One school of thought at this point can be summarized as:
- The NFL's actions were ridiculous from beginning to end.
- However, Brady's probably guilty of SOMETHING minor.
That's not necessarily crazy, since a certain level of cheating is endemic in football and other sports.
- Like other sports with concepts of fouls and penalties from contact during continuous play, football has a strong element of "Get away with whatever you can".
- In football, teams engage in injury-report shenanigans all the time. The Patriots are among the ringleaders.
- Football and many other sports have long legacies of PED violations.
- In sports where equipment violations are helpful, there commonly are long histories of equipment violations. For extreme example, consider NASCAR and Americas Cup yachting, which not coincidentally are among the sports with the most complex equipment overall. Football has such a history.
- When the rules are vague and poorly enforced, it's natural to try to push their boundaries.
If Brady's first PSIgate-related interview is to be taken a face value, he was saying "We may have pushed the envelope, but I don't think we broke the rules. Certainly I didn't think I was pushing for a rules violation. I hope I'm right in my beliefs." My personal theory is to take that exactly as face value.
But people who think Brady is a LITTLE BIT dirtier than that aren't necessarily being idiots. So I think it's OK to take note of people who have views approximately along these lines.
For starters, Steve Buckley is now in that camp, and whatever negative things I thought about his previous views, his current ones don't make me want to vomit, although I don't like that he still assumes the footballs were illicitly deflated.
http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/...ey_obsessed_nfl_bigger_culprit_than_tom_brady