When last we met sports fans, it was 4th down and done. The Patriots were the NFC Champions for Superbowl 2015, and would go on to become the Superbowl Champs of the world. Tom Brady, the Patriots baby-faced quarterback and self-proclaimed non-cheater (nor pumpkin eater) would even go on to become the Most Valuable Player.
But then the Wells Report came out, the roars of the teeming scores stopped, and Brady found himself on the bad side of a four game suspension. Deflategate, the scandal suggesting that Brady and his minions had altered game balls in hopes of gaining an advantage during the NFC game, was accepted by the NFL via its Commissioner, Roger Goodell, to be evidence enough of Brady’s willful violation of the rules despite the QB’s protestations.
Over the summer, The NFL was forced to act on the Deflategate evidence at hand, and it did. Goodell punished Brady with a four game suspension. It looked as though the suspension would be upheld when Brady’s appeals for overturning failed to score him a lighter sentence. But then, as luck would have it, a federal judge in the middle of deciding other cases against Wall Street cheats ruled in Brady’s favor. Shortly after, Brady was reinstated without further punitive actions against him (ESPN).
Enter game one of the regular season. Thank goodness the show can go on.
It’s the Steelers vs. the Superbowl Champs. Internet history has already recorded that football fans and conspiracy theorists alike were glued to their seats. Would Tom Brady and the Patriots cheat again?
A quick survey of the internet says…yes.
SBNation could be quoted as reporting after the game that “Michele Tafoya (NBC) reported that Pittsburgh's coaching staff struggled to use their headsets when their radio signal got crossed with a Patriots broadcast. Tafoya said during the first quarter that the communication system connecting Pittsburgh's coaches was affected, with a New England radio broadcast "bleeding in," preventing the coaches from adequately communicating. The "bleeding" didn't occur on the coach-to-player headsets. In-game reporting made no mention of any issues on New England's sideline. Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin confirmed the problem after the game -- and heavily suggested foul play on the Patriots' part.”
Fans of SBnation, a sports website, filled the comments section that other teams in the past had reported having difficulty in New England with headsets in the past. And on another ‘Patriots-are-cheaters’ one-note, some clever football conspiracists noted a curious hand wave on the part of Brady that seemed to correspond with the game clock being reset in error. Or, was it part of the Brady alleged prepaid cheating network? Check out the video below:
And yet, despite his scandal-ridden career, Brady appears to be bullet proof. According to Yahoo, “regardless of the recent controversy surrounding Brady, sales of the quarterback’s No. 12 jersey are impressive. The Patriots haven’t changed their jersey design since 2000, an event typically required for the mass influx of buyers. Brady has also worn the same number since he joined the Pats, making the recent high sales even more of a feat.”
It isn’t just the jersey buying fans that appear to have forgotten that this is a team led by a QB with a tarnished past. The news media also appears to have memory loss indicated by their glowing headlines sans any real talk that this is a QB who breaks rules in a New York minute.
So did he or didn’t he isn’t the real question of the day if there is a question being asked at all. The overturned NFL suspension certainly confirmed the belief that Brady acted shady. The real question here is…why don’t we care?
Are we as a society so in love with our entertainment that rules don’t matter? The Patriots may have won the Superbowl, but they also have a history of cheating that goes back to the eighties if you believe the authors over at Your Team Cheats (http://yourteamcheats.com/NE).
What is the definition of winning if the bad guys get to continue to test the league’s limits and get away with it? Perhaps we’ll care when someone gets hurt. Then again, maybe we as a collective won’t. The question this author has is: will you?
Sources:
Hinckley, Story. "Tom Brady Top NFL Selling Jersey." Yahoo! News. Yahoo!, n.d. Web. 24 Sept. 2015.
"Tom Brady Wins Appeal." ESPN. ESPN Internet Ventures, n.d. Web. 24 Sept. 2015.
"One Quarter into the 2015 NFL Season, the Patriots Have Already Been Accused of Cheating." SBNation.com. N.p., 10 Sept. 2015. Web. 24 Sept. 2015.
"The New England Patriots Complete Cheating History." - Your Team Cheats. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Sept. 2015.
Image Credit:
http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/players/5228/
