I said this a few thousand posts ago; others have said the same thing: If the NFL wanted this to go away, they could have quite easily. Even after the Kravitz tweet grew legs, the league could have come out, said the balls were found to be under, levied the $25,000 and a warning and moved on.
They didn't want to do that. You can say they didn't want to do that because of the hits they've taken this year on the Rice-Pederson-PEDs-concussion issues; or, as DeJesus and others have said, you can say they didn't want to nip it in the bud because they recognized a goldmine of buzz -- beyond even what the Super Bowl generates. Or, it could be both, plus lingering animosity in many quarters about the Patriots.
Doesn't matter at this point. The league wanted this story talked about, the media obliged and -- instead of talking about serious social issues facing the league -- the casual viewer and the non-NFL fan was given a villain, an easily understood issue (did they cheat?) and an easily followed storyline.
On the Vegas stage, it's what magicians call misdirection.
Look at the post-Kravitz leaks:
Mortensen says was told 11 of the 12 balls were under by 2 psi. Just enough detail to be damning, but not so much that all the questions are answered. The questions propelled the story. Then, Glazer and Florio get the video leak -- with a timeframe and a possible culprit, and the side benefit of toilet humor that the league doesn't even have to point out.
As much as Pats fans have appreciated the Belichick and Kraft statements, both played right into the hands of the established narrative -- enhancing the team's role as a villain in some eyes, while vigorously defended b y the home base. You wonder how much earlier the attention would have petered out had the Patriots stuck with the "We believe we did nothing wrong. We are cooperating." stance and not provided more targets to shoot at.
However this ends, the one thing to remember is that the NFL could have stopped it in its tracks and chose not to. To some degree, this is playing out exactly how they wanted it to enfold.