Now that a couple of days have passed, I’ve settled on a few things that I think on all this stuff. Sorry this might get a bit long, but hopefully worth the time to wade through.
--In the long run, there’s a lot of stuff that I think is definitely true…that ultimately just won’t matter to anyone. Meaning: it’s absolutely and categorically true that the Patriots are treated differently that the rest of the league…scrutinized far more, potential penalties far greater, etc.; and the Wells report is almost comically biased. (Exponent? Really? That company has been a known joke for years.) There are inconsistencies in the report, mistakes, glaring omissions regarding the league, other teams, etc. It’s a really shoddy piece of work, objectively speaking. (Let me repeat, Exponent? Seriously, Google them for 30 seconds. I’ll wait.)
--Why won’t this stuff matter? Because at the end of the day, all anyone will take away is what did Brady know, what Brady did. That’s it.
So, on that.
What do we “know” about Brady, to the extent you can know athletes? By all accounts and appearances, that he’s an upright, solid guy. Incredibly competitive, who wants to win…but so competitive, I think, that “cheating” to win would not be satisfying to him, nor something he would do. This is subjective, of course. That is my opinion.
So what happened, here? Forget the “science” one way or the other. There’s just nothing there of note, even leaving out the joke that is Exponent. It all comes down to the two equipment guys.
Which is tricky, because these two ball guys sound dumb. I’m sorry, that seems sort of condescending or something, but it’s true. They sound like two not very bright guys. So their texts can’t be parsed too carefully…it’s just not really possible to know exactly what the hell they’re talking about.
Having said that, they’re talking about SOMETHING relating to the air pressure of footballs. Needles, deflating, ESPN.
So here’s what I think it was.
Brady likes the balls a certain way. Apparently, on at least one occasion, the refs would excessively pump them up (to 16 psi apparently at one point). As another poster here cited, Brady—far from breaking the rules—wanted the refs to refer to the rules, as part of his hope that they wouldn’t be overinflated.
So I do think Brady was “generally aware…” aware that he didn’t want to use an overinflated football, and was happy to have some air taken out, so they wouldn’t be. And he “generally” was hoping “Jonny” would take care of that, because who else would? The refs? I’m sorry, for a billion dollar organization, the NFL is incompetent is many ways.
So at his press conference, Brady wasn’t himself. He looked nervous. Why? Because he wasn’t being completely transparent. He didn’t want to cheat and use underinflated footballs, he just didn’t want the damn things overinflated. And yeah, he probably should have just been very vocal and public about it early on, weeks earlier. “Hey, the refs are kind of blundering around here..” (no big surprise)… “they end up making the footballs I use hard & overinflated…could we do something about this?” But he didn’t go that way, and from that, this ridiculous fiasco spins away. I suppose nobody is supposed to do anything with the footballs after the refs sign off on them…but they’re not supposed to be at 16 psi either.
Couple other small points:
--On Brady’s testimony, the not knowing McNally thing just strikes me as odd. Too silly to lie about…I suspect something there just got lost in the shuffle, who knows. But nothing nefarious there.
--On Brady not turning over his phone. Um…let’s see. These inept, biased “investigators” come after you, and then say, “give us your phone.” BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!! I would never in a million years have agreed to that, and I’m nobody. Seriously, are you kidding me? If anyone brings that up as something to care about, stop listening immediately.
--If the ball guys go public, that could and almost definitely will change the narrative significantly, one way or the other. But I’m pretty confident my impressions here are correct.
And…I can’t wait until they start playing football again. For now, I think that’s all I got.
