When Brady finally gave up the fight and accepted his punishment, the media narrative of "deflate gate" changed overnight. This was made shockingly clear to me last night on Thursday Night Football when Bob Costas did a complete about face and said this to a national t.v. audience.
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"The Panthers lead the Broncos 17-7 at the half.
Meanwhile, NBC's Sunday Night Football will premier with the Patriots in Arizona taking on the Cardinals, a matchup of Super Bowl contenders who both reached their conference championships last January. But the headlines for this one are also about who won't be in uniform, as Tom Brady, more than 19 months after the initial events in question, begins serving his four-game Deflategate suspension.
Without rehashing the whole absurd affair, it's still worth noting that the ultimately, the appeals court only affirmed the NFL's right to impose the penalty. It did not affirm that the penalty itself was right.
The punishment - a quarter of the season for a mere misdemeanor - needlessly turned into a literal federal case - remains striking in its disproportion.
But, the Brady ruling stands. So Sunday night, the Patriots quarterback will be 24-year-old Jimmy Garoppolo, the 2014 second-round pick out of Easter Illinois who takes charge of an offense that ranked third in the league in scoring last year, and goes against another prolific attack in the Cardinals led by Carson Palmer and Larry Fitzgerald - a pair of veterans who are well aware they don't have that many shots left at getting to the Super Bowl."
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If I weren't so depressed by how easily we are manipulated, I'd be more happy that the narrative has shifted.
