Patriots Quarterback Tom Brady answers questions during a press conference on so-called Deflate-Gate on January 22, 2015. (Photo: AP)
A lot of people are making hay over the Patriots and the saga of the flattened footballs. Unfortunately, like most media hysteria, ultimately nothing will come of it, because most people don’t like confrontation.
They all would rather be happy little automatons and label people who tell the truth as “negative” and troublemakers, then go on with their lives living with the lies. Someone with access to the Patriots’ equipment tampered with it to give that team an edge — supposedly lowering the ball pressure.
That’s cheating. But was it deliberate or simply poor controls that were taken advantage of?
Here’s what probably happened: The ball boy prepped the footballs the way the Quarterback Tom Brady liked them, not realizing they were almost two pounds light. They submitted them to the refs and the refs didn’t carefully check the footballs weight and pressure, like they should have, because they were careless and because it never was an issue in the past. When the complaints hit, that’s when they checked them and found they were light.
That’s it.
Is it fair? No. Did the Patriots probably get a benefit? Yes. Would it have altered the outcome? Possibly. Has it happened before? Perhaps. Was it deliberate? We will never know because no one really wants to know.
It really sucks for everyone — the fans, the game and the Patriots if you think about it. No matter what, everyone is going to say they cheated– and maybe they did.
But what do you do? You can’t have them not go to the Super Bowl unless you prove a case, not to mention that ship has sailed insofar as money and planning.
Unless the investigation gets someone to say “Yah the Patriots deliberately did this” you’re going to have a tough sell to punish them, too.
In the end they will probably review all the ball prep procedures and make the referees more responsible. Ultimately, it’s just another black eye on an already embattled sport, and most people connected with the sport would just as soon see this scandal go away.
As I said, even though everyone says they want the truth, no one is prepared to deal with the consequences of it and prefer to live with the lie.
That’s the real scandal.
Thomas Purcell is nationally syndicated columnist, author of the book “Shotgun Republic” and is host of the Liberty Never Sleeps podcast. More of his work can be found at LibertyNeverSleeps.com.
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