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A Super Bowl win with an asterisk

4 min read

Despite the headlines in recent years surrounding the likes of Lance Armstrong, Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez, less-than-upstanding athletes have undoubtedly been trying to gain an illicit advantage over their rivals since the Olympic Games in ancient Greece, and maybe even before then.

Baseball’s early history may be scented with wistful nostalgia, but what about the 1919 Black Sox Scandal, where eight members of the Chicago White Sox were found to have thrown that year’s World Series in order to grab payoffs from gamblers? The good old days weren’t always so good.

Now we can add New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady to the list of contemporary luminaries whose accomplishments are darkened by controversy and whose wins must be accompanied by an asterisk.

A 243-page independent investigation released last week found evidence that Brady was aware that low-level employees of the Patriots were deflating footballs used in the team’s 45-7 blowout win over the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC Championship Game in January. It was a triumph that allowed them to advance to the Super Bowl, which they also won, though by a far less commanding margin. The NFL requires that footballs be inflated to a level of 12.5 to 13.5 pounds per square inch of air. Anything less than that, and the game balls can be easier to catch and handle. According to the report, the footballs that Brady used in the game against the Colts were inflated to about 11 pounds per square inch. This is ironic when you consider the lopsided score – the Patriots probably could have romped to victory if the footballs had been as weighty as ripe watermelons.

Brady has vehemently denied the accusation that he was “at least generally aware” the footballs his team were using had been deflated, but the report underlined that “it is unlikely that an equipment assistant and a locker room attendant would deflate game balls without Brady’s knowledge and approval.”

This point of view was seconded by USA Today sports columnist Chris Chase, who conceded that the report’s evidence would probably not be sufficient to yield a courtroom conviction, but “in the court of common sense, it was always likely Tom Brady knew. It was ridiculous all along to believe that a man who spent so much time handling footballs couldn’t tell the difference between one under-inflated and one properly inflated. If Ted Williams used to know when his bats were off by a touch of an ounce, Brady knew this.”

And this is not the first time the Patriots have been accused of playing fast and loose to try to get an edge over their opponents. In 2004, the team was warned about using game balls that had not been previously approved, and in 2007, the Patriots got in hot water for videotaping the signals used by the defensive coaches of the New York Jets during a game. The videotaping occurred outside a designated area, and it cost Patriots head coach Bill Belichick $500,000, thanks to a fine levied by the NFL, with the Patriots organization having to cough up an additional $250,000.

The same penalties should be applied here, with Brady being fined, or perhaps suspended, for several games.

It seems likely that, as a result of what has been called “Deflategate,” officiating crews will be carrying footballs out onto the field starting in the fall to verify that they are inflated properly. We can only wonder why it took them so long to make this sensible decision.

The New England Patriots are the closest thing professional football has to a dynasty right now, having gone to the Super Bowl six times since 2002, and winning four of those six. They have reason to swagger. But they don’t have reason to be arrogant, or to believe that they are somehow above the rules that govern the rest of football’s mere mortals.

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