Hurley: NFL Works Swiftly To Ensure DeflateGate Sequel Never Happens With Steelers
By Michael Hurley, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- It starts with this: "DeflateGate," as it came to be known, never involved any serious offense. Even if Tom Brady had been guilty of everything he was accused of doing by the NFL and his defeated opponents, there was never any need to use the words "cheating" or "scheme" or "suspension" or "investigation" or certainly "integrity" when talking about a supposed issue that had never once been examined in NFL history.
That being said, you know what happened. Within hours, we had leaks and columns and rants about how Brady should be suspended for a year (Woody Paige!) or that his first-ballot Hall of Fame status would be ruined (Peter King! Ron Borges!) or that Bill Belichick should be fired on the spot (Bob Kravitz!) or that the revelation of slightly lower PSI for Brady was akin to steroid use for Barry Bonds (Bill Plaschke!) or that the Patriots should be banned from playing in the Super Bowl (Gregg Doyel!) or that the Patriots' Super Bowl appearance needs an asterisk (Ray Lewis!).
It was, perhaps, a bit over the top. Yes?
Well, as luck had it, the world was graced with a sequel on Sunday: DeflateGate2: Bigger, Softer, Roethlisberger. Jay Glazer reported during Fox's pregame show that the New York Giants harbored suspicions about the footballs being used by the Steelers last weekend in Pittsburgh. And so, following a Le'Veon Bell fumble and following a Ben Roethlisberger interception, the Giants stuck a gauge into the footballs on their sideline and (hold on to your hats, people, this is about to get shocking) saw that the footballs did indeed show a PSI reading lower than the NFL mandated range between 12.5 and 13.5.
Dear God!
Glazer said the Giants (who, just like the Colts in January 2015, violated NFL rules by tampering with footballs on the sideline during a game, but we'll ignore that for the time being) then sent the footballs to the league office.
That's hilarious in and of itself, because as anyone who spent five minutes following the Patriots' saga or as anyone who owns a car with tires can easily tell you, the PSI inside of inflated rubber objects drops when taken from a warm inflation room to the cold outdoors. With similar temperatures in Pittsburgh last week to what New England's conditions were in January 2015, science would dictate that those footballs would show readings under 12.5 PSI.
But back to the matter at hand: The Steelers are cheaters! Right? Roethlisberger's got no shot at the Hall of Fame, Mike Tomlin is now a repeat offender and thus must be fired immediately, and the NFL needs to throw the book at the Pittsburgh organization. If commissioner Roger Goodell doesn't take draft picks from Pittsburgh and vacate all of the Steelers' wins this year, then he's certainly just catering to the wants and desires of his close, personal friends in the Rooney family. Right?
That's what everybody out there is saying, right?
That's how all the hot takes are being generated around the country, correct?
Do I have that right?
Well, no. Nothing of the sort. Rather than delight at the thought of getting material out of the boundless resource that is the Brady-Belichick-Patriots triumvirate, most people didn't even care to notice. If they did notice, they responded with exasperation and frustration for "having to deal with this again" -- even though these people's overreactions are the only reason that anybody had to "deal with" anything last time.
But -- predictable hypocrisy from pundits aside -- here's where the story gets interesting: the NFL came right out and denied the report in a very careful manner.
"The officiating game ball procedures were followed and there were no chain of command issues," read the statement from the NFL. "All footballs were in compliance and no formal complaint was filed by the Giants with our office."
Glazer never actually said a "formal complaint" -- whatever that technically may be -- was filed by the Giants, but the bigger story is this: Just minutes after a report of some chicanery involving the air pressure of footballs was reported, the NFL quickly went to work to suppress the story, deny its validity, and make the story go away as quickly as possible.
This was no accident.
After the way the last saga turned into a full-blown two-year soap opera, replete with millions of dollars of legal fees and hours/days/months of wasted time, the league saw little reason to go through that process again.
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But, for the sake of comparison, let's take a closer look at a few discrepancies between the two situations, shall we?
DeflateGate1: Someone in the know leaked news hours after the AFC Championship Game that the Patriots were being investigated for using deflated footballs during the blowout victory over the Colts. An anonymous NFL source confirmed the story. And it was born.
Two days later, multiple league sources told a reporter that 11 of 12 of the Patriots' footballs were a full 2 PSI under the allowable limit. This blew the story up into a national controversy, getting top billing on the major networks' news programs as well as filling hour after hour on the cable news networks.
Meanwhile, NFL senior VP of football operations Dave Gardi wrote a letter to the Patriots, stating that one of the team's footballs was measured at 10.1 PSI. This number was actually not factual.
