We’ve seen a lot of scandals in the NFL this year, but none compare to how stupid this one that we’re dealing with right now is.
To say that DeflateGate, or DeflateGhazi if you prefer, is stupid is not doing it justice.
The fact that so many people are getting up in arms over the fact that New England deflated some game balls by two PSI is quite frankly ridiculous.
ESPN’s Sports Science did a very good job of looking at the effect of deflating the balls as such and the difference was marginal at best. In fact, it might have even made the balls harder to throw for Tom Brady.
Now, don’t get me wrong – what the Patriots did was cheating and they should be punished. I just don’t think that we should be caring as much as we do.
But to say that the Patriots should lose their first-round pick and that Bill Belichick should be suspended for the 2015 season – as Stephen A. Smith suggested on ESPN’s First Take this week – well that’s just nutty.
New England should be fined a large amount, take away a mid-round pick and, after the investigation, suspended whoever was involved in this mess for four games. Sounds fair, right?
It was cheating, but how much did it really affect the game against Indy?
Brady wasn’t the reason why the Colts were crushed. He actually had one of his poorest games of the season. It was LeGarrette Blount running the ball for 148 yards and three TDs, which wouldn’t have been affected at all.
The Patriots defence clamped down on Andrew Luck too, which wouldn’t have changed if the Pats offence played with deflated balls – obviously.
In fact, if you gave the Colts three points for every deflated ball used, Indy still loses that game by five points. Crazy, eh?
The press conferences aren’t helping have anybody take this situation any more seriously either.
With Belichick and Brady both passing blame and trying to distance themselves from this whole thing, it only really makes them look more guilty. And to put the blame on the ball boys is also pretty shady; as if some minimum-wage worker would alter game balls during the biggest game of the season is simply ridiculous.
And to say that the cold weather made the balls lose air pressure: Then was the 12th ball super-inflated?
The best part of these press conferences is the quotes that come out of them.
When you have a super-serious guy like Belichick or a pretty boy like Brady talking about balls for any length of time, you have to get at least a chuckle out of it.
While the NFL is diving into a huge investigation over this seemingly trivial broken rule, don’t expect anything soon. You also can’t forget who the man at the helm of this investigation is: Roger Goodell.
You have to wonder if the commissioner is milking this minor scandal to take attention away from how bad of a season he has had.
After seeing how poorly he handled the Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson situations, you can’t help but think he’ll botch this as well.
Last week: 1-1
This playoffs: 5-5
This season: 141-111-4