The angry mob is coming for Tom Brady with their pitchforks. “Burn him he’s a witch!”
The angry mob is coming for Tom Brady with their pitchforks. “Burn him he’s a witch!”
The whole Deflategate thing does have a feel of a Monty Python movie to hit. Lots of absurdity, yuk-yuks and silly characters.
OK, you can throw in a few nefarious ones like Patriots coach Bill Belichick, but still…
On a scale of 1-10, my outrage over Deflategate is about 2.1. It’s a jaywalking citation, not a felony, and I’m a huge Indianapolis Colts fan.
The Internet has been a battleground of Good vs. Evil the last 24 hours in the wake of an independent 243-page report commissioned by Roger Goodell that implicates two ball boys and Brady as the culprits in the scheme during the AFC Championship Game last January.
I get that they broke the rules. I get it is wrong. I get that daddy is going to have a hard time explaining to little Jimmy why their pop-star idol Tommy Boy isn’t such a clean-cut role model.
And I also get it that middle-schoolers everywhere are in Beavis and Butthead heaven, because they get to say “balls” as many times as they want to without fear of repercussions.
Yes, we are talking about deflating balls and treating it as a federal crime based on all those Internet legal eagles and people who loathe that Patriots (at least that I can understand).
As Allen Iverson once famously said: “We’re talking about prac-tiss, man. prace-tiss.”
We’re talking about deflated balls, and the strong likelihood that a good number of NFL quarterbacks have done the very same thing over the years. Brady just happened to get caught because the Colts were very diligent. If only they had been more diligent tackling LeGarrette Blount, who rushed for 148 yards and three touchdowns in a 45-7 blowout.
“Every team tampers with the footballs,” Matt Leinart said on Twitter after the story developed in January. “Ask any Qb In the league, this is ridiculous!!”
Elite athletes in competitive sports will always take it to the limit. Think of George Brett and his infamous pine tar on a bat incident. Phil Niekro using an emery board while pitching in the bigs.
So, no, I don’t condone cheating.
But there are levels of gaming the system.
This is a misdemeanor, and not a felony.
Burning Tom Brady at the stake is not an option.