The Patriots, upon eventually learning of the actual PSI measurements, begged and pleaded with the NFL to correct the public record -- a record which existed solely because of leaks from NFL employees. But the NFL refused, allowing false information to drive the story for months. That included the two weeks which the Patriots spent trying to prepare for the Super Bowl. Brady stood at the podium for an hour as national news reporters and sports writers alike grilled him with question after question. His answers were dissected, broken down, dismissed, and analyzed by body language experts. Mark Brunell cried.
Months later, after the NFL hired Ted Wells and paid him a few million dollars, the world was blessed with a 243-page report -- one that was cleverly designed to dissuade people from reading beyond the first few pages that placed culpability on Brady. But inside that report was plenty of information, including the actual PSI readings. None of those readings showed a football at 10.1 PSI, and just one of 22 measurements (not 11 of 12 footballs) came in at 2 PSI below the allowable limit. We also learned that the Patriots were playing with footballs inflated over 16 PSI in an October 2014 game against the Jets (the referee involved that night was interviewed by Wells, but Wells didn't deem anything he said to be relevant or worth squeezing in to the 243-page report). We also learned the NFL had been warned about potential mishandling of footballs prior to the game, which proved head of officiating Dean Blandino to have been lying about the NFL's knowledge.
The report also included nothing about the false information leaked out by members of the NFL front office.
Shortly thereafter, Brady was suspended four games, and the Patriots were docked multiple draft picks and fined $1 million.
Brady proclaimed his innocence and fought the case. Goodell tiptoed around the spirit of the CBA to install himself as the arbiter for the appeal hearing, despite having no legal background. This hearing took 10 hours. Brady's high-priced lawyer exposed numerous flaws and flubs from the NFL.
And then Goodell decided to ignore all of that and uphold his suspension based on the fact that Brady had gotten rid of his cell phone. (The destroyed cell phone news was leaked early to the media, too.)
Brady, desiring to clear his name and to play football, continued the fight, this time in a federal appeals court. The NFL fought back. The court ruled to overturn the suspension. The NFL appealed. This went to a higher court. Millions more dollars were spent. The time of three real-life judges was spent comparing stickum to underinflated footballs. The NFL won the appeal.
Choosing time certainty over the risk of missing important games late in the season or in the playoffs, Brady dropped his fight and sat out the first four games of the 2016 season. Despite the fact that he's played arguably the best football of his Hall of Fame career since the allegations were made, he'll carry the label of "cheater" to those who didn't care to discover the details of this highly unnecessary ordeal.
DeflateGate2: Glazer reported that the Giants sent the supposedly deflated footballs in the 12 o'clock hour on Sunday. The NFL released a statement minutes after 1 p.m. to refute the entire report. That was it. Ben Roethlisberger was asked about it after his team beat the Bills, and he joked that he had been using Nerf balls. Ha ha.
The end.
Fin.
That's all, folks.
Look, do football fans in New England sometimes have a persecution complex? Sure. But when looking at the way these two situations played out, can you blame them?
Years have passed. The NFL has never once apologized for or even acknowledged the false information leaked out in the immediate aftermath. The league has never acknowledged the comically organized "tests" on the Patriots' footballs. Goodell was never taken to task for claiming Brady suspiciously avoided giving a straight answer on his private conversations with the assistant equipment manager -- a claim Goodell made when he believed the transcript of Brady's testimony would never be made public. Goodell lied, which was the very thing for which he was punishing Brady, but he's never admitted it or suffered any consequences. In fact, his power has only been increased.
Long story short: loads upon loads of false information was leaked out to the public. Most of it made the Patriots look bad. None of it was ever corrected by the NFL, even when the league knew the public record was false. This time around, the league sought to immediately discredit arguably the most plugged-in reporter in football. The clear hope was to extinguish the story before the flame ever grew large enough to cause any damage for anybody.
Really, the NFL tacitly admitted that its entire basis for DeflateGate was completely faulty when last year's pregame and halftime measurements suddenly turned into "spot checks" with no written records. As it turned out, despite the league's insistence, science was indeed real and undeniable. And so when those NFL-mandated reports came in showing footballs measuring below 12.5 PSI, they were quickly swept under the rug. Nothing to see here.
If it weren't such a farce, it would be comical. Alas, at least the folks at the NFL were smart enough this time to avoid making the same mistake twice.
Just don't hold your breath in waiting for them to acknowledge they ever made a mistake in the first place. That statement is just never going to be made.
You can email Michael Hurley or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.
