Tom Brady and the New England Patriots beat the NFL betting odds and won the 2015 Super Bowl fairly by beating the Seattle Seahawks, but that is not stopping the league from continuing with its investigations and preparing the necessary punishments for all the individuals deemed responsible for the Deflategate scandal.After months of ‘rigorous’ investigations, the much-anticipated 243-page Ted Wells report was preliminarily released last Wednesday, offering strong circumstantial evidence to incriminate various individuals, top of the list being Tom Brady and his coach Bill Belichick. As aptly summarized by ESPN’s correspondent Kevin Seifert, the case on the Pats and the current scandal is probably not going to be solved any differently than most internal conflicts in the NFL, taking the usual steps of:Accuse. Leak. Investigate. Mull. Leak. Discipline. Appeal. File lawsuit. Investigate the investigation. Negotiate. Exhaust all legal options. Settle. Rinse. Repeat.
What’s the Way Forward?
And true to Seifert’s sentiments, the process has already began, with Brady (who was heavily implicated to be implicit in the scandal and had his name mentioned 378 times in the Deflategate report) already announcing that he will appeal a four-game suspension handed to him, and Patriots owner Robert Kraft also preempting that his team will take some relevant actions against an appeal.How Tom Brady will spend his 4-game suspension. pic.twitter.com/jlRkmbh0Ij
— CHILDHOOD RUINER (@CHILDHOODRUNIER) May 12, 2015
Already, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell acknowledged that, although “it is more probable than not” that Brady was generally aware that New England’s employees were taking air out of footballs to give him some sort of competitive advantage, the fact that Colts Equipment Manager Sean Sullivan sent an email message Mike Kensil and David Gardi (members of the NFL Football Operations Department) prior to the Patriots-Colts game makes the whole situation look like a set up. Part of the email sent by Sullivan read: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.