PHOTO BY ASSOCIATED PRESS
Tom Brady’s four-game suspension was upheld on Monday.
BY STEVE KRAUSE
It’s fair to ask why the New England Patriots and the National Football League insist on punishing their fans for another summer with this “deflategate” nonsense.
That is the only guarantee that comes out of Monday’s 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruling to uphold Tom Brady’s four-game suspension. It assures us that this stupid, ridiculous issue, which never should have developed the legs it has since January 2015, will get to take another few laps around the public consciousness.
Perhaps the only thing that could slow it down, or make it go away completely, is for Brady to stand up and accept the suspension and plead with everyone to let it go. Of course, he won’t do that. He has too much to lose if he gives in now. So expect him to explore every avenue he has left to drag this out even more than he has already.
If it’s possible to be conflicted on this issue, I am conflicted. I have my suspicions that all was not right and proper with those footballs. I read all about the ideal gas law. I even got a sampling of it in February when I was finally allowed to drive again after having had surgery. That was right after the historic Valentine’s Day weekend cold snap, and when I went to start my car, all four tires were underinflated.
But we were talking about sub-zero weather conditions. The weather in 2015 for those playoff games was seasonable, and maybe even a little above average for the AFC championship game against Indianapolis. It’s fair to ask whether the ideal gas law would be much of a factor under those conditions.
That leaves you with only one conclusion: that someone messed with the footballs. The only unresolved questions are who did it, and at whose behest?
And here’s where things get muddled. There’s no proof that this was done at Brady’s request, at least not directly. There is such a thing called plausible deniability. Under this scenario, Brady lets it be known that he likes the footballs a certain way. There had been a game earlier in the 2014 season where he thought the footballs were too hard. So if I’m a faceless equipment manager looking to score points with TB12, I might devise a way to surreptitiously lower the air pressure of those footballs.
Maybe Brady stops by my office and says “whatever you’re doing to get these footballs to feel the way they do, keep doing it. I’m on a roll.” And I might be inclined to tell all my colleagues that I’ve received kudos from TB12 for my good work.
Mind you, I’m throwing all this out there as a “what if,” because, frankly, there’s just as much proof that this is the real explanation as there is that Brady orchestrated it. Which is to say none at all. Everybody thinks they know what happened. But only a handful of people really do. Also, this presumes that there even are facts to know. There’s just as likely a possibility that nobody did anything, and that nature did indeed follow the ideal gas law and affected the air pressure of a football.
I doubt that. I believe there was skullduggery. But no one can really prove it. No one knows for sure. And that includes Ted Wells, who authored the report which only decided it was “more probable than not” Brady was behind “deflategate.”
That might work in a civil suit, if there is “a preponderance of evidence,” and the worst that can happen to you is that you pay monetary damages. That, in NFL culture, would be a fine or, maybe even a lost draft choice.
And that’s all that should have, and probably would have, happened had Brady not stonewalled Commissioner Roger Goodell and the NFL. It’s “more probable than not” that his non-cooperation is what got him his suspension. When you think about it, if you’re going up against the guy who is the sole judge, jury and administrator of justice, you have to respect his authority just a little.
Then again, to go along with the conflicted theme, giving Goodell the ultimate authority on meting out punishment, as the NFL Players Association did, presumes the commissioner is on the level. And there is a nagging suspicion here, and I’m sure elsewhere, that Goodell had all kinds of other agendas going on than simply a few deflated footballs.
Perceived as weak and ineffectual, Goodell likely saw this as an opportunity to look like he was in control; and owners who have been smarting over the Patriots’ arrogance for years undoubtedly put pressure on him to hit Brady and the Patriots with all he had.
This, and only this, is what the appellate court ruled on Monday. It did not, and should not have, dwelled on the “facts” of the case, such as they are. But it did reaffirm Goodell’s right, under the collective bargaining agreement, to dole out punishment as he sees fit. The NFLPA has itself to blame for giving him that right.
Still, if ever there were a textbook example of how something simple gathered negative energy and careened out of control, this is it. And just think, we’ll once again wake up each morning with a steady dose of it.
Thanks, guys.