If New England fans are pissed, and fans of other teams are like “The Patriots are Cheaters” and those are the only two sides, then no one is doing a comprehensive review of the actual process.
No one is asking why the narrative changed so precipitously from domestic abuse in the NFL to air in footballs. That should be the focus. Why was the NFL’s role in deflategate specifically forbidden to be investigated in the Wells report? Why didn’t NFL executives turn over their phones the way Patriots employees did?
Every single person who Tom Brady texted in the Patriots organization willfully gave up their phone to the NFL, so why did they need Brady’s? The NFL has gone well out of their way to condemn Tom Brady for not giving them his phone, but none of them did either. Because they didn’t have to. Because they pulled themselves out of the investigation.
I’m a believer in fairness. I don’t want to root for a team that cheats. In the past, when teams were found to have broken rules like these, there were punitive repercussions from the NFL. In
2012 the San Diego Chargers were fined $20,000 for a stickum towel incident. When the
Panthers and Vikings broke NFL rules by heating footballs, they were politely reminded not to do so. When the
Patriots and Colts were found to be using balls that were less than the range of the league stipulated psi in the same game, nothing happened to the Colts. The Patriots were subjected to a national-news smear campaign, a six month long 5 MILLION dollar investigation, a MILLION DOLLAR fine, the loss of a FIRST ROUND draft pick and a four game suspension of their best player, someone who has never been accused of anything nefarious at any level in his entire life. All this based on an “independent” report which used faulty science and was EDITED BY THE NFL’S LEAD COUNSEL.
