The New England Patriots apparently like their footballs under league specifications.
This has, somehow, become the biggest sports story on the planet.
Seriously.
Arguably the best football coach and the best quarterback of this generation spent an hour Thursday discussing a pound of pressure. Patriots coach Bill Belichick said he knew nothing about it, which could be the case but seems far-fetched for a megalomaniac, renowned control freak. His quarterback, Tom Brady, then said last Sunday was business as usual, and he could not tell the difference in the footballs, which seems at best questionable considering he is a professional athlete who makes his living throwing that ball well.
Hey, we get that Belichick is not the most popular guy around. We get that the Patriots evoke a lot of hatred and jealousy and that they have a checkered past in following the rules. We get the overarching focus -- especially before the Super Bowl, which has evolved into the biggest event across all of pop culture in America -- and hand-wringing has become a race in nobility and self-outrage.
Heck, we even get the over-the-top, fire-and-brimstone calls for the Patriots to fire Belichick, or forcing the Patriots to give up draft picks. We don't agree with them, but we understand the basis for the claims considering the infant-like wisdom of the NFL, which nuked the New Orleans Saints for "Bounty-Gate" because Roger Goodell and Co. were worried about the bad PR and the "Today Show" and moms everywhere talking about the dangers of football.
In some ways, if you believe that deflating footballs has an outcome on the game, this should be viewed as a greater crime against football than Bounty-Gate or Bully-Gate or whatever off-the-field social-science-Gate the NFL has faced in the last few years.
No, Tom Brady preferring to throw a squeezable football is nowhere in the same ballpark as the serious charges of domestic violence or bullying or malicious intent to injure in the grand picture of society. But if breaking a league rule has a direct effect on the outcome of a game, shouldn't that be a Grade A offense in the league's eyes? Shouldn't the league be worried about the integrity of the action on the field every bit as much as the acts -- if not moreso -- that lack integrity off it?
Which leads us to the next point: Rightly or wrongly, cheating has been part of the fabric of sports since they started keeping score. Period.
We're not condoning and we're not endorsing, but we'd all be foolish not to recognize it.
Whether it's recruiting violations or steroids or spitballs or deflated balls or every garage session in NASCAR history, competitors trying to push the edge of the rules and often breaking that edge is commonplace.
Heck, forget the professionals who are trying to make millions by trading their ethics for checks. Go to any youth league tournament in any sport and what's the third-most important item this side of equipment and juice boxes? Birth certificates, because you never know when the next Danny Almonte will appear.
Will the NFL embrace this chance to reset its hollow image as a money-counting, indifferent governing body that cares little about fairness and more about its fiscal wellness?
The lack of rhyme or reason to the rulings and the public's passion over various rules is equally puzzling.
Steroids? They are considered the Scarlet Letter sin in baseball and cycling. In football, players quietly sit out suspensions and then are welcomed back into the lineup like they took a four-week sabbatical.
Competitive rules? Baseball has a hit-or-miss view on pitchers who scuff -- heck, Gaylord Perry was viewed as everyone's grandfather, and he put more substances on his gloves than a West Virginia coal miner -- or the allegations that Bucky Dent had a corked bat. NASCAR forged the "If you ain't cheatin' you ain't tryin'" rallying cry. And according to almost every quarterback who has spoken about this topic in the last 48 hours, just about every passer in the NFL likes to have his footballs worked a certain way.
So where does that leave us?
Most of the angst here is because of the parties involved more than the act, and that's fair in a lot of ways. Repeat offenders and those who consistently disregard rules deserve harsher punishments. There's a real chance that this was more of Brady's doing than Belichick's, but that may being splitting hairs and picking nits at this point.
Here's what we believe:
We don't see anyway there will be suspensions for the Super Bowl.
We believe the league will hand down some penalties that mainly include fines, which is relatively meaningless since a six-figure fine for a guy with an eight-figure bank account and a seven-figure annual salary seems hollow.
We also know that if Robert Kraft and the Patriots fire Belichick, half the teams in the league would be willing to fire their entire staff by lunch to hire him.
Dude has proven he's a winner. And winners never cheat unless they cheat.