What the Greenbergs of the world are missing is that it could still be a set-up without meaning that someone was specifically out to get Tom Brady.
-Kensil & Vincent had an unsubstantiated tip from the Colts that the Patriots were doing something wrong.
-Kensil & Vincent and their tipster Grigson thought it would be great to catch the Patriots organization in the act, and assumed that the tip would turn out to be true. Their goal was not to prevent any tampering, but to CATCH the Patriots if it happened, as they thought it would.
-Kensil & Vincent and their tipster Grigson are all dumber than boxes of rocks and thought with perfect confidence that a football at 13 psi at room temperature will be 13 psi at 50 degrees, at 20 degrees, or at zero degrees. That as long as you don't take air out, the pressure would be the same. Incredibly, even the football manufacturers thought this too!
-Laughably, the dumber than a box of rock belief fully extended to everyone involved in the sting, every media member who rushed to judgement, and 99% of fans, and to Goodell, maybe even to thus day.
-Kensil & Vincent saw lower pressures, at halftime, than they expected to see. I think that they thought that they were in the right to aggressively push forward. Paranoia, jealousy, ignorance, and incompetence reinforced each other.
-It took months for basic concept of the ideal gas law to sink in for ANYONE in the media. Peter King paid some small attention to it in January, sure, but the scientific aspects were muddied by the persistent belief in the FALSE "11 out of 12 footballs were 2 psi low" leak.
If the reasons for the sting operation progressing into a full-fledged headline scandal were put into a pie chart, it would break down about lie this, IMO.
the sparks:
Paranoia about the Patriots:10%
Jealously/hatred of the Patriots: 10%
the fuel:
sheer ignorance coupled with incompetence and lies: 80%
But before a Super Bowl, things are different even without accusations flying around ...
