Let's start by me saying that I am a Patriots fan. I am also a Chicago Cubs fan and most Cubs fans will tell you that they shared a certain empathy with Red Sox fans (pre-2004). Because of this, I always had an overall positive opinion of Boston sports teams. When the Packers (probably the only sports team I remember disliking as a child) played the Patriots in the 1997 Super Bowl, I threw my support (or as much as a 10 year old can) behind the Patriots and essentially forgot about them for the next 5 years. I remember watching the snow bowl at old Foxboro and the 2002 Super Bowl and being like "this is fun". Even while I officially had a second team, who won 2 more Super Bowls in 2004 and 2005, I still didn't really care about sports that much until college. It was probably around the time that people were arguing about Rex Grossman vs. Brian Griese that I started to lose interest in the Bears. Around 2006-2007, my transition to the Patriots was complete.
I say all this to highlight that I have a bias in the following discussion, but I have tried to look at things from a neutral standpoint. I am a liberal who thinks it was pretty weak that Donald Sterling had to sell his team, a Radiohead fan who doesn't think In Rainbows ranks among their best work, and a Cubs fan who finds the scrappy white dude annoying. I do not blindly support every issue of an organization I stand for or behind. I have heard much opining about how the deflation scandal does not matter because the Patriots won the game by 38 points and I think that's bullshit. While there is no ground for an argument that the Colts should be playing this Sunday, the outcome never justifies cheating. Do I think the Patriots cheated? I honestly don't know. Someone might have. There certainly is not enough to come to a conclusion, let alone start punishing people. I fully support Belichick when he says he was not involved. This is someone who completely owned up to his involvement in the Spygate controversy. How about Brady? I don't believe that any professional quarterback could not tell the difference between balls of different pressures. However, this does not mean he is lying about being aware of balls being intentionally deflated. Let's take a look at some of the arguments against the Patriots from the past two weeks:
-The Patriots have a history of cheating. This one still pisses me off beyond belief. What the Patriots did in 2007 certainly broke rules, but calling this cheating is a bit of a stretch. I also believe that 95% of people who reference Spygate could not even tell you what they were actually guilty of. To review, the league sent out a memo to all NFL teams in 2006 telling teams to stop recording other team's signals for use "during a game". This memo was sent out because SEVERAL, if not most teams were doing this at the time. Belichick, being a prick, realized that it didn't explicitly state you could not film them for use after the game. He was continuing to record opposing team's sidelines into week 1 of the 2007 season before he was "caught" spying. Because apparently, having a camera set up in front of 80,000 people in plain sight is spying. Having to do without this camera was clearly a huge loss for the Patriots, who went on to win 17 straight games afterwards. So yes, there was some degree of working around the rules, even if you want to call it cheating, but it's hardly the type of thing that should cast a shadow on your organization. There is also the issue of the "fact" that the Patriots recorded the Rams' walkthrough before the 2002 Super Bowl. This story came from the Boston Globe who reported that a former NFL employee admitted to doing so. When questioned, the employee said that was not true. He was wearing a Patriots shirt and hooking up cameras in the area where the practice was going on. An NFL investigation discovered that the cameras in question did not have a power source. This employee had been fired by the Patriots for secretly recording personal conversations with the owner of the team. The Globe apologized for this story, saying it was inaccurate. However, this is still cited as conclusive evidence against the team's tendency to cheat.
-The Patriots don't respect the game. This idea that other teams do not do stuff like this is laughable. The Colts pumped artificial crowd noise through their stadium PA at home games when the other team's offense was on the field. I can't help but feel like if that same thing happened at Gillette against the Colts, it would be an even huger story than the balls. Mike Tomlin walked in front of a Ravens player on the field and impeded his progress last season. The Vikings were "caught" warming balls in front of a heater just two months ago. The 1998 NFL Champion Broncos "cheated" to have both John Elway and Terrell Davis on the roster that season. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28969-2004Sep17.html. That's a pretty big deal. Look at baseball. The Phillies' bullpen coach stealing signs from the bullpen. Pine tar. Corked bats. THE OTHER TEAM IN THE SUPER BOWL HAS LED THE NFL IN PED SUSPENSIONS OVER THE PAST FEW SEASONS. I'm not saying they should be punished, but why are the Patriots the only cheaters? Oh, because they have a history of cheating. See previous paragraph.
-The Colts ball weren't deflated. Brady said that he prefers his balls to be less inflated. Let's just say that the Patriots' balls were set at 12.5 psi, the minimum, before the game and the Colts' balls were at 13.5, both teams within legal limits. Over the course of the game, let's just say the balls each lose 1 psi due to the conditions. It could even be less, but since the argument doesn't change, let's use a round number. Now the Patriots balls are at 11.5, under limits and the Colts balls are at 12.5, within limits. This would lead to the Patriots' balls being under regulation and the Colts balls being within "legal" range. In this scenario, which very likely could be the actual case, neither team cheated. I have no idea what the locker room attendant was doing with both teams' balls, but the fact that only the Patriots' balls were "illegal" is irrelevant if Luck prefer his balls with more air than does Brady.
-The Patriots have fumbled far less than any other team since Brady helped pass a rule that road teams can supply their own footballs. Again, like the previous paragraph, if Tom likes his balls at the lower end of the legal range, the Patriots' balls will naturally be easier to hang onto. Even though the Patriots' fumbling rate is by far the lowest in the league over that span by a few standard deviations from the mean, it does not account for simply being the best at something. I am fairly sure that the Spurs, LeBron James, Lionel Messi also don't fall within a normal bell curve. Also, having watched this team for 10 years, I can tell you that it only takes 2 or 3 fumbles to lose your job permanently. Ask Steven Ridley. He went from being "the guy" to a 2nd or even 3rd string (before injury) from one bad half of football. Given how great of a coach Belichick is and also how strongly winning is correlated with turnover differential, it isn't preposterous to think that maybe Belichick drafts and coaches around the mentality of NO FUMBLES.
-Tom Brady looked like he was lying at his press conference. Fuck you.
So yeah, if we find out they were cheating, it would be a pretty big blow. Not "I can't watch this team anymore" big, but it would be a bummer. I just haven't seen anything yet to convince me that they were definitely cheated, and I'm not naive enough to think that they are unique in their douchebaggery. And everyone's reasons for why they are guilty (see above) are pretty much shit. So call me an idiot and tell me I'm wrong. Go Pats.
