Deflategate: What to Takeaway?

So as some of you know The Wells Report came out as a 243 report about what happened with the New England Patriots deflating footballs to give them a competitive edge. I don’t know what’s more crazy, the fact they actually wrote up a 243 page report or the amount of time media is spending on this issue. Sure, it breaks the integrity of the game but honestly, do you think the deflation of footballs has made Tom Brady one of the best quarterbacks of all time? When the Patriots played the Colts this past year, the footballs were under inflated in the first half. What was the score after the first half? 17-7. What about after the balls were inspected and the correct weight? 28-0. So, I don’t think the weight of the footballs is the only thing that makes Tom Brady a great quarterback, if at all.

After watching Garbage Time with Katie Nolan, she brings up a few quotes that people are saying about deflategate and I agree with everything she says. Woody Paige says “Tom Brady should be suspended for the entire season for #Deflategate”. Katie Nolan goes on to say performance enhancing drug users who are caught are suspended four games so it would be kind of ridiculous to suspend Brady for the entire season. The next quote she talks about comes from Mike Lupica which he says “There is no elevator video on which to convict Tom Brady on deflategate”. Obviously, this is referencing to the Ray Rice incident, and Katie Nolan just says this is irrelevant and insensitive. The last quote I found the most ridiculous which comes from Ben Volin. He says “Patriots fans defending Brady say there’s no direct evidence against him. Circumstantial evidence was more than enough to convict Hernandez”. So he’s comparing inflating footballs to a murder which in my mind is a little too much. Once again, yes it hurts the integrity of the game, but the fact some people are comparing this to the Ray Rice and Aaron Hernandez cases is taking this a little too far.

Who knows what we should exactly take away from this case. It’s the second case of the New England Patriots being caught cheating, so it shows they try to do whatever it takes to get a competitive advantage. Will it tarnish the legacy of Tom Brady? I highly doubt it. Will it tarnish the character of Tom Brady? I think it will because he hasn’t stepped up to the mistake and is putting the blame on others. America hates liars, just look at our views of Ryan Braun and Alex Rodriguez. They both lied about using performance enhancing drugs and now both their reputations took a hit. Tom Brady is a great football player, maybe not a good person, but a great football player.

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Alan Liang is a Drexel Sport Management major graduate with minors in Marketing, Business Administration, and Communication from West Windsor, NJ. Alan scores baseball games for Baseball Info Solutions and was on co-op with the Philadelphia 76ers in the camps department. Follow Alan on Twitter @AlanLiang29.