500 Days of Deflategate

It takes a lot for me to write about Deflategate. That’s one of the advantages of just having my own place to write — I blog when I wanna blog, and about what I want to blog. Usually non-football topics build and build until finally I feel the need to vent and then you get things like Is Tom Brady a Deflation Scheme Mastermind?

But otherwise I’m fine to leave the daily lifting of Deflategate nonsense to those who are getting paid to write many, many things per day about the Patriots. If you want to see all things Deflategate that have appeared here on the blog click here.

There have been so many ups and downs with Deflategate and it’s hard to believe that it’s dragged on this long. When I started blogging I never thought I’d have to learn what Amicus Briefs are or the finer points of labor law. This speaks to a bigger point that this whole debacle hasn’t really even been about football (or footballs) for a long time.

What is most fascinating to me are those people out there who checked out after taking every word of the Wells Report as fact. Nothing that’s happened since then has penetrated their Deflategate force field that is impervious to any bit of evidence or possibility that Tom Brady wasn’t behind an elaborate plot to take a small farts worth of air out of footballs.

Those people are usually fans of other teams that have lost numerous times to Brady over the years and the best part is their dismissive tone, often accompanied by a number of lol emojis, as if the only people in the world who still think Brady might be innocent are diehard Patriot fan homers with their heads in the sand.

But who really has their heads in the sand?

The battle lines were drawn clearly once again this week when a number of amicus briefs were filed in support of Brady. These briefs covered everything — from scientists saying the balls weren’t even deflated, to huge unions and a respected arbitrator all saying the process was completely rigged and unfair, to the Patriots themselves siding with their own player over the league in a rare move that brings back memories of Al Davis and the Raiders.

Yes, we’re all sick of Deflategate and there are plenty of Patriots fans who’d just prefer to let Brady sit four games and never have to hear about the whole thing again. But as annoying as it is, as much as I prefer to ignore it all now at least here in this blog space, the ramifications for how this was handled by Roger Goodell and the NFL run far deeper than the Patriots having to play four games without the best quarterback of all time.

The amicus briefs this week finally showed in one concise place how much is at stake here and just how deep the support of Brady runs outside of New England. The list of those who have been on Brady’s side, both in the national media and in legal circles, is long and distinguished. People far smarter in all this stuff continue to hammer the NFL at every turn, how they were simply “handing out their own brand of industrial justice” while rigging the process in their own favor whenever possible.

And that’s why even the most ardent Brady haters need to put aside their football loyalties and realize how corrupt their beloved NFL league office is. They know it deep down inside. Of course they do. This is Roger Goodell. He’s managed to screw up every single discipline issue he’s had to deal with. This time was even worse because they were trying to stay one step ahead on everything so they wouldn’t screw up so badly again.

But the Brady haters? This time they’re on Goodell’s side? They think he did a bang up job with this? Of course they don’t, but they cannot let go of wanting to believe Tom Brady wasn’t better than their team, he was just cheating and the only reason he was so good was that  small farts worth of air he got his cronies to let out of  the football.

The lack of that small fart of air made them magic footballs. Easier to catch. Impossible to fumble. That was the secret of the Patriots success.

 

While the amicus briefs show just how badly Brady was railroaded and how much support he has, it’s no guarantee the court will re-hear the case with all of their judges. The odds seem better now than they did a few weeks ago, but this still might be the end of the line, or the second-to-last stop before taking a final shot with the Supreme Court.

No matter how it ends the Deflategate Truthers will never believe those footballs weren’t deflated. No matter what scientists tell them. No matter how many times an experienced legal mind points out all the terrible and unfair ways the NFL handled the whole thing from the get go.

It just speaks to how willing people are to buy bullshit if it makes them feel better about their worldview. And usually those people have very large internet muscles while they hide behind keyboards and ignore any shred of evidence that might contradict what they want to believe.

 

But one way or another they’ll get theirs, whether it’s another crushing loss to Brady or when the NFL turns it’s inept and vindictive legal eye on their team.

Deflategate has been bad for everyone and is only a sign of things to come unless the NFL is finally held accountable.