Monday, May 11, 2015

Deflategate

I'm going to put my 2 cents in about the apparent deflating of footballs during the AFC Championship game last January.

At the time I said that the whole thing sounded silly but predicted that they would "through (sic) some poor schnook under the bus so the team and the league could live happily ever after." OK, so I can't spell "throw."

After an investigation concluded that the balls were most likely deflated on purpose by two Patriot's equipment staffers and that Tom Brady most likely knew about the shenanigans, the NFL handed down the following punishment.

1. Tom Brady is suspended for the first four games of the 2016 season.

2. The team was fined $1 million.

3. The Patriots will lose a 2016 1st round draft pick and a 2017 4th round draft pick.

4. The two equipment staffers were suspended indefinitely.

Well, at least I got the throwing under the bus part right.

Brady has three days to appeal the suspension.

This is less severe than the punishment handed out to the New Orleans Saints in "Bountygate" a few years ago but at least in this case it wasn't a matter of trying to physically hurt other players so I don't have an issue with that.

I think a $1 million fine is a joke but the loss of draft choices and suspension time strikes me as about right.

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