Pigskin Life As We Are Generally Aware Of It

Aaron Dobson's hamstring? Anyone?

 

Sports are no longer an escape from the mundane and petty grievances of the workplace, the political machinations of middle managers jousting for favors from the chief executives dispensing company-logoed pens and coffee mugs in exchange for unquestioning loyalty and hundreds of off the books overtime hours.

No longer?

Professional sports has always been a business, of course, much like any other. Unlike banking, insurance or retail sales, though, we come to sports early in life, when we still believe a fat man can slide down a chimney with a bicycle. Believing our sports heroes are humble, honest, unfailingly polite, church-going stay in school don't do drugs family men who never miss their daughter's dance recitals is easy compared to that fat man in a chimney.  

Anger and indignation are slipping away, acceptance and pragmatism are seeping in. Justice, like morality, is largely situational and there are far bigger problems here on the third rock than the NFL's game day equipment protocols, despite what's currently trending on social media. Or maybe Tom Brady was right and wrong about Deflategate. This isn't ISIS. No, it's bigger than that.

As Stevie Nicks sang, "time makes you bolder, even children get older" and yes, "I'm getting older, too."

And yet, while I've since grown up to become that fat man in the chimney and nearly all of my childhood illusions have long been given over to what I like to think of as the reasonableness of adulthood, I still cannot bring myself to believe Tom Brady cheated. I'm baffled by how the evidence that exculpates Brady and the Patriots (the logo gauge + The Ideal Gas Law = 12.5 PSI) is consistently ignored by the pigskin pundits and bobbleheads. Obvious questions aren't asked, let along answered…

Why 12.5-13.5 PSI?

Why not 12.0-14.0 PSI? What is so magical about these numbers? Despite the lack of scientific proof either way, the assumption is that Brady ordered footballs deflated to gain a competitive advantage. How, exactly does this confer an advantage? If the air pressure of a football is the foundation of fair play, why is the minimum punishment in the rule book $25,000. Isn't the integrity of the game worth more than $25,000?

How did Bill Belichick skate on Deflategate?

Bill Belichick was cleared of any wrong-doing or knowledge of Brady's nefarious plot to deflate footballs. Does that sound like Bill Belichick to you? Brady isn't the only player touching that football, after all.

Given the unlikelihood the Patriots could tamper with footballs on the road, it begs this question: Why would Tom Brady want to deal with inconsistently inflated footballs? 12.5 PSI  on the road (or 16.0 PSI when playing the Jets in Met Life) but 12.0 at home?

This question answers itself, of course. He wouldn't. Brady's commitment to his throwing mechanics is well documented. Why would he do anything that would impact his ability to throw a football into NFL-sized windows? I guess it bears repeating: The only evidence in the Wells Report that ties Brady to game ball inflation specifies 12.5 PSI. 

Now that the NFL knows that science exists, will they implement protocols to check football pressure throughout the game?

There is unsurprising news that game ball protocols will be discussed at the upcoming league meetings. With their newfound understanding of the Ideal Gas Law combined with the newfound commitment to the integrity of the game, won't officials need to gauge game balls throughout the game? By halftime, in cold and snowy conditions, the football will likely lose 1.0 to 1.3 PSI (you know, like in the AFC Championship game). Won't the footballs need to be gauged and likely re-inflated at minimum at the quarter breaks? Assuming anything below 12.5 PSI has an insidious effect on the very foundation of the game, of course.

Let's hope that doesn't cost as much as wireless cameras in the goal line pylons. I mean, we're talking about the integrity of the game here, aren't we? As long as it doesn't impact profits, of course.

Given statements I've read that referees never let the footballs out of their sight and Jim McNally taking the footballs into the bathroom was an exception to game ball protocols, what relevance do the McNally-John Jastremski text messages have (beyond that Jets game)?

