For an organization that likes to portray itself as being smarter than everyone else, and more holy than thou than anyone else, they sure get caught a lot.
Spygate was serious, and provided real potential advantages, especially if they recorded walkthroughs of opposing teams.
For this instance, they could have slaughtered the Colts by three touchdowns if they played the game with medicine balls. Monumentally stupid obsession with details that ultimately didn't matter in the game.
Personally, I think deflate-gate is not a big deal. Every team in the league is doing something to gain an edge. This is why teams gameplan, review opposing film looking for any small detail, and grill members of their team who played for another organization about how that team runs. Teams try to break signals all the time - the Patriots just take it to levels that can't be justified.
For all of the Patriot defenders, and Robert Kraft, there are two questions that need to be answered if they are REALLY innocent here:
- Why did Jim McNally take the balls from the officials locker room without their knowledge, stop in a washroom, and then go straight to the field with the balls despite protocols requiring the officials to be in possession of the footballs?
- Why did Tom Brady destroy his cell phone used during the time period in question on or around the day of his meeting with Ted Wells? Especially when his prior cell phone was still in tact?
The cloak and dagger MO of the organization as a whole is coming back to bite them. If they really wanted to penalize them, they should be forced to terminate Ernie Adams from their org. Watch Belichick have a fit over that one.
