All of us have been beaten over the head and bludgeoned to death with this friggen story. Now that the NFL’s investigation has reached a verdict and we know what Tom Brady, Bill Belichick and the rest of the Patriots punishment is, I really don’t see a reason for Patriots Nation to stress out too much.

For one thing, Brady will appeal his 4 game suspension and it will probably become 2 games. Regardless of what type of power the league thinks it has, he is a player with no other offenses and has plenty of a case in his favor to reduce his penalty. In regards to the team being fined $1 million, (while I’m sure Robert Kraft isn’t happy with it) that isn’t exactly a fine that’s going to sting the organization too badly. Kraft can write a check to the league and move on, and it won’t put much of a dent in what the team will do long-term. Finally, there’s the 2 draft picks (1st round in 2016 and 4th round in 2017) that the team will have to forfeit; Belichick regularly trades out of picks and can easily find a way to draft 8, 9 or more players next year and beyond.

A large part of this whole investigation has been centered around the so called “court of public opinion”. Roger Gooddell and the league owners backed themselves into a corner with the egregious mismanagement of offenses to Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson and Greg Hardy, and now they seem to be overcompensating for their mistakes. Let’s face it, there’s a huge difference between a bit of clever (and possibly deceitful) gamesmanship and a serious criminal offense like aggravated assault, child abuse, or even murder. The New Orleans Saints bounty scandal from a few years back was something that was seriously harming players and putting them in very dangerous situations, this is simply about how much air is in a leather ball.

We can even look to other sports and find examples of relatively “harmless” plays that are on the borderline of proper sportsmanship. In baseball teams are constantly trying to steal others’ signs to gain an advantage. There’s even been a few times when the classic hidden ball trick has worked, and MLB hasn’t punished teams for attempting these. In the NBA we see a player inbound the ball off a defender’s back and scoop it up for an easy layup, or slide into the paint at the last second and take a flop to lead to a charging foul. While many of these things may be viewed as “unfair” by fans and analysts alike, they are within the parameters of the rules. I believe a large part of that “legality” can be credited to the human error created by the authority that referees/umpires have, which the leagues have ultimately empowered them with.

That being said, the NFL has gone to great lengths to uphold the integrity and consistency of the game, especially when it comes down to enforcing rules and making the appropriate calls in regards to penalties, TDs and hits to the head. The league certainly has the most in-depth replay system of any major sports, and there are constantly new controls being established to try to keep the human element out of the equation. I can’t help but ask the question- Why hasn’t the handling of the game balls been addressed prior to something like this happening? How the NFL could have continued to allow individual teams to be responsible for the footballs is beyond me, especially when it is such a simple task to put in the hands of the officiating crew.

Shame on you NFL for not being able to control one of the most elementary aspects to the game of football. Perhaps Gooddell needs to take a deeper look at himself and fix the problems he has allowed to linger, rather than point the finger and be so quick to place the blame on someone else. For the second straight offseason our attention is being diverted to distractions and arbitration over non-football related issues. The one common theme: Roger Gooddell’s unchecked ego.

Sincerely, Jegs