Those text messages from October are the "smoking gun" for those who believe the unprecedented punishments handed down by the NFL didn't go far enough. (Where are the asterisks? Why hasn't Goodell seized the Lombardi Trophies from One Patriot Place? Where is Brady's lifetime ban?) What I want to know is, where are the other text messages? This is how Tom Brady was winning all those football games and we know he's a stickler for detail. Why isn't football inflation a regular subject of discussion? Why weren't there any text messages from Tom Brady regarding PSI settings found on McNally's or Jastremski's phones?

Given the fact Tom Brady felt he had to write a note to officials reminding them that 12.5 PSI is legal and asking them please to not add air, what should we suppose about the impartiality of NFL officials and how they are safeguarding the sanctity of the game? Everyone lives somewhere. Everyone has a home team. Why wasn't Ted Wells even the least bit curious about a report the Jets or an official friendly to the Jets overinflated the Patriots' game balls back in that October game? 

Of course, that would've weakened the position that the only franchise in the NFL that's cheating is the New England Patriots. Besides, that was one of the times McNally and Jastremski were just kidding around, right?

That other teams cheat is certainly not an excuse for cheating; that's not what I mean. It's that the Patriots are "more likely than not" guilty in this case by reputation alone and that reputation is built on a single incident, Spygate, and I'm not even sure Spygate was cheating. I think of cheating as something you do "under cover" in an attempt to gain an advantage, not something you do, as Belichick noted in his "Mona Lisa Vito" press conference, in front of 80,000 people. The Patriots broke a rule and were punished for it. It happened. Almost eight years ago.

Given that previous league actions regarding issues with game ball inflation involved cross looks and strongly worded letters, why the Machiavellian level of palace intrigue in the Wells investigation and the draconian punishment handed down to the Patriots?

Another question that answers itself. Because Patriots.

The expectation of fairness or justice for this fat man in the chimney is like a butterfly in a tornado. I want to believe it will survive but hope has always been an underdog when it comes to 100mph winds.

I'd like to return to that childhood land where my gridiron heroes do not beat their children with a stick until they bleed, don't punch out their girlfriends in elevators, have so many assault rifles they have to keep some of them on the couch, pay off their ex-girlfriend in order to avoid jail time, shoot themselves in the leg while clubbing, kill people while driving drunk even though they could afford to call a car service, extort sexual favors from coeds and hotel concierges, pretend they didn't know there was a banned substance in that over the counter supplement, glibly drop racial slurs in concert parking lots or put stickum on their record-setting gloves but I know I can never go back there because that place never existed.

Regardless of the outcome of Brady's appeal or any further action by Robert Kraft I know one thing with absolute certainty. This is never going away. (See Spygate.) The consensus opinion of the gridiron cognoscenti is that Tom Brady is a liar and a cheat; not enough of a liar and a cheat to keep him out of Canton but still, a liar and a cheat. Which only makes sense as he plays quarterback for Bill Belicheat and the New England Cheatriots. He isn't Tom Brady anymore; he's Tom Shady. There is nothing, not even a judicial repudiation of the Wells Report that overturns the suspension, the fines and the loss of draft picks that will change those deeply held beliefs.

Fair or not, as Patriots fans, we're stuck with that. We're stuck with the announcers for every game this season mentioning Deflategate. We're stuck with inane and juvenile jokes involving shriveled testicles. We're stuck with every game becoming a referendum on the legacy of Robert Kraft, Bill Belichick and Tom Brady. We're stuck with the trolls and haters saying, "See, the Patriots haven't won anything since Deflategate!"

Until they do, of course.

As Patriots fans, we're also stuck with the best owner, the best head coach, and the best quarterback in the NFL. The team will be highly motivated to prove they earned their fourth Lombardi Trophy fair and square and the best, perhaps the only way to do that is by winning Super Bowl 50. (Or should I say they will be highly motivated to prove they earned their fourth Lombardi Trophy fair and square by winning one game at a time?) Winning back-to-back Super Bowls was never going to be an easy task and they likely will fall short of that goal but I think it will be worth all the references to shriveled testicles watching them play this 2015 season.

I think it's going to be a hell of a ride.