This isn't about football — the Patriots dominated the Colts that night, 45-7, and would have regardless. New England's success isn't because of air pressure. This is about ethics — NFL officials received a tip and, instead of preventing the crime, kept an eye on it.
Colts general manager Ryan Grigson played the role of the parents and, a day before the loss to New England, sent league officials a heads-up via email.
From the Indy Star:
"The Colts, he wrote, had reason to believe the Patriots were inflating their footballs to improperly low levels and the team wanted the league's assurances this would not happen in its biggest game of the season.
The message contained passages from a previous one Grigson had received from Colts equipment manager Sean Sullivan. He stated: 'It is well known around the league that after the Patriots game balls are checked by the officials and brought out for game usage, the ballboys for the Patriots will let out some air with a ball needle because their quarterback likes a smaller football so he can grip it better, it would be great if someone would be able to check the air in the game balls as the game goes on so that they don't get an illegal advantage.'
All the Indianapolis Colts want is a completely level playing field. Thank you for being vigilant stewards of that not only for us but for the shield and overall integrity of our game."
According to the Star, Grigson was told that Mike Kensil, a senior member of the NFL Football Operations Department, would be at the game and would brief the officials. Senior members of the NFL Officiating Department also received the forwarded email, and referee Walt Anderson would be informed.
Yet even after the "first time in Anderson's 19 years as an NFL official that he could not locate the game balls at the start of the game," as
the Wells Report found, the bus wasn't stopped. It didn't stop until Grigson at halftime received a call from the sideline. Rather than celebrating D'Qwell Jackson's second-quarter interception of a Brady pass, Grigson "slammed down the receiver and stormed out of the press box."
Authorities were tipped, and an illegal act occurred anyway. You'd be irate, too.
MORE: Olbermann takes down Brady | Does Wells Report taint Super Bowl?
Brady's agent on Thursday called the ensuing league investigation
a "sting operation." He might be right. But even if the league's intention was to frame the Patriots, it failed to prevent the act. Even if the bully gets suspended from school, initial ignorance (intentional or not) allowed a student to be bullied.
While maybe a handful of league officials are to blame for allowance of deflated footballs in the first half of the AFC championship, the incident points to the larger issue of apparent hypocrisy in and around the NFL. It's like how the league
doesn't care about marijuana use for about eight months of the year, but it tests and suspends players in the spring. Careers are compromised and sometimes killed by such hypocrisy.
Former quarterback and current NFL analyst Boomer Esiason
pegged it months ago:
"You can say whatever you want about Deflategate, and who said what, but to me this is about how the NFL operates: It's back stabbing, it's insecure and it's childish. ‘You want to call me out? I’m going to call you out. You want to embarrass me? Guess what I’m going to embarrass you.' I'm telling you, this is the way the NFL works. At the end of the day, Tom Brady is the one who's got the last laugh. He's got his third Super Bowl MVP trophy and his fourth Super Bowl."
This could only happen in the NFL, a league that
almost asked for it in 2006 when it changed a rule, allowing teams to supply their own 12 footballs for offense. Maybe LeBron James prefers his basketball a little less inflated, but the NBA makes him play with the same ball as everybody else.
The league, fortunate that New England blew out Indianapolis; that 11 improperly deflated first-half footballs had nothing to do with the outcome, will rightfully punish the bully.
