Anyone who knows anything about football knows who Tom Brady is. The first thing that comes to mind when you think about the New England Patriots is Tom Brady. The 6th round pick in the 2000 NFL Draft that was supposed to never even be a starter but because of an injury got to play and became one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time.
Then the night of January 18, 2015, the Patriots and the Indianapolis Colts face off in the AFC Championship game. As expected, the Patriots destroy the Colts 45-7. It’s a night of celebration in New England as the Patriots are on their way to their 8th Super Bowl, the 6th with Brady at the helm. Then the madness began. A Colts equipment manager told NFL Gameday operations that an intercepted ball by the Colts was deflated two pounds per square inch below the NFL limit. The dust settled in May when the NFL began their investigation to officially began Deflategate.
The NFL hired investigator Ted Wells to file and investigate the Deflategate situation. Wells was paid $2.5 million for this case. The report said that two equipment managers were told to deflate the footballs that would be used for the game. It also brought Tom Brady into the situation. Wells said that Brady smashed his phone to hide evidence. Brady received a four game suspension by the NFL for “hiding evidence.” This started a nine month process only to acquit Tom Brady.
There are many different arguments surrounding this situation. The Tom Brady haters want Brady to be punished more than the four game suspension he already received, while the Patriots fans want him to be off the hook without a scratch. Here is my take of it. I am not a Tom Brady fan in any means but t the right call was made to take away his suspension. Despite the “overwhelming” evidence to punish Brady the NFL handled the situation poorly.
First they hired a private investigator that had closely worked with the NFL before and was being paid more than $1 million by the NFL. Why did they care so much about punishing Tom Brady? The judge during the ruling gave the two parties chances to mutually agree on a settlement. Brady didn’t budge and no one cared because of his reputation. On the other hand the NFL kept pushing. The NFL had already lost in the similar cases of Adrian Peterson and Richie Incognito. Losing this case would ruin their reputation even further. The NFL would have been better off just conceding to Brady. Instead they had someone else tell them that they were wrong.
The NFL lost this case, Tom Brady didn’t win it. So for all Patriots fans.”Yay! We have our cover boy back and are probably going to win the Super Bowl.” And still fans of other teams are thinking “This guy is back.” You want to know who to thank? The NFL. So once again Tom Brady prevails and the NFL continues their losing streak.
The Tom Brady Scandal
By Sam Kulp