on the Wells Report, they didn't conclude anything. All they said is that it's "more probable than not" that the Patriots cheated. Groundbreaking stuff.
What the Wells Report did tell us was stuff that we pretty much all knew already. Bill Belichick was not involved and likely had no knowledge. Why would he? He's got more to worry about before a game than how inflated the footballs are. That's a job you delegate to your quarterback. He's the one actually handling the footballs. They also acknowledged that Robert Kraft didn't have any influence over what happened or knowledge of what was going on. They did stop short of giving Kraft his apology, though. He "disagreed" with the findings (as if you'd expect him to say anything else), but as a "league man" will likely go along with whatever punishment is handed out.
Rather, the report centered the blame on three people. There were two locker room attendants who had access to the balls after they were tested. One of them, logic suggests, is the person responsible for the action of physically taking the air out of the footballs. But it's the third person implicated that's the most significant. They determined that Tom Brady "was at least generally aware" of what was going on. Although, they did stop short of saying it was at his request that the balls were tampered with.
Of course, Brady remains defiant. He insists that he never cheated, deliberately or otherwise, even though the evidence points to the contrary. But that press conference he gave the day after the Deflategate report was released didn't help his case. It struck me more as a guy whose head has gotten so bloated by the size of his ego. "I'm Tom Brady. I'm the All-American boy. I didn't cheat." He came off as arrogant and smug, and it looked like he thought he would either not get caught or not get punished because he's Tom Brady. Which is completely absurd.
Even if the footballs in the AFC Championship Game had been properly inflated the whole time, it wouldn't have changed the outcome. The Colts got their butts kicked. And we all know that the balls used in the Super Bowl were legal, so there's nothing about New England's championship that's tainted. But this is a team that's been caught trying to circumvent the rules before. That's why the NFL has to come down hard on the Patriots.
So what kind of a punishment do they deserve as an organization? I think the report is correct in that Kraft and Belichick had no knowledge or involvement. But that doesn't change the fact this happened under their watch. For Spygate, it was a $500,000 fine and the loss of draft picks. I'd expect something similar here. It's not their fault, so they don't deserve to be punished individually. But their the bosses and have to be held accountable. That's why the team won't escape something, even if it is just a fine.
Brady, on the other hand, deserves to be suspended. He deliberately broke the rules and was cocky about it. A message needs to be sent. At the very least, he needs to sit out on Opening Night (although the Jimmy Garoppolo vs. Ben Roethlisberger quarterback matchup doesn't have quite the same appeal, but that shouldn't matter). I think he needs to miss more than that. Brady needs a multiple-game suspension. I'm not saying the four that a substance-abuse policy violator gets, but at least two and I'd be OK with three. But if Brady gets off with just a fine (or, worse yet, completely unscathed), Roger Goodell will be made to look like a total chump.
Goodell hasn't had a good year when it comes to suspensions. The fact that Ray Rice got only two games was utterly ridiculous, then he tried to do an about-face and was ridiculed even more. Then came Adrian Peterson, who he suspended indefinitely, only to have that overturned. But the bottom line remains that Goodell still has the sole power to punish players under the personal conduct policy, and he still gets a lot of discretion when it comes to doling out suspensions.
The personal conduct policy was designed to deal with off-the-field issues in a very image-conscious league. And while it's apples and oranges to compare Brady and Ray Rice, in a way what Brady did was worse. He went against the integrity of the game. He tried to gain an advantage by manipulating the equipment used on the field (which he didn't even need to do). The fact that he's one of the most recognizable stars in the game is completely irrelevant. Tom Brady deserves to have the hammer dropped on him the same way it would be dropped on any other player who did the same thing.
Sure, the fact that it happened in the AFC Championship Game, and that it was the Patriots, and that, more specifically, it was Tom Brady gave this story a life of its own. So what? This isn't about the fact that a majority of the country hates the Patriots or that Brady is a love-him-or-hate-him personality. It's about a guy who broke the rules and needs to face the consequences for those actions. Anything less than a fine and suspension for Brady wouldn't be appropriate. I don't care who it is. The message needs to be sent that you can't do that and expect to get away with it.
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