Cheat 2 Compete
2015-05-12 08:29:30 UTC
Much sooner rather than later, Tom Brady needs to call the most
important audible of his football life. His crime against sport
is not in the same ballpark as those committed by Pete Rose,
Lance Armstrong and Alex Rodriguez, not even close, so there is
no reason to follow their path of endless denial and deceit
before finally telling the truth.
Brady needs to come clean right now. This is not about Brady's
agent, Don Yee, or his father, Tom Sr., because agents and
parents are expected to scream and shout while protecting their
own. This is about the quarterback of the New England Patriots,
nobody else.
Brady should hit the mute button on Yee and pass on his right to
appeal. He should instruct the players' union to stand down. He
should do the right thing here and admit that he knowingly broke
the rules, that he was chin strap-deep in the illegal deflation
of game balls, and that he deserves a four-game suspension that
was always a fitting penalty for his cheating and refusal to
cooperate with Ted Wells.
For all of his royal screwups in disciplining players, NFL
commissioner Roger Goodell -- with an assist from Executive Vice
President of Football Operations Troy Vincent -- notarized the
perfect punishment for the imperfect crime. Goodell and Vincent
sent a strong message at the expense of the four-time Super Bowl
champ, and yet didn't touch last season's title run or kill the
chances of Brady leading the Patriots to their 13th division
crown on his watch. The quarterback gets to play in 75 percent
of this season's games and loses something he doesn't need,
money, while Jimmy Garoppolo leads the Pats to the same 2-2
record the first-stringer led them to in 2014.
And then that first-stringer gets to come back and take it all
out on the Indianapolis Colts to boot.
The Colts didn't do this to Brady by tipping off NFL officials
and refs before and during the AFC Championship Game blowout.
Brady did this to Brady. He was so desperate to win and to keep
proving over and over he should've been the No. 1 pick in the
2000 draft, not the 199th pick, that, as the Wells report makes
apparent, he conspired with a couple of low-level staffers to
doctor game balls to his liking.
In his letter to the Patriots, Vincent acknowledged what any
right-minded observer of the Patriots' 38-point victory over the
Colts easily grasped: The balls deflated below the 12.5-pounds-
per-square-inch minimum had no impact on the result. But Vincent
also rightfully maintained that it didn't matter, that the
intent to cheat is a violation nobody can measure by way of a
scoreboard.
"Your actions as set forth in the report clearly constitute
conduct detrimental to the integrity of and public confidence in
the game of professional football," Vincent wrote in a letter to
Brady. "The integrity of the game is of paramount importance to
everyone in our league, and requires unshakable commitment to
fairness and compliance with the playing rules. Each player, no
matter how accomplished and otherwise respected, has an
obligation to comply with the rules and must be held accountable
for his actions when those rules are violated and the public's
confidence in the game is called into question."
http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/12868077/tom-brady-skip-appeal-
deflategate-penalty-tell-truth-now
important audible of his football life. His crime against sport
is not in the same ballpark as those committed by Pete Rose,
Lance Armstrong and Alex Rodriguez, not even close, so there is
no reason to follow their path of endless denial and deceit
before finally telling the truth.
Brady needs to come clean right now. This is not about Brady's
agent, Don Yee, or his father, Tom Sr., because agents and
parents are expected to scream and shout while protecting their
own. This is about the quarterback of the New England Patriots,
nobody else.
Brady should hit the mute button on Yee and pass on his right to
appeal. He should instruct the players' union to stand down. He
should do the right thing here and admit that he knowingly broke
the rules, that he was chin strap-deep in the illegal deflation
of game balls, and that he deserves a four-game suspension that
was always a fitting penalty for his cheating and refusal to
cooperate with Ted Wells.
For all of his royal screwups in disciplining players, NFL
commissioner Roger Goodell -- with an assist from Executive Vice
President of Football Operations Troy Vincent -- notarized the
perfect punishment for the imperfect crime. Goodell and Vincent
sent a strong message at the expense of the four-time Super Bowl
champ, and yet didn't touch last season's title run or kill the
chances of Brady leading the Patriots to their 13th division
crown on his watch. The quarterback gets to play in 75 percent
of this season's games and loses something he doesn't need,
money, while Jimmy Garoppolo leads the Pats to the same 2-2
record the first-stringer led them to in 2014.
And then that first-stringer gets to come back and take it all
out on the Indianapolis Colts to boot.
The Colts didn't do this to Brady by tipping off NFL officials
and refs before and during the AFC Championship Game blowout.
Brady did this to Brady. He was so desperate to win and to keep
proving over and over he should've been the No. 1 pick in the
2000 draft, not the 199th pick, that, as the Wells report makes
apparent, he conspired with a couple of low-level staffers to
doctor game balls to his liking.
In his letter to the Patriots, Vincent acknowledged what any
right-minded observer of the Patriots' 38-point victory over the
Colts easily grasped: The balls deflated below the 12.5-pounds-
per-square-inch minimum had no impact on the result. But Vincent
also rightfully maintained that it didn't matter, that the
intent to cheat is a violation nobody can measure by way of a
scoreboard.
"Your actions as set forth in the report clearly constitute
conduct detrimental to the integrity of and public confidence in
the game of professional football," Vincent wrote in a letter to
Brady. "The integrity of the game is of paramount importance to
everyone in our league, and requires unshakable commitment to
fairness and compliance with the playing rules. Each player, no
matter how accomplished and otherwise respected, has an
obligation to comply with the rules and must be held accountable
for his actions when those rules are violated and the public's
confidence in the game is called into question."
http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/12868077/tom-brady-skip-appeal-
deflategate-penalty-tell-truth-now