I've come to the conclusion that I largely don't care, even if it's determined that we intentionally altered the footballs.
We're naive and kidding ourselves if we think the NFL is a clean, morally upstanding league of integrity. It's not. It's a cutthroat, competitive environment where everyone and anyone will do anything and everything to gain an edge. It's the nature of the beast -- success is at a premium and winning is so valued, so ingrained in the culture that folks are naturally going to go to all possibles lengths to have success and win. These actions and thoughts are almost subconscious.
Would I be slightly annoyed if we knowingly circumnavigated a rule? Of course. It's not the smartest decision and it seems a bit petty, but I'm not going to sit here and pretend that no one else is doing it, or that somehow we're particularly bad.
Tomlin interferes on the field of play.
Westhoff interferes on the field of play.
Bisciotti and Harbaugh lie in order to protect a player at the expense of the victim.
Denver circumnavigates the CAP.
Washington continues to sponsor and tout an inherently offensive and racist image/logo.
Carolina heats footballs.
Green Bay over-inflates footballs.
Tampa Bay alters footballs and uses pine tar.
HGH, anabolic steroids, PEDs.
It's happening everywhere. Whatever edge can be gained will be sought. Is Belichick particularly worse than anyone else? No, not at all. He's probably one of the more benign, in fact. Certainly far better than the Ravens' brass.
Does this excuse their hypothetical wrongdoing? No. But it acknowledges that this is the nature of the game, this is competition at the highest level, not a moral haven.
Beyond all that, let's put this in context. This a slight altering of a football. A difference of 1 mm of surface area and weight equivalent to that of a dollar bill. This is a practice that has been going on everywhere, and while the NFL states that quarterbacks and teams may alter balls and doctor them up via 'x, y and z' over the course of a season, they also state that teams may not exceed or go under an arbitrary pressure range. That's utterly ridiculous and flies in the face of logic. You may alter the balls, but only in 'this' way. Huh? That's the NFL, folks.
Quite frankly, in a practical, pragmatic sense, this is so common, so insignificant, and so much in the spirit of the game (gamesmanship at its finest), that I have zero issue with the practice.
Yes, rules are rules, and this doesn't excuse what our Patriots did (on principle), but viewing the situation practically and in context, I don't see how anyone could be outraged, let alone upset. Anything beyond minor annoyance would shock me.
This is all said working under the assumption that they're culpable of intentionally doctoring the balls following their inspection, which has yet to be proven, but I did want to think about the situation in this light to prepare for the worst. After some serious thought, I'll be absolutely fine and cheering hard for our Patriots come Super Bowl time, regardless of the result(s) of the investigation. Hoping for the best, absolutely fine with the 'worst', whatever that may mean.
